More money toward better speakers or a better DAC?

A low cost DAC these days ($1500 - $3000) is of incredible quality. Even reviewers of $15K+ DACs are saying this in their reviews, such as in a Bartok DAC review I just read (and others such as Jeff Fritz of SoundstageUltra.com).

If you have speakers that are pretty good and you generally like them I would spend my money on room treatments and/or Digital Room Correction. If you are a ROON or JRiver user then DRC is available to you.

I have KEF LS50s in a bad room. I will update these very soon but before I did that I got room treatments from GIK Acoustics and the LS50’s sounded amazing afterwards.

When I get my larger speakers into this bad room I will get Acoustic Sounds in Canada to remotely work with me to create DRC Convolution file(s) that I will plug into my ROON server. This will tailor my sound curve in the bass region to fit my room. It will be digital room treatments on steroids. The GIK treatments and the DRC will have the biggest impact vs more expensive DACs.

People who say a DAC is for 3 - 5 years must be people who like to rotate gear. If you are into the music more than the gear a DAC can last you as long as you want. My $1580 DAC that I have now will last me until I die or it dies first. Music sounds great through it why would I change it?

I have a 20 year old SACD player, the Sony SCD-1. It is one of the best SACD players ever built. I had it modified about 15 years ago and then had to put it into storage due to lack of audio system for a few years. It is back in my new office system today and it sounds shockingly amazing. The DAC in it is not as resolving as the current DACs but the sound from that player is so addicting. It is not going anywhere. The 3 - 5 years thing does not apply to everyone.

That Chord TT2 would be a great choice. Could last you a lifetime. I am looking at the TT2 for my second mostly headphone system. Another DAC I am interested in for system #2 will be the soon to be released Luxman DACs. These should have the same conversion internals as the $16K SACD player, D-10x, but at a much lower cost. Likely in the TT2 price range.

It is the Benchmark DAC3B in an all Benchmark system, DAC3B + HPA4 + 2 x AHB2 + Benchmark speaker cable + Benchmark StarQuad XLR (for all the Benchmark connections). My analog sources are connected by Audience AU24 SE XLR’s and RCA’s. I sold some more expensive cables to "downgrade" to the lower cost Benchmark cables.

I should add that system synergy plays a big role in my love of this system. In the past, I owned the DAC2 HGC and DAC3 HGC and it was not at the level of sound quality as the DAC3B with the other gear listed above.