Dac that has tone and timing?

a dac that nails both a "meat on the bones" presentation that also preserves the leading edges of notes and maintains pace, rhythm, and timing

below 2 grand market price (used or new) -- in my order of preference, though all mentioned meet the op's stated criteria

mhdt tube dacs with tube upgrade (and ideally with modded caps)

older musical fidelity trivista 21

gustard r26

denafrips pontus

2-4 grand

modwright tube modded cambridge cxn v2

bricasti m3

musetec 5

higher price

msb analog w power base

chord m scaler hugo tt2

weiss 501

@roxy54

you raise a great point, i forgot about the ank 4.1 i had... splendid sound, definitely meets the op criteria in the 2-4 grand range (5.1 a bit more $ of course)

a giant of a box though, and it can’t handle sampling rates above 96k due to the rather limited input chip, but it is a lovely sounding unit

given the additional responses i will add a few further comments

-- lampi has an excellent reputation, is definitely worth trying in any price category they compete in (generally the higher ones)... i have yet to try one, will some time in the future for sure -- they seem to use some fairly niche-y tubes in their higher up units, and this has deterred me thus far

-- i have commented on my past experience owning the border patrol se-i and rme adi dacs... i sold them both before long, as i found the bp rather lacking in resolution and being fairly dark sounding, even after rolling the rectifier tube... i suspect bp lovers have systems that are innately edgy/bright, so the bp can work well calming things down, bringing the sound back from that edge of sharpness -- even so, i feel other dacs in the price range have the bp’s ’musicality’ but offer more insight and clarity reproducing transients 

-- the rme is a resolving dac, pretty neutral in tonality but i felt it did not image well (narrow and fairly upfront, lacking in perceptible depth of stage), as such it may be best suited for headphone listeners... i had the akm dac chip version before the plant burned and the supply chain was disrupted

-- i had the ps audio directstream (first version), through several firmware iterations... it is a hard dac to get a handle on sonically as the firmware updates change the sound so much... windom was very smooth and dark, poor prat in my system, then the last version called sunlight moved everything to the other end of the scale, very forward and sizzly in the treble -- i have yet to try the newly released version... given its high cost, i am in no rush to do so