budget DACs

Another vote for Cambridge Audio DacMagic. I've been very pleased with mine.

Channel Islands Audio makes a small footprint DAC in your price range. I haven't heard it, but have owned other CIAudio gear that was well built and a good value.

http://www.ciaudio.com/

Anybody familiar with the Beresford? It's attractive to me because of the volume control.

I bought Paradisea+ (USB version) to use with my NAD C541i, but they did not match well. Certain CD transports (those with low impedance?) may not work well with Paradisea.
I may let my Paradisea+ go some time soon.

If you're looking for a smooth natural sound, the Paradisea can't be beat for the price. There haven't been any significant changes to the circuit since the first model. Some people like the sound of the op-amp in the original model better than + and 3 version, so you can save a few bucks if you don't need USB. Many folks "upgrade" to the older op-amp (Burr Brown OPA2604).

These comments from a side-by-side comparison with a Havana should be worth something:

The Paradisea+, though not "technically" as fine sounding as the Havana DAC is still ... VERY VERY close in character and sound quality.

You'll find 39 pages of glowing comments at this lengthy thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?topic=33534.0

Yes what they say about those Taiwanese dacs are all true, My MHDT Havana is sounding ever so natural and organic, though it's tube sensitive, the tube is not an issue if you know the kind of sound you prefer or like to improve.
Havana is also popular in the 2nd hand market, so if you don't like it, it won't take long to sell. I don't remember where but i heard MF v-dac would make one wants to upgrade pretty soon.

Second the Valab. You will find it on ebay

The Keces 131 (SPDIF and Toslink) and the 151 (USB) are also from Taiwan. They are beautifully built and excellent sounding. David sometimes has an ad here on the Gon, also on ebay.

They are both very sensitive to power cords.

The Taiwanese-built Valab DAC is pretty remarkable for its $200 price. It's very small and gives you the options of coax, toslink and USB input. I use one in my office driven via USB from a MacBook Pro but it sounds amazingly good in my main system, as well, even using an inexpensive DVD player as a transport.

I loved the MHDT Havana that I had. The Pardisea is supposed to be just about as good in your price range.

I use a Musiland MD10 with my Logitech Squeezebox primarily to stream 128k mp3 files from Pandora as well as Apple lossless files from my computer. It is $299 new:

http://www.pacificvalve.us/MusilandMD10.html

Definitely look at the exceptional -- by any standard -- Cambridge Audio DACmagic at about $449 MSRP and used for no more than $350 or so.