any current integrated amps in market have great dacs?

Patrick, your idea is valid but you are a little off regarding cost. Above $15k, I would say, or so, I don't closely follow the prices dynamics.

I think the performance (Integrated Amp with DAC inside) is about the synergy between the DAC implementation and amplifier section. Although having myself separates (DAC and Integrated Amp), I truly believe this.

Another gear I'm curious to test is the Daniel Hertz system or just the Daniel Hertz Maria Integrated Amps. This is the Mark Levinson' brand and it's a new market approach (proposing a complete system - Amp and Speakers). It's expensive but above some point we know that a step up is not a proportional investment but rather an exponential one (a "lot" more money for a "small" step in quality improvement). It's just a matter of deciding if we want to downsize or not, even if it do not mean spending less 😁 - sometimes less is more.

This is a subject matter and all opinions are right, at least for that person.

Have you heard about the latest trend of no DAC at all? Not joking.

Talk about lowering the noise floor. How about the blackest background ever. And apparently, pretty much everyone agrees. Which is hard to believe, Lol.

I have a Lyngdorf tdai 2170 and love it to death. End game. It's sort of the middle child between the two current models. The new ones allow you to stream directly from your phone.

The thing that makes their approach so cool is that it's sort of like a wire with gain, from a practical standpoint. 

I recommend you read some reviews. 

@mbmi who are you referring to, specifically?

@tunefuldude I am doing this tonight after having my modded PeachTree GAN1 on the sidelines for a few months. I was short 1 streamer to get that going. The "DACless" design is incredible but I can see established players being reluctant to make these pieces. Less things to sell.