OK, again.
My system was quite old. I know progress has been made, so after selling my MG, I decided to be nice to myself and do a refresh.
The first, an E30 I think, had a huge spurious noise spike and was unreliable locking on the signal. Went back.
So I got an SMSL Sanscrit. It too had stability issues. Went back
So I bought a Schiit Asgard. Rock solid. Not a slouch, but not the best of the best DAC wise though a super pre and head.
So I bought a D30Pro. A tiny better sound. Yea, it's damn good. But, I had several dropouts I could not blame on my server and I could not get the mix of drivers to cooperate. (WMP with SF ASIO plug in and Topping driver) So sent it back. I got WMP with SF ASIO to talk to my Focusrite fine. If I could have got a media player that worked like I want and good EQ bypassing the Windows stack, I would have kept it.
Next got an Atom DAC+ Rock solid. Sounds even smoother. I was fighting that lower treble "glare" Seems every piece of my "upgrade" accentuated it. Last piece was putting my old MOSFET amp back in. I am only doing -2 dB @ 3100 now for the really bad recordings. Good recordings I can play flat now.
I have a very old SMSL Tripath on my desk and the MX5 looks to be the rational one-box upgrade. I don't want some big ego-stack mess on my desk. If I did, I think the JDS Atom DAC+, L30 and PA5 would be the best of the best. Overkill for what I want. In truth, the old Tripath is all I need. Building new speakers and may do a cleaner supply.
I blame Topping for the first one, and SMSL too. I can't really blame the D30 as there are an almost infinite combination of drivers and ASIO is not the most stable. I never had a dropout before, and have not since, so that is an open question if it was a fluke of either DAC or server. ( I did find some other forum comments about dropouts after I had mine) If you could put up with JRiver or whatever, I would not hesitate to go D30pro. I would give Topping one more chance on my desk as I will never play other than 16/44.1 and I am not a big headphones listener.