I have tried a dozen or so DACs at wide price levels, wide technology differences, bad measurements, good measurements, no measurements. I don't know why this is but I have had highly rated DACs sound not as good to my ears as ones costing 1/4 price no one cares to even write about. But while some may not sound as good in one system when I swapped it to another system in the house, with same source but different amp and speakers, and it sounded great. That led me to trying different ones in different systems (I have 4). I finally thought I had it figured out and so bought a higher/better/pricier model of one of the DACsfrom same company for one system and it sounded worse than their cheaper less capable model. Room/amp/speaker dependent? These DACs have included ones with various filterings, two chips, one chip, different chips in otherwise same model, R2R, NOS, and so on. I finally stopped when I thought stuff sounded good. It is like balancing a fulcrum. When you get it slowly back away and don't touch anything.
Good measuring DACs vs.
I recently owned and compared a number of DACs in my system and was particularly interested in the sound of two "perfect measuring" DACs, the Mola Mola Tambaqui and the Benchmark DAC3 HGC. With either of those, it seemed every note came out clearly, cleanly, and accurately, without a hint of distortion. Both have been reviewed by Stereophile, and John Atkinson concluded his review measurements with,
"The Mola Mola Tambaqui offers state-of-the-digital-art measured performance. I am not surprised HR liked its sound."
and,
"Benchmark’s DAC3 HGC offers state-of-the-art measured performance. All I can say is "Wow!"
So, why is it that neither of these two objectively perfect DACs seem to emotionally engage me to the same level as my Mojo Audio Mystique EVO Pro, which is an R2R design using (basically antique) AD1862 "Z" chips? How can I not perceive the same levels of body, tone, or dimensionality from two DACs which exhibit "state-of-the-digital-art measured performance" and that really do nothing wrong?