$10k DAC in a 3k system?

Like driving a Ferrari on a dirt road. 

I think what you need is a 3k system with 10k cables.  

Almarg, would you mind elaborating on the following comment? Pardon my ignorance. Seems like you can educate me a a bit on this topic. Thx in advance...

"Aside from that consideration, it seems to me that in determining the weakest link in your system one need look no further than the fact that your box-type (non-planar) floor-standing 3-way speakers weigh only 26 pounds."

@dla123
The 26 pound weight of each of your speakers is much less than the weight of any other 3-way floor-standing non-planar speaker of comparable dimensions that I can recall, that I would consider to be of reasonably good quality. Such speakers commonly weigh two or three times that amount, and in some cases considerably more than that.

In most speaker designs a fundamental goal is for the cabinets to be as rigid and acoustically inert as possible, which usually means a good deal of weight relative to overall size. Also, I would expect that in general there would be some degree of correlation between the weight of the drivers, especially the woofer, and their quality.

On the other hand, though, there are a few designs which rather than attempting to suppress cabinet resonances attempt to have their effects complement the characteristics of the drivers. Many Audio Note models fall into that category, for example. But even in the case of many or all of the various versions of their popular AN-E model they have produced over the years, which are comparable in size to your speakers (and only have two drivers, rather than the three that your speakers have), weight is in the vicinity of 40 pounds.

So I would have to think that the 26 pound weight of your speakers, given their dimensions, driver complement, and 3-way crossover, most likely reflects significant compromises that were made in the design in the interest of minimizing cost.

Regards,
-- Al

Sometimes a $10k DAC is a $5k DAC after the dealer and distributor take their cut. Take away from that the labor and material cost of a fancy case, lights, feet and lettering and you may have a $2500 DAC.

Cost is not related to sound quality. As was stated above, listen to a Schiit Yggdrasil and get state of the art for $2300 plus shipping.