Best Of

My answer would also be none of the above under $500. Have you tried to play a CD from your Blu Ray player over both HDMI and over the balanced analog outputs into the 8802 using the direct modes in both the player and and 8802? If you can't notice a difference in Pure Direct mode compared to the Emotiva CD player that's a good indicator. If you can then it may be worth investing in a DAC above the price threshold you're looking at. The internal DAC in the 8802 is also high performance, including for high resolution PCM and DSD, and may be at least as good as that in external devices under $1K although the rest of the 8802 does have its own analog sound character that can't be eliminated.

My take is an inexpensive DAC is likely to be powered by a switching power supply that'll end up inserting line noise and sibilance. There are numerous ones under $100 to test that out.

The Emotiva DAC is probably where you should be looking for an upgrade. You could try it and return it if it doesn't work out. Having the headphone section and eARC features is a positive.