Do you recall "instant improvement" from your first stand-alone DAC ?

hey OP

all you mentioned in your post are exactly what i have heard. 

now, there are more nuisances in the music. details that are more clear and distinct

but let me be clear first, 1) that all depends on the quality of the DAC you purchased 2) the synergy of the system. 

you have a great dac but the reminder of the system cannot reproduce such detail. then nothing else will happen, a slight improvement maybe ??

OR. the dac you got is not any better.so the results may be marginal. really hard to tell the outcome. I wish all will be good as per your expectations

For low cost system  all low cost dac are horrible in a way or another...

I was lucky with the SPS NOS dac TDA 1543  paid 20 bucks on Ebay from the designer bid...

I try to improve it and i lost 400 bucks...

Better dac exist at 10 times the cost of all my system...

With money there is only one dac that interest me, the  Edgar Choueiri dac which is way more than a mere dac... 

OH,  YEAH! 

i continued to test this until it malfunctioned. 

My first external DAC was a PS Audio DAC 3.  It upsampled and was quite the upgrade.  It had a poor USB input but for S/PDIF it was outstanding 

I’ve been listening to a Meridian 218 for a while.  Visited my local dealer just to say hi. Listen to the Tambaqui for a few casual hours.  I bought it. My mind has been blown