PS auido Direct stream Dac

IMO, the PS Audio DS jr dac surpasses most of the dacs listed on this thread. You get around 80% of the SQ of the DS sr dac for 1/2 the money. I owned 1 for 2 years and moved up to the DS sr. 
A word of caution when people are negative about this dac:
1) ask them what firmware release they used. Every new release increases the sq, and the last release by a lot.
2) if they used usb, then get the cheapest dac out there because no dac sounds their best with usb
3) did they use ethernet or i2s input? if not, go back to 2
4) there is a long break in time, did the user understand this?
5) there are tuning tips to get the best out of the DS dacs and that involves attenuation settings and volume settings. Ted Smith goes over these.
Its been a few years now but when I was comparing dacs like the MSB and Bricasti at double the cost to the ds sr, the DS was far better with better specs like mqa, i2s, fpga, and ethernet.

 i looked at the doge 7 also seems nice but i did not like the power supply seems a little cheap ,i could be wrong ,the price is not bad . anyone else have or heard the doge 7 tube dac. I see quite a few reviews on the the Holo May  level 2 & 3 they all love it ,not cheap but looks like it is very well made, thanks for all your response,s Lloyd

you can have my DS DAC when you pry it from my cold dead hands
-apologies to Charlton Heston

Hi  ,I am still looking at new dacs thanks for all your suggestions. I have a ? about my CA 851N ,is there any way to hook this up to a separate Dac just to use the streamer to feed into a new dac. and if so will it be using the new dac not the one in the 851n. any help would be appreciated Thanks Bb

Following up... @rbstehno ... 
1) YES, upgraded to Sunshine and ran continuously for 2 weeks 
2) NO, I2s which is clearly the best case for the DS
3) NO, I2s See #2
4) YES, used the DAC for 2 years with >1K hrs and see #1 for firmware
5) YES, followed Teds recommendations as they evolved over the years

Thus, In summary I can easily restate that the MAY KTE spanked the DS "in my system" and by no small margin.  However... as I have pointed out elsewhere that the synergy between components can be far more important than any single piece.