Dac that has tone and timing?

Lampizator. Any lampi.

I tested mine against aqua la voce, holo may, bel canto dac, classe flagship dac , and nothing come even close.

the tonal balance, the spatiality, the air, it’s just amazing, music feels alive, hard to describe.

the only Dac I heard so far that outshined it was the Accuphase DC1000 flagship, but it’s 20k…

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

A good NOS DAC like the Holo Audio plus a software upsampler like HQPlayer. Select the reconstruction filter that suites your taste unlimited by the processor inside the DAC.

You can adjust timing in JRiver player software if that works for you.

Schw006, I have had the following DACs in my own system, or own them and can highly recommend them. For reference they are quite a few R2R ladder DACs, which sonically are perfect for me.

$1,850 Denafrips Pontus II "12th Anniversary) DAC (R2R DAC)

$3,200 Musician Aquarius DAC (R2R DAC)

$5,500 Holo Audio May DAC "Kitsune KTE Edition" (R2R DAC)

$4,900 Denafrips Terminator II "12th Anniversary Edition" (R2R DAC)

$7,200 Denafrips Terminator Plus "12th Anniversary Edition (R2R DAC)

Others I have heard in systems I know, but never in my own....but can recommend:

$7,000 T+A DAC 200

$6,900 Lampizator Baltic (Think it was a 3)

For $5,000 I'd go with the Terminator II 12th no question. If you're good going to $7,000 then the Terminator Plus 12th, T+A DAC 200, and the Lampi Baltic.....would be a killer DAC shootout.

Best of luck to you