DAC that beat Mark levinson 360s ??

I doubt if you'll find a more musical and accurate DAC for that or twice the price, of course everything is system dependent, and I like and enjoy listening to THETA equipment too. Being familiar with Audio Research and this companie's reputation for being musical, I'll bet you can find one of these in your price range also, but I'm unsure if they make/made a 24/96khz DAC.

Winsound.
I own a ML 37 and 36s.What I would do is to keep the 360s and get a 31 or 31.5 Transport.If you sell the 37 and take the $3000 you are willing to spend onthe DAC you should have enough for a used 31 or 31.5.To change the 360s to get 24/192 -I wouldn't!Spend the most on the transport,the 31 and 31.5 are pretty serious stuff !!
All the best
Chris

Since your transport is only capable of outputting 16/44.1kHz, why do you think you need a 24/192kHz-capable DAC to go with it?

is it all transport read at 16/44khz and then up sample to 24/96khz or 24/192khz for cd. so the better DAC ( 24/192khz) will provide better sound

Up sampling does not mean better sound, I don't know where that is a proven fact. Anyway, what digital cable are you using, that would probably make a bigger difference since the cable passes the sound to your dac, garbage in, garbage out.

Happy Listening.

Agree with Bigkidz on upsampling.

BTW, ML360s doesn't do upsampling either although it can decode HDCD and 24/96 data streams. If you really want to upsample redbook you will need to add an upsampler in front.

I use a Chord DAC 64 with my Levinson transport with excellent results. You can find a good used one here for about half of your budget.

Many 24/192 DACS are delta-sigma conversion. You will give up some dynamics for sure.

I've never heard an "upsampling" DAC that was as good as the Levinson.

try the Audio Note DAC 5...it is marvelous...I've listened to it extensively in my Audio Note dealer's showroom using a Levinson Reference CD transport into an Audio Note (original Kondo) Ongaku and Audio Note Type E top of the line speakers...heaven...very reasonably priced, too.....only 15k...CHEAP..buy two or three!