When budget is tight, iFi Zen Stream is imho the best bang to the buck. Both usb and rca digital outputs has been purified to eradicate the jitter so it really sounds great. People have reported its SQ is comparable to 7 or 8 times price gear. I pair it with Schiit or Smsl dacs and results are sensational. Of course you could get higher end dac if budget is not an issue. Also, I am not sure if you stream Qobuz but, if you do, as of today the ZS works well with mconnect player Lite or mconnect player on iphone to provide bitperfect streaming from Qobuz. I am using the free Lite version and I see the DAC shows the actual hi-rez resolution of the original track.
DAC league table
A little lost in this world of technical audiophilia, I need a bit of help finding my way.
I have a Marantz streamer with (I think...) an ES Sabre 9016 Ultra Dac as its beating heart. Unhappy with the streamer as whole and thinking of separating out the functions of streaming, DAC and pre-amping, which DACs are better than this one? How do I find out, what specs might tell me?
Onward kit: Acoustics Masterpiece valve amp (used as a power amp), Monitor Audio Gold 200 speakers. Listening interest: vocals, instruments, clarity of sound, although a decent bass response never goes amiss. Source, streaming from tidal or Qobuz.