@jafant That is a good question. I was thinking of buying a Playback Designs DAC/SACD player. However, I am starting to go back to my original belief that a DAC has diminishing improvements with higher costs. Though the PD could be different because of the designer and FPGA design. Same dude involved with the SCD-1.
I have the PD Stream-IF fibre optic streamer and it is rather good even though I am only using the SPDIF part and not the fibre optic part which only works with Nagra and PD DACs. If someone wants to buy it from me, I could sell it, this way I can save some money and buy a non-PD DAC.
I wish I had the ability to go to the LA show this past weekend because PD was showing their gear.
If I do not go for the PD player, I am thinking of the usual suspects for DAC/SACD which are. Marantz, Esoteric, and Luxman.
I do have $10K of gear up for sale at the moment. This gear became redundant when I found cheaper replacements. If I sell this stuff the PD can be the first option. I just got to get over the reluctance of spending too much money on digital.
BTW - I finally got my replacement for the Thiel CS3.7. It is the Yamaha NS500. Jaw droppingly good sound from the NS5000.