What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days?

Chord Hugo and Chord 2Qute. The Hugo is their portable DAC that also sounds great in a home environment. They just announced the 2Qute which is the Hugo board in their small desktop box without the portable features but with added galvanic isolation. The Hugo is $2400 and the 2Qute will be $1800. Chord does not use standard DAC chips but writes their own code. Supports up to 384K PCM and 1x and 2x DSD. Hard to beat at those price points.

MBL is my favorite also, but I too, can't afford it.

I could have added to that list german food and german beer :)

As for women, well I'd take Italian, French, Czeck, German, Spanish...

What were originally talking about?

Shubert,

In live in CH and have gone to the Zurich and Montreux shows, as well as the Warsaw shows. German brands are well represented at all except Montreux...Swiss only.

Germany has some great brands like Fisher&Fisher (slate speakers), AvanteGuard, MBL, Bermester, German Physics,Kaiser, Lansche, Acoustic Plan, Manger, Lindemann,Back & Muller, Voxativ, etc (many I can't even recall), but so do the French (Focal, Devialet, etc) and Italians (Viva/Serblin, Sonus Faber, Angstrom, Onda Ligera etc). they all have great names that many have not even heard about. So yes, I have TOTAL respect for these guys...

BUT

For a tiny country, the Swiss are a powerhouse that punches above their weight. The NUMBER ONE high end audio company in the world is Goldmund of Geneva. The Swiss also have vaunted FM Acoustics, CH Precision, Dartzeel, Stenheim, Nagra, Soulution, Sound Kaos, SwissSonor, Illusonic, Audio Consulting, Tron, Eternity Jo, Vovox, Studor/Revox, Colotube, Rowen (only sold in CH), Boenicke, Heil AMT, Piega, LumenWhite, Weiss, AktivAudio, and many others I cant even recall now.

For phonostage, I cant see anyone beating FM Acoustics. The theoretical best TT of all the the LumenWhite Mystere (read up on it and see why its an all out assault on the SoTA...a bargain at $60K. LoL).

I planned on making Munich this year with a couple pals, but it seems like family priorities may get in the way. I hope to do a demo on a soon to be released Dartzeel product that will be surprisingly affordable and will have the audio world buzzing.

After this mini-treatise, I hope you go out and do a little digging and start dreaming in Swiss. Absolutely droolworthy stuff here. LoL

Anyway Schubert, on refelection this could be a good thread to start...ie the relative prowess of countries in Audio..Many have a lot to be proud of indeed.

In line with the thread, are any of those bargains?

Well, if the Parasound Z-DAC is as good as some of you say it is, it should
be a steal! And that Simaudio Moon 100D is also very well priced at Music
Direct. But just to point out that the really cheap one at Music Direct is the
v.1. The v.2 is also on sale, but it's $1150. :-/