Aries-Cerat DAC's

Reach out and touch you realism. The power supply is larger than some high-end amps. Nothing touches Helene in the $20K category. It will certainly rival some DACs near $40K. A plus is that you can set the tube bias to your musical taste. Stavros is one of the most gifted designers in the industry. 

I've heard the Helene DAC in a really great system and it was excellent. Really open and natural sounding. Prior to that I believe they were using a more expensive MSB converter which I felt was not as good as the Helene (system owner agreed with me).

I've also experienced their more expensive Kassandra DAC, and I didn't care for that one as much. That system was better with the Lampizator they had prior (system owner disagreed with me).

Just goes to show we all have different preferences, and also synergy can be a tricky thing.

+1 @jeffreyw One of the best DACs in its price range, it outperforms many other DACs costing two to three times more. The Aries Cerat DAC delivers a dynamic, organic sound that feels more analog, unlike many DACs that come across as overly digital. You'll be more than satisfied with its performance. Plus, Stavros provides exceptional customer service that truly stands out.

AC dealer here.  I have written up a direct compare of the Helene vs. other DACs in another thread.  This unit is very fairly priced and quite competitive in its price class when you consider its feature set (DAC only, no VC or streamer).  

The sound is detailed but remains natural and analog sounding.  Tubes do not add warmth but texture and pleasing harmonics. This is not a warm DAC but also not bright.  The image is massive with good depth.  Sonically, it is wonderful and works well in a LOT of systems.

Few notes, USB is by far the best input and what it is optimized around.  It will sound best if you have a source that is optimized around USB.  The tubes are uncommon and pricey $300 to $500 each and if you leave it on all the time you will replace them once every 12-18 months.  If you turn it off...they will last a long time but then you have to wait for the DAC to warm up which is a solid 20-30 minutes like any tube device. 

The unit is wired in reverse phase.  This is not a problem for 2 channel speaker listening.  If your system lacks a phase switch you can just reverse the speaker cable wiring.  It is a big problem in headphone systems as you either need that phase switch or you need to have custom cables made.  

The unit is very competitive with Esoteric, Playback Designs, Rockna, Linn which all have offering in this price range or a bit above when you control for feature sets.