Integrated AMP recommendations around $500 considering my set up. Thanks!

Hello everyone and thank you in advance for taking the time to look at this.

I am at an entry level stil, but like always, once you get into this it's hard to stop. I am a grad student so my budget is limited hence the not so impressive price point I come to you guys/girls for any suggestions on an integrated amp as I feel this would be my next logical upgrade (I feel im not close to the speakers potential) before an external DAC and dedicated digital input.

Current set up:

- NAD C 515BEE CD Player
- Harman Kardon 3390
- Martin Logan Dynamo 500 sub
- BW-CM5 Speakers

I have everything runing through an entry level panamax power conditioner and I used entry level Audioquest cables.

Size does matter a bit since I plan to take it all back with me to Colombia in a few months.

I am looking into a NAD C 326BEE Stereo Integrated Amplifier nevertheless I am here for some suggestions

Well thats great to hear! My believing that this would improve the sound came after I heard a dramatic change in my first system (Energy CB-10 speakers) and going from an insignia (i know, not good) to the more expensive sony at best buy ($150) to the HK. It was quite noticeable! so now that i've had this set up for a few months I began to wonder if there is a chance im not doing justice to the speakers by not upgrading the integrated AMP. (I never use the Tuner)

So would you say my money would be well spent on a used MAC mini and a Dragonfly DAC or better a Apple TV and a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic?

Yeah I looked into that one on there (great deal), I went and auditioned some integrated AMP's through my CM-5's at my local hifi shop and sadly the one where I felt a more noticeable difference was with the Arcam A-18,out of my budget for now. So I went ahead and took advantage of some Best Buy reward cash and got an Apple TV and then found an open box Arcam RLink so I just got that and ran those two through the optical (I sent the HDMI to my AVR) and then just to test out the DAC with the original cd in it I did a comparison using the Coax out from the CD player to the RLink vs. the built in DAC in the CD player (a 24/192 Delta/Sigma) and there was a noticeable diference specially in the Bass and a little bit more open soundstage. Also to see what diferences we could notice (i drug my brother that was in town and knows nothing of audio) I did the same file through the Apple TV-AVR set up (Denon 1712- Energy CB-10 L&R, CC-5 center and Take 5 satellites, ML dynamo 500 is shared between both HT and 2CH) this was a HUGE diference, I knew it would be different but not so noticeable compared to Apple TV - Arcam RLink - 2CH set up. Then just to see how it compared I played the same file through my Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter for Bluetooth Audio Devices streamed through my phone (nexus 4 that has the same sample rate file in the computer via airplay) to the 2CH system, this was by far the biggest diference among the three DAC's (Built in CD player, RLink, and Logitech) and by far the worst.

I went through all set ups a few times and did sequencial comparisons among all 4 combinations and I noticed a couple things just from my empirical testing.

1) WAV and MP3 (328kbps) have a difference but very slight though the same DAC richer bass and more detail on the CD, for example we could hear someone else counting before the song began through CD and RLink that Ive never heard before.

2) DAC's do matter. I still believe there has to be a point of diminishing returns to where a $2k DAC wont be justified for me but $220 is well worth the improvement and ill invite anyone over to show them that a $40 DAC and a $250 one do sound different, or at least to my ears they do. And in this circumstance I much rather Airplay than burn MP3's and that alone is worth the money I spent as well.

I hope this made some sense and was hopefully helpful to someone