bonzo75, have you heard the CAD dac? Its a UK brand (designed by an expat american engineer)....
Hi yes, Around 2 years ago I had compared it to a Weiss, Meitner, and AR Dac 8 and preferred the Meitner. After that I heard it separately in another system. My impression of it was it was neutral and detailed, but it was like any other dac, maybe more detailed, but not special. Tbh I am not an upgrader for the sake of upgrading. I was very happy with an used AR dac 8 purchased at 2k GBP, and I thought all the 'upgrades' to Weiss, Meitner, and CAD were a waste of money despite those dacs being better. I found diminishing returns in dacs pretty quickly. Even when I upgraded to the Lampi 5 I still felt I shouldn't have spent though it was nice. It is the B7 that made me jump up and realize this was the most impactful hifi product I have heard after speakers. Listening to Trinity made me feel like I did with those other dacs, it was just another dac, good, but just another costly toy.
The other permanent product in my system is the Shun Mook diamond resonators. I sold off Stillpoints immediately, and I take them along to a lot of other audiophiles places who all prefer the Shun Mooks diamond resonators to whatever they have - stillpoints, symposium, etc. Put the Ultra or Giant diamond resonators under the Big 7 and your pre and you will see a tremendous lift in performance. Greg, the UK Lampi distributor, will tell you the same thing, I had put them under the dac at his place. Since then both of us also bought the Shun Mook power valve resonators for the rectifier on the Lampi. The valve resonators and the mpingo discs are small tweaks, but the diamond resonators are massive tweaks, and must haves IMO.