Jusy my observations and your I’m sure YMMV.
Only the listener can determine if the difference they hear is huge or not - it’s all in their perspective. You can only go by your ears tell you and really, nothing else matters.
Reviewers on the internet are going for clicks. Kinda hard to get them if all they say is "Meh, I can tell a little bit of difference but not much"
I believe many people embellish their findings to insure they stay with the in-crowd. Especially if a lot of coin has been dropped to get their DAC - No one wants to look like a fool.
There are many DACs that can be grouped together as sounding very much the same. There ARE DACs that definitely stand out!
Listener’s seems to love arguing (discussing?) while comparing apple to oranges to peaches to pears. Everything is just so system dependent when you’re dealing with audio.
The higher sound quality of your system, the more you’ll be able to hear the difference in DACs
I’ve improved my system over the years and in doing so I’m better able to discern differences in components. Many time the improvements are small but noticeable, other times it hits you like a frying pan in the face.