Best DAC for SONY SCD XA5400es

Hi,

Hello

i have a Sony XA5400es, excellent CD player ++++++

I also have Esoteric SA10 and Arcam CDS50

3 excellent CD players

but I don’t use external DAC

sorry for the bad english translated

greetings from Portugal

.

What aspects of sound and DAC performance are most important to you, and what would you like in terms of improvements?

Basically trying to go with the times, the DAC section in the SONY has seen better times and is probably very outdated.  I can hear from my 802’s (with the help of Cardas clear cables) very analogous reproduction of red book cd’s that is sometimes tiring.  Perhaps more musicality without the loss of detail.  I mentioned Benchmark DAC3 B but it might sound analogous and boring too, I don’t know.

The Sony 5400 was listed class A+ by Stereophile when it was current. dCS at $100k was also listed A+ at the time FYI.

I own three and love the warm analog type sound.

Could not be happier .

Still great today IMO, and can not be beat, without spending much more.

If it fails you probably can not get it repaired.

That is why I own three.

So I decided to try the latest Bryston DAC - BDA-3 and ordered it yesterday.  Just curious to see if/how the HDMI output will work. Thanks for your suggestions.