We as audiophiles often seek ’giant killer’ components. Though the phrase is loosely used, rarely, if ever do we find such elusive equipment.
I can’t see any worthy ranking below about a $3,000 price point. That’s the approximate starting threshold level and going north, where unit build and significant performance significant differentiation starts in my experiences.
Simply put, quality build matters, and you get what you pay for,
That’s the suggested starting price point where you actually start seeing significant design and quality build differentiation they translates into a meaningful audio performance step-up in lockstep; with features and measured performance that is very near the theoretical limit of the digital audio streams it can decode.
Besides it’s superb measured performance, it’s a total joy to use and listen to. It is operationally easy to understand and simply sounds better as a key contender and leaves the lower budget units as clear and unambiguous large pretenders comparatively.
For example,
- Separate power supplies for analog and digital circuitry
- Fully discrete Class-A balanced analog outputs
- User selectable upsampling for some inputs