Older DAC an Option?

Hi, all. Does anyone know if the DAC's made in the early part
of the 2000's and late 90's - like Perpetual Technology's P-3A
and MSB's Link - would sound good by today's standards.

The sampling rate of these dac's only go to 96 KHz, as opposed
to the standard 192 used in most dac's today. Also, the chips
used have of course been obsolesced by the manufacturers to
purportedly better, cheaper ones today.

Nevertheless, the price quotient on these quality units is
tempting, since I have a high-end thirst, but a a low-end
budget. I'm currently using an inexpensive 24/192 up-sampling
DAC from China, off brand, that uses the 1791 chip. It's not
bad for the money, but I get some glare in the upper mid-range.
It's bad enough that I can't turn up the amp to levels I enjoy,
because it starts to hurt my ears. Not cool!

So, I was thinking that the problem is the output stage, and
that the previously mentioned dac's would have better op amps
and filtering in the output stage (higher quality components,
etc). I would appreciate any comments or suggestions on
whether this would be a trade-up or a downgrade - going to the
older but higher quality dac?

Terry