Best used dac under $2000

entec 1.1 or better will kill any of the aforementioned dacs. 4 power supplies, awesome chassis, awesome layout, awesome dac. just killed my belcanto 1.1. wasn't even close.

and FWIW, my wife and i will only drink wine from CA and FR for a reason....think i might buy me a german uber-auto soon.

the world is not black and white. those who treat it as such (hint hint 1600 Penn Ave) are bigger morons than Plato or Socrates.

i never said FR wine tasted better, did i? reread my post and maybe you'll understand.

but i will say the entec dac is better. by a long margin. they made 50 of them total, at a price @ $7k new. i saw one a few weeks back for $800. if i didn't already have one, i'd have bought it myself.

do what you want w/ your $$. i promise you the entec dac is better though

you don't want circuitry that does jitter reduction. you want a transport that doesn't put out jitter. fix your problems at the source!

a great truism in audio is simplicity is good. simple = soundlabs (no x-overs), OTLs, and by all means, nothing in the signal path!

the entec dac is a killer at used prices (its @ 8 yrs old i think). circuitry by demian martin (spectral) and chassis by andy payor (rockport). i've seen 1 for sale in 1.5 yrs on this board. i bought mine from a guy who upgraded (?) to a lindemann...numerous parties think this dac is still better...and speaking as someone who used to own a BC 1.1, its not even close...all BCs (or any other dac's) upsampling jitter reduction whatever is not what makes great sound. all that shit makes is decent (non-offending) sound, but it will NEVER be accurate or world class (again, see law of simplicity).

and fwiw, a great front end doesn't really require system matching like amp-speaker, or pre-amp.

rhyno

4 power supplies w/ proper shielding...that's a large part of it. digital (as well noted by bob crump) has the effect of self-polluting AC / DC. noise from the clock & the DACs has the very real effect of compromising sound elsewhere by noise going back into the transformer, and back into AC or into the other windings of the transformer (hard to believe, but true). ---this is why you see ric schultz of tweakaudio always put more power supplies in a mod.

excellent parts / board / layout. ---one cap in there is $75 (little teflon job). layout is impeccable. very! short signal path.

chassis by andy payor. almost(!) immune to vibration and external RFI / EMI. ---go kick a rockport antares if you dare...that's what the chassis to this dac feels like.

listening: i've heard it against the lindy, and i'll take the entec myself. the lindy is nice no question, but a little too sweet / rolled off for my liking. the entec (w/ mods by TG Audio) is voiced to sound like a rockport turntable (as that's what TG audio uses for vinyl). they got very close...

check the old reviews of components of merit by bound for sound.

rhyno