Neutral Dac?


I’m curious to see people’s opinions on what they believe is the most uncolored dac? Every dac I’ve tried seems to be a flavor that deviates from neutrality in some way (smooths things over, too bright, too soft on transients, lacks bass etc...). Is there a dac that people believe gets all the fundamentals correct with leaving very little sonic footprint? What is the cost threshold needed to achieve it? I’m surprised at my own findings recently but really curious if anyone else has been searching for a fundamentally uncolored dac and what they’ve found.

   I realize the most obvious answer is "the dac with impeccable measurements" but I have also found some of them to sound unnatural (dry/bright).

schw06

Showing 2 responses by mbmi

The Audio Mirror hand built R2R DAC has No caps in the signal path...uses Analogue Devices most Musical and most expensive chip...is tubed...non oversampling...natural presentation of what "music" sounds like. Toubadour IV SE $ 3500...Tremendous value.

I sent back 2 Topping DAC's....reliability issues.....Go with the Denafrips VENUS II at 3 K or the Audio Mirror Toubadour $ 3.5 K.....anything more expensive is a waste of money unless you have a 50K system.