Having owned some pretty good digital equipment and DACs (Esoteric, Wadia, DCS stack, Levinson, EMM Labs), I have a few DACs in this price range and below that I can recommend:
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista = about $850 I think
Kora Hermes = about $750 I think currently
These units may not have the "latest" chip-set, but they blow out the current "hot chipset dacs" in sound quality in my experience. They have much better power supplies and analog output stages.
I have listened to several of the "highly promoted" $1K - $2K DACs with the "latest and greatest" chipsets and have been unimpressed from an overall perspective (Obviously I have not heard them all). In fact, I would hazard to guess that with a lot of these "newest chipset" DACs you won't be able to tell a difference in a double blind test vs. just running your Logitech Duet or Touch direct!
But if you buy smart, you can easily bring in a few DACs and test for yourself. You should be able to turn them at no or vitually no cost to you.
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista = about $850 I think
Kora Hermes = about $750 I think currently
These units may not have the "latest" chip-set, but they blow out the current "hot chipset dacs" in sound quality in my experience. They have much better power supplies and analog output stages.
I have listened to several of the "highly promoted" $1K - $2K DACs with the "latest and greatest" chipsets and have been unimpressed from an overall perspective (Obviously I have not heard them all). In fact, I would hazard to guess that with a lot of these "newest chipset" DACs you won't be able to tell a difference in a double blind test vs. just running your Logitech Duet or Touch direct!
But if you buy smart, you can easily bring in a few DACs and test for yourself. You should be able to turn them at no or vitually no cost to you.