Best DAC for around $2,500 or less

Without any reservation the latest 
from mojo audio $25-2700 with the Staccato 
Descreet opamps x4  9 Bellison super regulators, over 247k in capacitors, caddock 132 resistors R2R Classic Analog devises 1865 premium multi bit dac , scientific grade AC filtering 
hand biased matched channelsDC offset .this is a maxed out Hotrodded.
i compared vs Schiit latest Yaggs, Chords $5k unit .this dac sounds so much more accurate, build quality wise 
nothing even at 2x the money has premium parts quality of this caliber.
it may cost $200 more for the Staccato 
descreet opamp upgrade which run in pure Class-A  and a 45 days audition 
it is thst good ,and a 5 year warranty 

I've has the Chord Cutest and their TT and am now using the RME ADI-2, Very happy with it feeding directly into my Luxman MQ-88. Save some money' it's only $1100!

In this price category you might be surprised by the quality of the humble $799 Topping D90 MQA DAC. I was really impressed by this little guy, playing a DSD stream via balanced connections through a Stax SRM-007tii and SR-009 headphones sounds excellent. I agree you need to balance the sound of your equipment and ancillaries to get the solution that works for you, but can highly recommend the D90 (or MQA version) assuming it matches your needs. Good luck.

+1 re the MHDT Labs Orchid & " Roll into a WE396A D getter " (which I did).

In addition to my strong preference for NOS digital (or really well done R2R), I have a very constrained space on my desktop & the Orchid fits perfectly.

I paid the distributor extra to add a 2nd RCA output pair (both pairs are live at all times). This allows me to run one pair into amp+desktop monitors+sub; and the other through any headphone amp that I feel like hearing that day.

I wish I could say that it was that easy for me. If that were the case, I'd have the Benchmark hooked up and sold the BorderPatrol. Turns out, my preferences don't align to perfect measurement... but when you really think about it, I think most people don't. Not a perfect analogy, but I bet everyone here also knows someone who (some what annoyingly) way overuses Instagram filters in their photography. Is that a more accurate representation of the picture? Definitely not. Does it give them some joy / describe a mood / something else emotional the original did not? Likely.

DAC's aren't at all like Speakers, or even Power Amps when it comes to adding flavor to sound systems. 20 years ago, when I was young and impressionable I might have agreed with you, but when the goal is converting 0's and 1's to an analog waveform, measured performance really should be king, imo. If you want to add a sonic signature that you find pleasing to your system I feel like the equipment to do that with are primarily speakers, followed by amps.

Sources, which DAC's are, now that the majority of people are using computer based front end's, should be as clean as possible, and SINAD is one of the best ways to measure that.