That you hear a ’big difference’ may stem from the fact that the analog circuitry behind the two DAC's is different, or that the digital audio processor uses some kind of filtering or effects to create a certain ’sound profile’.
There’s no difference to the human ear between 16 bit sampling or more bits, since the only change is the dynamic range / noise floor. The other parameter is sampling frequency ... higher frequencies can reproduce more higher harmonics of instruments, but since most people can’t hear much above 16kHz there’s not much sense in that either.
Higher rates are used in studios for mixing purposes, where signals are being treated in the digital domain with filters and effects like reverb, phasing, tube sims, limiters, compressors and what have you.
It can even be hard to hear a difference between uncompressed and compressed digital audio. Do this test to determine if you can hear the difference:
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
There’s no difference to the human ear between 16 bit sampling or more bits, since the only change is the dynamic range / noise floor. The other parameter is sampling frequency ... higher frequencies can reproduce more higher harmonics of instruments, but since most people can’t hear much above 16kHz there’s not much sense in that either.
Higher rates are used in studios for mixing purposes, where signals are being treated in the digital domain with filters and effects like reverb, phasing, tube sims, limiters, compressors and what have you.
It can even be hard to hear a difference between uncompressed and compressed digital audio. Do this test to determine if you can hear the difference:
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality