Question About DACs

“People just don’t want to hear that their $5000 DAC isn’t audibly better than a $250 one.”

Not looking to land on either side of this argument, but from looking at the length and energy that goes into posting it seems that 

“people don’t want to hear that their $250 DAC isn’t as good as a $5000 one.”

is is an equal if not greater force in this debate.

i would say nothing stops it from being audibly transparent....
That said, I’ve never heard 2 DACs that sound the same (good or bad, cheap or expensive). I will add (controversially, I know) that the DACs that sound the most alike are the boring-as-cardboard ones that seem to exist at every price point. So it seems to me that DACs that fall short of sounding “real”, “musical”, “awesome” (take your pick) all seem to fall short in the same way or a very similar way. Which I suspect, is likely because they were being benchmarked by measurements alone or primarily (and with the same measurement criteria available to everyone).
It seems that getting beyond that predictable sound (which is achieved by few DACs and fewer still that actually do it well without distortions that become fatiguing over time) is a bit of an engineering art form.
Most $500 DACs fail the test, most $5000 DACs fail the test, and some $50k DACs fail too. So it would not surprise me at all that a $500 DAC could outperform a $5k DAC. But this does not prove the point you are trying to prove... and in making the point you are showing a tin ear to the real progress being made in digital, exemplified by a few examples of excellent engineering that are getting past basic benchmarks to achieve remarkable results. Feel free to stick to your guns on this, but the alternative is to go and listen to a few of the products that are being highlighted as truly superlative (which admittedly are hard to identify in the ‘everything-is-amazing’ audio press) and see if you can’t hear something fresh and new on the digital audio landscape.
either way, enjoy the music most of all.

...I also saw from cleeds’ quote that you were about to list terms that are acceptable to use. I’d be curious what makes your list.

@mzk...(what follows is a sincere question without an ounce of rhetorical in it) im curious if you have been to an audio show or have tried a ton of equipment out a a dealer or auditioned a ton of gear in your own system? 

If so, do you like most of it? What percentage of it would you say does satisfy your taste for musical reproduction? I.e. allows you to enjoy the music?

one of my pet theories is that we all have very different thresholds for when music becomes enjoyable, I.e. how much we are affected by the technical quality of the sound. It doesn’t make someone a “better” listener, but it is an indicator how refined the gear will be before it is satisfying enough to lead to long listening sessions.

(people may also be sensitive to different parts of the spectrum and different audio parameters.)

it seems from your stance that you might be lucky enough to find a lot of audio gear very satisfying. You are lucky indeed.

A high threshold can be a curse until you find something that works. 

and p.s. I find “boring” a word that should be used more. I find it could be a wake up call to the industry if it was used more and more honestly. Do you not know what I mean when I say that when DACs don’t impress, it’s often because they are “boring”? It’s direct and fairly universally understood, no? Though I guess there are people incapable of excitement and thrill and awe that might think “boring” is kinda a common shade of everything. I didn’t use the word in regard to the DAC you are highlighting, btw.

what makes “transparent “ a better word to describe what you are talking about?

another point I might be making is that maybe we are measuring the wrong thing... I’d be interested to see (even your) brain scans listening to a well-measuring DAC that I consider “boring” vs the brain scans listening to a well-measuring DAC that I consider exciting, musical, etc... (in a sufficiently revealing system in both cases)... and then compare both to your DAC of choice. Then we’d have some measurements that would be interesting to consider. (Way off topic now...) 

Anyways, curious us about the questions above.

Doubly curious about that post that got deleted. We’re you insulting?

ymmv

Were you

@mzk...my question was: did you like them, find them musically satisfying?