I haven't heard the Schiit monos, but I recently heard a $150K system fed by a 10 yr old $200 Cambridge 540c CD player, and it was one of the best systems I've ever heard. There is some magic in the dual Wolfson dac in these Cambridge, I would recommend the older DAC or CD player with the Wolfson chips rather than the new ESS. Affordable ESS dacs tend to be poorly implemented and lifeless sounding.
