Question About DACs

I couldn't see what the rest of your system is. I would not trust measurements very much for dacs, there are very good sounding dacs that don't measure that well and dacs with good measurements that don't seem to sound that well.

Try to find a dac with good reviews in the price bracket you are comfortable with. The Chord Mojo or the iFi Micro iDSD BL are for example probably better than your old cd player.

When I bought a better dac years ago it sounded better than my old (cheap) cdp even though I had a modest system. It is hard to say if that was the best upgrade I could do for the money.

Measurements are 100% accurate in predicting sound quality in DACs if you listen to them blind.

@mzkmxcv I think you will  have a problem proving that. There are many people hearing differences between dacs, even when listening blind. I have heard differences.

If it would be this easy all manufacturers could easily measure their offerings and optimize the sound. Most of them do measure and do optimize but I've almost never heard anyone saying that this is easy and that you can create a $100 dac that sounds exactly as the best dacs in the world. 

My guess is that we are measuring the wrong things or not enough things.