D to A converter purchase....

No experience with Wadia but have heard the Gungnir Multibit. Note that the Gungnir Multibit is effectively an 18-bit DAC, so despite the ad copy about 'bit perfection' it won't decode those last few digits if you have hi-res files.

The Schiit house sound doesn't quite gel with my personal taste (in the case of the Gungnir, I feel it smoothes over too much low-level detail) but it may prove to be a worthy match in your system.

Yes, I realize the gain in signal-to-noise ratio when you combine the converter chips that way, but it's still an 18-bit part and will only decode 18 bits worth of data.

This thread discussion is beginning to read a lot like this one :)

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/schiit-yggdrasil-21-bit/post?highlight=2097152&postid=148...

Yeah... ha!

However there is an important point to reiterate here. Using two DAC chips in a hardware balanced configuration doesn't increase the number of possible output levels (unlike what you implied above and as mentioned in the other thread) but it does double the output signal level relative to the noise level. When you then use that fact in the formula for signal-to-noise ratio, 20*log(S/N), you get a 6 dB increase, which is equivalent to one bit.

All this isn't to say that the Gungnir isn't a good DAC. I just think it's rather silly to claim you're "preserving the original samples" when it's clearly not the case for 24-bit source material.

Are you referring to the Yggdrasil or Gungnir? I think you are referring to the Yggdrasil, as I do not read the "preserving" text elsewhere.

See the first question of the Gungnir FAQ (copied below):

Wait a whole entire second there, buddy! Are you saying that this has the same insane digital filter and multibit architecture as the Yggdrasil?
In the case of Gungnir Multibit, yes.

So with the Gungnir Multibit, you're essentially missing 25% of the content in all those 24-bit files you've been playing. Granted, this is material that lies at ~108 dB below full scale, so it's doubtful that you'd hear any artifacts. However, audiophiles can be a picky bunch.