usb 24/192 dac under 1500.

I had the D Link and replaced it with an Oppo 105. Better Dac, plays every disc imaginable, connects to my home network and all in your budget

I know there are good DACs with the Sabre ESS ships. But they are not the 2nd comming some people make them out to be.

I know Dacs with Sabre chips (in this case the ESS9018) well
engineered and with good implementations. They will amaze you.

Why Sabre chips? They are not better (or worse) then PCM1704, AD1955 or AKM4399 etc

Given your posts, I wouldn't buy anything without doing a demo first. Its too risky. What you have now is pretty good and a blind upgrade may turn into a downgrade. I know from experience.

my source material is .wav and .flac files. the only thing that the DLIII does not do is 24/192 via usb, and in fact it only does 24/96 via spdif which i wish was not the case as I don't like adding another component or wire to process.

thanks all

What are you trying to do anyway? I mean, what does your source material consist of? If you are looking for something new because there is something that you want to do that the DLIII isn't capable of, that's one thing; but, if the DLIII does everything that you've needed it to, finding something better might just be a matter of subjective opinion.

The DLIII, although older, still holds its own. I've never heard one with the Cullen mods, but I'd imagine that it's very nice.

Not only that, the analog stage is very important. A lot of people overlook that, as well.

With DACs, you can't just compare chips. The implementation of the chip is more important than the chip itself.

Two DACs based on the same chip can, and often do, have completely different sounds.

There's a lot more to it than that. The specs you list are not the only things you need to look at. I would suggest that you listen to some dacs so you can get an idea as to what I'm talking about.