A moderate priced dac

The Chord Qutest DAC is a little out of your price range ($1800), but it has received high praise in every review I’ve seen and is considered an outstanding value. There’s a used one for sale on Audiogon right now for $1400. I own one and am very happy with it. I recommend checking the following review out and then looking for a used one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlfCWUbmyGE&t=4s

Look at SMSL and Topping. Save yourself a bunch of money. Seriously.

I love the Orchid. Best value in audio today when it comes to dacs. Wonderful sounding dac.

MHDT Lab-Orchid. $1,100 and you can tube roll the output tube. One can also change out the stock TDA 1541-A stock chip for a Philips TDA1541-S single crown (which i did). The damn double crown went up in price before i decided i wanted to upgrade that far. This DAC sounds surprisingly good.   

I bought a fairly expensive Dac $3k and then I bought a Dac for a couple hundred dollars and compared the two. I sold the higher dollar Dac and kept the other as the difference was minimal at best.
On some songs, I couldn’t even tell the difference. Other songs I could hear a very slight difference or I convinced myself I could. At any rate, you may want to try doing that. Buy yourself an expensive one and a lower dollar one and you may be surprised at how little the difference.

@jmolsberg I just ordered the Tubadour III Statement to replace my MyTek Liberty.  I can’t wait to hear it in my system.

PS audio PWD MKII will outperform most of the ones mentioned here.

Glad to see AM Tubadour III getting kudos. It's a great dac! 

Are you talking the mf v90 and what do you do to it and cost?

Buy the MF DAC and send it to me for upgrades.  Nothing listed above will compete once I get my hands on it!

Happy Listening.

If you want a dac that would compete with dacs under $10k for features and sound, look at the ps audio DS jr. what other dac is fpga based, has Ethernet built in, is a Roon endpoint, can hook up directly to an amp (does sound better thru a preamp though), has i2s inputs, and you get free firmware upgrades twice a year that can add functionality (like MQA) and improves the sound quality. Plus, it sounds fantastic. I owned 1 for a while but moved up to the DS sr.

A excellent natural sounding dac Audio mirror, and has 
a Lot of options.$1500 and up is very good especially 
for a vacuum tubedac  and madein U.S.A.

The Schiit Modi 3 is an awesome bare bones DAC.
Pay more money if that is important to you one way or another.
But you may be very surprised by this one,

Check out Jolida Black Ice Audio FX DAC. $800.  A winner.

Schitt Audio go there look at the DAC’s they have and pic a Multibit DAC and enjoy.
I have a Grungnir mb and am very impressed. I say Multi bit as its really quite organic sounding IMO compared to the delta sigma DAC’s.

Bifrost is right in the middle of your price range. I’m very impressed so far with Schiit products and customer service. I believe its a better DAC then an older DAC that’s was much more money when new, IMO. not to mention older DAC's may not have the connections you need let alone a good usb input for upgradability and interfacing with other digital equipment.

https://www.schiit.com/products/bifrost-1

get a new Denafrips Ares ll

Try Starting Point systems nos dac ...New on ebay around 200 or 300 hundred bucks or used around 150 bucks...Forget about dac after that...But if you want a microscope forget this dac...If you like music this is the one... If you are patient you can discover one used for 100 bucks...This minimalistic design is the key to music...

I am looking to buy used in the $500/$800 range.

I think that a good dac cannot be listen to...It disappears behind the music, and when you upgrade your system with new gear, or new tweaks, the music is always there and better than ever...But my dac is inaudible and like a magical ghostly hand that makes music more and more there with all my experiments and upgrade...It is like my dac does not exist... It is their analytical limitations that makes many dacs audibly present...If it is a TOTL dac it does not makes his presence audible on any count...Before my other dacs had a sound of their own and they were not to my liking...My actual dac has no sound of his that I can put my fingers on , and if he had one I dont know which it is because only the purest music comes trought it with each improvement in my audio system... I will not give his price because nobody will believe what I just said...It is a NOS dac, with the more minimalistic design possible then a low noise level...Upgrading it or replacing it horrify me, I plan to buy a second one to own it till death part us...Starting Point Systems nos battery dac for the curious one or those that because of lack of money dreams the impossible dreams...

Loving my Tubadour also.It sounds it's best with good shielded cables I've found.
Some of the older components still sound great no doubt,but after several years of faithful service parts begin to degrade and fail.If the parts are still available a tech can get it back in service for another few years possibly.
IMO many moderately priced dacs today would have been considered state of the art ten years ago.Just my two cents:-)

https://benchmarkmedia.com/products/benchmark-dac3-b-digital-to-analog-audio-converter   (new $1700)

This one does not have volume control or headphone. You can go up the line for those features but the sound quality is the same.

I owned the more expensive one with the volume and headphone. It was detailed and not colored. However, I never had any fatigue listening to it all day while I worked. I am considering re-buying the $1700 version for a bedroom system / backup.

For around $1100-1400 you should be able to find a used Exogal Comet Plus. That's a great sounding DAC, from the founders of Wadia, that retails for over $3k. Fantastic sounding DAC.

What do you considered "moderately priced"? I've been mighty impressed with my Audio Mirror Tubadour MkIII, which goes for $1500 new, a bit more with some of the available upgrades.