Soooo many choices.

Doggitter - ask yourself some simple questions.

What sampling rates do you want to listen too
- 16/44, 24/96, 24/192, 24/384, or better...
- you get what you pay for and for the best you pay lots

Do you want to get up off your butt to change sources?
- some people do not

Do you want to know the sample rate of the file playing?
- some people find it handy

Do you want upsampling?
- if done write then it can be appealing so some DACs
- My issue was how the Dacmagic upsampled
- go listen to both - if you can't tell it becomes moot

DSD is Direct-Stream Digital (DSD) is the trademark name used by Sony and Philips for their system of recreating audible signals, which uses pulse-density modulation encoding, a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media that are used for the Super Audio CD (SACD).

- if you have a SACD transport then you would need it for best results
- it is out there in many DACs
- It is out there in HD tracks
- most other digital formats are there also, so at present you are not limiting yourself too much if you don't have it

Doc77 makes a good case - check it out
Dragon1952 - has a great audition option

Other DACs to consider - the PS Audio Nuwave and Perfect Wave - great product also - Dragon1952 likes the NuWave (from another thread :-)

I've never auditioned them, but I know other PS audio product and they are very well built and they use a big toroid transformer for the power supply - provides for great dynamics

HA! Simple my hiney. lol

What sampling rate do the best DAC's run? I have no idea about that subject.

I was able to have a nice extended listen with my wife (much better ears) a couple weekends ago and we listened to several DACS (peachtree iDac, rega dac, Ayre QB9, Mcintosh d100, and one ohter that escapes me) and what really surprised me was that with everything but the dac identical the dac to dac difference was plain as day. Other surprises were that with a "modest" system composed of a mac mini (ammara), rega brioR amp, some kind of speaker cables :) and peachtree D5 speakers we could easily tell differences in several different aspects of the music. Takeaway for me was that you owe it to yourself (I wont say you need to because you dont) to listen to as many as possible with music that is representative of yours (quality included). For me the enjoyment did not track with the cost as I had expected walking in. I dont really understand component karma but that system liked a couple of the units, treated one poorly, and made one almost difficult to listen to. all music was ripped lossless 16/44 while I was there with DBpoweramp.

Wow, I didn't want to hear that. I may have the option to hear 2 DAC's near me is all. The likelihood of them being in the feature group I want is poor, the quality level and feature group, next to nothing.

Dodggitter - currently , 764 is close to the top for consumer product - commercial may go higher

File size becomes a factor - 24/192 files can start around 250-350 Bytes an go up from there - I've seen some downloads over 1 gig.

My plan is to stop at 24/192 - if I want higher - I switch to vinyl

Paulsax hit the nail on the head - price is not an indicator of how good your ears tells you a component sound

Dragon1952 auditioned the Gungnir and preferred the NuWave. I heard the Bifrost and it sounded better than Wadia chord and Mytek in the $1300_$1700 range - to my ears

Different ears, differing preferences, in different systems

This hobby has never been black and white, but sometimes the shades of gray can overwhelm.