I've been scouring the internet for a bluetooth-capable DAC with an optical input with little success.
The only one I have found is the discontinued V90-BLU (
http://www.musicalfidelity.com/v90-blu).
I need at least one optical input, even better if it has 2. You'd think this shouldn't be so unusual!
What's your budget? What outputs do you need? (line level, variable, sub, headphone?) How picky are you - are you in the "a dac is a dac is a dac" camp, or do you spend a lot of time doing critical listening of different implementations? Are you looking for a small form factor, or full width, or do you not care? Is this a desktop DAC or one you want to carry?
It is frustrating, I just did something a little different, but was frustrated by the profusion of terrible gear, and the amount of gear that emphasizes USB over all else. I was mostly looking for small form factor in a desktop piece and wanted a headphone amp as well as the DAC, so my memory is going to be biased toward those things.
I just got a deal on an Arcam irDAC II for 350 plus shipping, but it is more commonly seen at around 550 and up. USB, BT AptX, 2 x coax, 2 x optical in, line level and variable out as well as a headphone amp. It sounds pretty good - I haven't sat down to do hardcore listening with it yet, but initial impressions are it sounds better than the Schiit Amp/DAC I have, as it ought - originallly it retailed for ~7x what the schiit did. I don't think any of the Schiit's have BT antennas.
But now that I look harder at what's out there, that Arcam becomes something of a deal if you can find it at 550. Some vendors on Amazon have them at that price, I think for refurbs.
Teac makes some reasonably well regarded ones, but the only one I'm seeing that acts as a DAC with an output stage other than headphones and has BT is the AI-503, which is expensive, $900 at Amazon. Thanks to the poster below who pointed out that with teac, adding BT removes the analog outputs until you get into the 5 series.
The NAD D1050 may have BT? If not that, I think the D3020 does? I think both also have full size speaker outputs, so you're getting something you weren't really looking for with those, and I don't know what outputs those offer.
Ouch. I had recommended the SMSL B1, but on closer inspection that features an optical out, not an optical in.
If you do need a headphone amp, you want to only buy from vendors where you can be sure you know what the output impedance of the headphone stage is. I have a little Denon PMA-50 boxed up and ready for UPS to take crying home to mamma Crutchfield - it made my headphones sound just awful, because it has a 60 ohm output impedance. (It to was $350 on sale...)
I'm usually a more-or-less "a DAC is a DAC and an amp is an amp" guy, once both are reasonably well-implemented.
I've heard one vivid exception to that during my quest, and it may one day wind up in the living room as a pure digital preamp: the Ayre Codex. Holy cow, but I don't have 2k to invest on this. Some of the higher end Schiit products are spoken of pretty reverentially as well.
The Ayre does have optical in, but no bluetooth.
The irDAC is not in that league at all - it's good, it has what I want it to have and it solves a very specific problem I was having, but it's not "wait, what? Lou Reed was doing that in this recording? Now that's interesting" good like the Codex. Point being, to my ear, you have to be ready to splash some pretty tall cash to get out to distinctively better sounding DACs.
But, as I'm realizing now - at 550 or even 750 it ticks a lot of your boxes. So I'd say it's worth a look.