WITHOUT PREJUDICE to the trsunsmi of posts affirming that different DACs performance are not clones of each other and certainly can be ranked and improved, I recently traded up from a BRYSTON BDA-2 DAC to a MOON 280D MIND2 DAC because they DO sound different.
It started as a direct bakeoff at my local high-end audio bricks and mortar dealer who sells BRYSTON , MOON (by SIMAUDIO) .and BLUESOUND NODE.product lines.
After two lengthy separate bakeoff visits in their showroom over 10-odd days to personally audition the three models with my BFF audiophile amigo in tow as a foil to compare notes; the dac audio rankings from our witnessed auditions results were clear, unambiguous and wholly consistent among the attendees.
in order:
(1) the MOON DAC was clearly the best of the three agreed by all four attendees.
(2);the BRYSTON DAC was a very fine performer indeed, but it was bested by the MOON in a graphic, clear and not insignificant manner as agreed to by all four attendees..
(3) both high-end dacs above simply crushed the BLUESOUND.NODE …. NOT EVEN CLOSE..
TAKEAWAY
For you or anyone else to capriciously assert we cannot differentiate the audio differences between the dacs -much less consistently- is frankly preposterous and a. grossly flawed assumption …full stop.
I then traded in my BRYSTON for the new MOON as a clear stepped-up performance upgrade.