I’m in the market for a pre-amp/DAC (don’t need internal streamer, but fine if it doesn’t harm the unit or price) and there’s a nice crop of devices out now, some from new orgs (Ferum, new b2c, was an OEM only shop) some from longer standing brands: (T+A, Sim/Moon), in reverse order:
- https:// simaudio.com/en/product-category/preamplifiers/
- my budget drives the 390, I heard it locally and setting up an in-home trial shortly. The 791 seems well regarded short of their "north" high line...
- https:// www.ta-hifi.de/en/audiosystems/series-200/dac-200-d-a-converter/
- i’d get it with the HDMI board, this pushes my budget limit, so it’s the upper limit for me, personally
- https:// ferrum.audio/wandla-hypsos/
- the external power supply is more than filter and rectifieer, the variable voltage combined with DAC filter tuning looks interesting
Each of these is worth reading about, thankfully I have 2 dealers which carry all 3 between them near me. I will be doing a head to head on the first 2 in my system. Seeing if I can do the same with the Wandla... but haven’t secured that yet.
They seem to all provide a good value (all relative) each with special strengths outside the normal marques you may know.
happy listening.
edit: PS: i run XLR out to my Buckeye amps, andall 3 of these suggestions have XLR outs but also have RCA outputs - which I will use for my dual subs (HSU’s) - thought you might want to add 4 analog outputs (variable gain, not just fixed level line/tape out) to your feature list for potential subs in your future to supplement your towers...