Are DAC's overpriced?

You can get better performance from a Transport and DAC compared to the CD player, providing you minimize the jitter from the Transport.  There are essentially three ways to do this:

1) Buy a really expensive transport, say $15K
2) Add a Synchro-Mesh reclocker and a good BNC cable to your existing transport and add a DAC with good SQ
3) Buy a DAC that is immune to jitter like the Benchmark DAC3

My recommendation is to get a Metrum or Border Patrol DAC and add the Synchro-Mesh and my Reference BNC cable.  These combinations will enable the extremely low-jitter of the SM to benefit the DAC sound quality because these DACs have no internal reclocking. When you use separate transport and DAC, the only consideration is the jitter and minimizing it.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve- would you say the transport is then irrelevant in terms of sound quality if using Synchro-Mesh or Benchmark DAC3 ? Thanks

Pretty much. Low jitter on the input side of the SM helps a little, but not much.  The output side always sounds great.

You should listen to the Benchmark before you buy.

Most modern DACs have reclockers or similar circuitry inside so that they can claim jitter is a non-issue.  It still is an issue with the vast majority of them because low-jitter input lowers the jitter of the internal PLL circuitry.  They additionally have the disadvantage that they don't deliver the SQ possible when driven by extremely low-jitter sources like the Synchro-Mesh.  The SM helps, but not as much as a DAC without reclocker on the input.

Like all digital circuitry, the devil is in the details.  It's not just the chips used or the digital techniques.  The big differences in sound quality come from optimal circuit implementation, circuit design, power supply design and decoupling cap implementation.  There are literally millions of choices that the designer makes that can degrade the sound quality and still end-up with a functioning design.

Steve N.

You are getting a lot of varied opinions, bogus results and misinformation here.  Be careful what advice you take seriously.

Al it takes is a jittery source and all DAC's will sound similar.

Al it takes is a cheap active preamp to make everything sound homogenous and 2-D.

Systems are complex and every single part of the system from the power to the cables to the components, signal processing and software apps must be optimized in order to get stellar results.  Any one of these that is sub-standard can ruin the whole pie.

Not that you need to spend a fortune to achieve this.  On the contrary, if you are smart and selective and take advice from the RIGHT people, you can get there on a budget.  I think for an entire system, the threshold is probably $20K-$30K.  Anything below that will tend to be mid-fi with 2-D presentation between the speakers IME.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Measurements don't mean dick unless it's properly implemented. That, and you're following folk who admit they can't hear all that well.

+1
Measurements are only one piece of the characterization, but can be useful if they are the right measurements.

And some CD players and transports do sound better than others. Folks call it ’jitter’ but that is just guessing. But maybe good enough.  

It's not guessing.  For transports is IS JITTER and ONLY JITTER.  I don't just call it jitter.  For CD players, it's everything in the DAC, including jitter.  I know this for a fact.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Will you hear a difference? Depends on your golden ears. Takes a lot of experience. When some are talking of huge differences, in my opinion, these are subtle for most of us. 

I believe it's more a function of the rest of the system and the acoustic treatments, if any.  I routinely have people tell me they have tin ears and then when they hear the system, they get it immediately.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

FORTUNATELY, before I pulled the trigger, I got to hear my system via a prototype coax (not at liberty to say whose) but the cable was TRANSFORMATIVE

This is simply jitter reduction, and probably not much of it. If you think that is good, try a really good silver BNC terminated coax cable with a Synchro-Mesh reclocker.  7psec of jitter directly measured. You eyes will pop out of your head.

I used to mod AA DAC's and resamplers BTW.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Looking for a DAC based on the chip is fraught with problems.  SQ is  more affected by the implementation than the chipset.

I did a shootout of several chips a few years ago and I didn't like the switched-capacitor sound of the AKM chips.  The only chip I ever disliked.  I would avoid those.

Steve N.