Also in the Burmester room is the new 113 DAC which retails for $6k and is available now. The DAC is rather modest-sized next to the rest of the Burmester line and includes Toslink, 24/96 USB (24/192 on Mac only) and Bluetooth (wireless!) inputs and both balanced and unbalanced outputs. The Bluetooth input means you can stream from any Bluetooth audio device like a Blackberry or iPhone in the vicinity.

There's nothing like a nice big touchscreen to browse a large music collection, and Pathos was showing a prototype of the largest touchscreen dedicated to a music server that I've seen to date. Called the Musiteca, the new product was up and running but clearly had some features to work out. As shown, the product has a built-in DAC, transport for loading discs, and 1TB drive for storage.

In addition to the above features, Pathos' Paolo Andriolo says there will be variable XLR outputs to feed the audio directly to your amp and a free iPad app. Price is predicted to be around $7k and should show up by April.

Pathos was also showing a prototype DAC with striking looks and tubes that should be out in a couple months. Inputs include USB, SPDIF and AES and pricing will be announced later.

Easily winning the award for most outside-the-box chassis design, Light Harmonic's Da Vinci DAC is an amazing assembly of machined metal. In the photo is co-founder Henry Chew, which also gives you some perspective on how large this DAC is next to a smiling human.

Inputs include an asynch USB and SPDIF and the DAC can handle up to 32/384 at either input. Chew says that the DAC does not upsample and processes all streams at their native sampling rate. Chew feels that "the use of upsampling, oversampling, or any digital filters or signal-manipulations is ineffective". Available now for $20k

Bel Canto had several digital products on display including the CD3t CD Transport (pictured above) which includes both AES and SPDIF (via BNC connector) outputs at $1,495.

Playing in a side room was the C7R DAC Integrated Receiver with an amplifier section based on the companies REF150 and includes a built-in DAC, FM tuner, phono section and some pretty beefy speaker connectors on the back. This modest size box would make a great companion to the CD3t mentioned above. Retail is $2,995.

The company was also showing off a pair of product updates. The DAC3.5VB MK II includes an improved analog supply that Bel Canto claims better isolates the PCM1792 converter and a new, low-phase-noise main clock oscillator. Price is $5,895. The uLink USB-to-digital audio interface is now 24/192. Shipping next month for $795 MSRP

Most DACs are pretty straight forward and simply convert an digital signal to analog. But with the array of choices widening every few months, it might be handy to have a DAC that could do a bit more.

With this in mind, Simaudio is introducing the Moon 180 MiND Music Streamer (at top left in photo). MiND, which is short for Moon intelligent Network Device, allows the user to stream digitally stored music from a computer, NAS drive, the internet, subscriber-based music services or a UPnP enabled device to your DAC via either SPDIF, AES or Toslink outputs.

The MiND will available in April for $1,250 and Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield says that they will be releasing DACs with the MiND built in as an upgrade later this year.

Simaudio also revealed the 32-bit Moon 380D DAC designed around the M-AJiC32 circuitry (an asynchronous jitter elimination system) performing in true 32-bit fully asynchronous mode. There are eight digital inputs, all able to handle up to 24/192 sources. Available in April for $3,900.00 and you can add the MiND streamer for an additional $1,200.00.

Furutech had a new compact and beautifully constructed DAC/Pre on display called the Esprit. About the size of a small stack of CDs, the esprit handles 24/192 via SPDIF and Toslink and 24/96 via USB and also includes a couple of analog inputs. On the front is an input selector switch, headphone jack and volume control. All for $999.

Shown above is the new Pandora DAC which has three slots on the back for a variety of input options including AES, USB (asynch) and SPDIF, and tube analog stage and both balanced and unbalanced outputs and an optional volume control. Retail is $6k.

I've had the new Peachtree DAC•iT at home for several months and a review will be showing up in Stereophile shortly. It's a great little product for the money ($449) and sports USB, SPDIF and Toslink input and features an ESS Sabre32 9022 chip.

The GoldenEar Triton Two, which I reviewed in the February 2012, issue, is my favorite speaker at anywhere near its price ($2499/pair until February 1, when it goes up to a still-very-reasonable $2999/pair). The Triton Two now has a "little brother": the Triton Three ($1999/pair), is a smaller version of the Triton Two. The resemblance goes beyond the physical; listening to a pair of Triton Threes, I was very much reminded of the Twos: the same sort of expansive soundstage and bass that was very nearly as impressive as I'm familiar with from the Twos.