Pre-owned BRYSTON BDA-2 DAC is in your price bracket . It has dual AKM chips, as a best-of-breed made-in-Canada contender, that will seriously best all of the above comparative pretenders; due to its far superior design and far superior build quality.
The Bryston BDA-2 is a stereo DAC using fully discrete Class-A Bryston analog circuits, two independent (analog and digital) linear power supplies and dual 32-bit AKM DAC chips. The BDA-2 also utilizes a new asynchronous USB input capable of 192/24bit resolution.
Google the many reviews.
there is one currently for sale here:
Eventually, should you wish to move up further into even higher-end dacs, thet feature premium improved reference chipsets over the AKM’s, such as the ESS Technology Sabre ES9018K2M DAC chip and its progressive models , which ESS Technology, Inc. lists as one of its reference 32-bit, 8 channel number cruncher ,