Is it possible to find a good DAC for under $50, 000?

It’s very possible to find the best DAC under 50K; In fact it can be had for less than 30k; Playback Designs MPD-8; Designed by one of the best and brightest digital engineers we have been fortunate enough to have in our era. Make no mistake, products by Andreas and his team, are truly masterpieces in the digital/analog conversion realm. Happy hunting and enjoy the music!

how do people interpret:

"50K is a lot of money" as "you are just jealous that you can't buy a 50K DAC"?

@spenav   Back in the late '50's, when I was 12, I put together a "great sounding, immersive" 6-watt mono system based on an amplifier my dad built, a record changer I scavenged out of a discarded console, and 6 speakers similarly scavenged from a variety of sources.  This all went into my playroom in our basement, a space shared with my Marx train layout and the two-foot wide 15-foot-long piece of vinyl, wood-grain flooring that defined my "bowling alley" along one wall. Room treatments were minimal. 

The larger speakers were firing through holes in wood panels leaning against two corners of the room and the smaller speakers were just sitting willy-nilly where there was some space. NO attempt to simulate stereo, just the fact that I had only been able to scavenge two speakers bigger than 4x6 inches. All these were wired up in series/parallel, so the tube driven, transformer output amp did not distort too badly.  Fun times, and I and my equally non-discerning friends listened to it play 45s for hours on end until my mom suggested we go out and play in the street.

I have added to and upgraded my audio hardware and media basically every year since, with one singular goal - enjoying the music.  I no longer have any of that seminal system, but I still enjoy music, even with my declining hearing ability. In the many intervening years, I have bought and sold the good, the bad and the ugly, to folks with far more and far less money than I possessed at the time, and I have never said what they own or want sounds bad or is a bad idea - only that they might do better for their money. I have noted what I prefer, why, and for what kind of music in what listening situation, but in music reproduction there are NO absolutes. Trends, situations, design limits and optimizations abound, but it all comes down to preferences, room and financial constraints, and what genetics and environmental abuse have contributed to one individual's hearing ability at the moment. 

At this stage in my life, I will never buy a $50,000 DAC or even a $5,000 one, but I enjoy the banter here and look closely for guidance on a corporate family relationship where a manufacturer may offer something I can justify purchasing one of their less esoteric examples of today's technology - and I sincerely hope that newcomers to this hobby do as well.  We all, and they, had to start somewhere, and inflation has taken a toll since the day when I was near graduating from high school and the senior class was listening to a college interviewer proudly proclaim that we all might be able to look forward to making as much as a Million Dollars IN TOTAL over our entire careers. Who then could envision ANYONE spending that much just to listen to recorded music in their own home? 

I have seen comments above about envy, ego, ability to discern or even hear at all, relative value vs. other hobbies, bias, and needing to make a buck to fund the research to design something better or at least different.  All those factors contribute to motivating someone to strive to create, just as the composers of what we listen to have striven.  That those of us with the wherewithal to purchase SOME level of componentry such that we can enjoy recorded music in our homes is a true luxury that only a few percent of every human ever blessed with ears has enjoyed.  We are the fortunate few, and I thank you all for sharing your insights with the rest of us here. 

I don't doubt reviewer is hearing exactly what he claims, he has access to far more equipment at all price levels than any of us, and he can evaluate all these components at his leisure in an optimized system and room. The issues he's speaking to are not going to be of great consequence in lesser systems, money probably better spent elsewhere.

Exactly my point. The question this leaves me with is, Who is he reviewing for if most people wouldn't be able to tell a difference at this price point? 

@hilde45 He's speaking to the well heeled audiophile and non audiophile, also to those who aspire to have the very best. I don't understand why some bash these types of components out of hand, at least some of these sky high priced components  are moving the technology forward, especially in the digital realm. Over time, if there i truly is new technology at work here, it will eventually trickle down into the more affordable category. So unless you believe audio hasn't progressed, this is how it works. Based on my experience and many others, digital in general, and streaming digital in particular is making great strides in presenting a more resolving and analog like listening experience, it will get even better with affordable components going into the future.