This is my dream.
A minimalist dac focused on pure performance (SNR and distortion) and still relatively low price, to be paired with the Massdrop THX798 amp.
Top shelf AKM or ESS Pro (AKM 4499 best right now?), whatever gives best performance (including intermodulation distortion on lower levels)
Pop free operation (startup, shutdown, sample rate change)
AES3, SPDIF, USB inputs
XLR output (balanced)
No volume control.
If possible variable output gains with jumper on-board. 2V output on balanced XLR would be cool to match THX789 input sensitivity on gain3.
Black case. No screen.
Clocking scheme making it possible to run several dacs in a multichannel system without drifting out of synch over time.