To clear a few things up..
1) Best means whatever the interpreter wants it to mean... hopefully when posting recommendations the poster will also post why they recommend the piece.
2) I'm not to interested inintegrated pieces. I would like optical, hdmi and usb inputs.
I own a peachtree nova now that I use as a DAC and I must say it kicks *** of most AVR dacs including my Rotel 15 series. I see the PS Audio DAC recommended highly most of the time.
Here is one burning question I can hope someone can answer..
My priority is 2 channel audio (Apple TV, Vinyl & SACD). I sold my Oppo BDP-83 because I don't use the blu ray player much at all. The Oppo was wonderful with SACD but I thought it would be wise to push my DAC farther down the line in my system so I could use it for Apple TV, Mac Streaming and SACD (if possible). I replaced my Oppo with a (gasp) Sony XX570 Blu Ray player. I don't care about the blu ray quality. My question is though will I be able to have my SACDs decoded by whichever DAC I chose rather than the Sony player. In essence using the Sony blu ray as a transport and having the CD and SACD audio decoded by the outboard DAC. I have heard wonderful things about the new 32 bit Sabre chip.
My short list so far are The Emotiva XDA-1, Peachtree iDac, and PS Audio.
Emotiva price looks GREAT except it has no line level out. That bothers me a ton. It seems to be an integrated digital pre amp more than a standalone DAC. The peachree is pricey and I really don't want to pay for any produce that has an "iDock" driving up it's price with a licensing fee.