Best Bang for your Buck DAC ?


I just realized I’m in the market for a DAC , I don’t want to spend a fortune on a DAC either . I picked up a drangonfly cobalt a while back and am unimpressed  so I moved it to my CPU and sounds really good on my system there which when I bought it figured I would do anyway since it was my first DAC purchase . There are so many DACs I have no clue , how high up on the returns chart can I go at say $1,000 before I run into heavy Diminished returns resistance. I’m open to buying used . I was thinking about a Schitt made in the states ? Anyone’s take on best bang for buck DACs? 
ngiordano
I think your instinct to go with Schiit is good. I helped a friend get his first high end DAC. It was a Yggi. In the process I bought a Gungnir multibit (for my office system). I highly recommend the Gungnir Multibit... it gets you close to the Yggi... all of which are simply screaming deals in high end audio. You would have to pay twice as much for another brand to equal the sonic performance. Check out the reviews.
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Just a word about really inexpensive DACs... you get what you pay for. Many years ago I poked around with a Dragonfly and a couple others... it was a complete waste of money for me. I finally bought a $4K DAC... holy cow... different experience completely. I made fun of Schiit a long time. Who would name a company that? But after extensive research and buying a couple... this stuff is the way to get into the high end.
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I recommend doing the multibit, in the long run stretching the extra $ is worth it. But if you can’t then the Gungnir is within your budget. It takes more than 200 (400) hours to break in... so it will sound good right away but not as natural and a bit flat until you get hours on... run music through it for the first month non-stopped and it will be broken in.
A excellent dac Black ice audio uses dual 12Ax7 vacuum tubes 
which I would put in NOS Raytheon Black plates 
brent Jesse audio, and a Synergistic 🍊 fuse decent power cord 
And beats dacs 2-3 x it’s cost .Underwood Wally sells them 
Retail $799,which you can buy for  less build quallity compact but very good especially the Rcore power supply Burr Brown dac chipsets. Rich involving sound ,even stock ,the tubes mentioned 
and fuse just add to the musicality and resolution .I started there 
then went much further modding it monies well spent IMO.