The microdynamics are a huge part of what I have have been focusing on in this thread. It is the fine details. Subtleties in the way a drum roll comes together, speedy bass notes, sound effects, separation of notes in bells and piano. These little things are inherently the difference between very good and extraordinary and they do add up.
That being said, you do need to have a system capable of delivering those microdynamics to you. You need a resolving enough amplifier and speakers that are sufficiently detailed. Years ago I did a demo of a bunch of stand-mount speakers in the $1000 to $2000 range and a couple floor standers. One test track I used was Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel off of Secret World Live. What I discovered in that session was that multiple speakers were simply not capable reproducing the fine details of things like crowd noise in certain parts of that song. It was an entirely Bryston system with a speaker switch so it wasn't the amp or DAC, the only change was the speakers. You can get the most detailed DAC in the world and if your speakers are your systems bottleneck you will not benefit.
Regarding imaging, separation of instruments and soundstage, all of these things vary wildly from dac to dac and there is no objective "this is how it should sound" benchmark to know if your DAC is doing well. The closest you can come is Q sound recordings but those are problematic in the opposite direction in that virtually any DAC and system should be able to make those sound incredible.
That being said, you do need to have a system capable of delivering those microdynamics to you. You need a resolving enough amplifier and speakers that are sufficiently detailed. Years ago I did a demo of a bunch of stand-mount speakers in the $1000 to $2000 range and a couple floor standers. One test track I used was Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel off of Secret World Live. What I discovered in that session was that multiple speakers were simply not capable reproducing the fine details of things like crowd noise in certain parts of that song. It was an entirely Bryston system with a speaker switch so it wasn't the amp or DAC, the only change was the speakers. You can get the most detailed DAC in the world and if your speakers are your systems bottleneck you will not benefit.
Regarding imaging, separation of instruments and soundstage, all of these things vary wildly from dac to dac and there is no objective "this is how it should sound" benchmark to know if your DAC is doing well. The closest you can come is Q sound recordings but those are problematic in the opposite direction in that virtually any DAC and system should be able to make those sound incredible.
