What DAC upgrade made you say “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?


As the title suggests, what was your overall system and DAC at the point where you bought only a new DAC and said “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?

I’m a novice and so many people talk about improvements from new equipment as if they were only listening to varying degrees of static until they bought more and more new equipment which added up to them finally being presented with music. It’s like Salome and the seven veils. But when does the last veil get peeled away? 

So what system did you have and what DAC did you swap in that made you say “DAMN!!!!”?

I guess I’m looking for night and day differences, not gradual progressions……


pip_helix

Showing 3 responses by lalitk

“I guess I’m looking for night and day differences, not gradual progressions……”

OP, it would be helpful to know your current system and budget for DAC. Every system is different, you’re probably not going to buy Berkely Audio Design, Alpha V2 DAC to pair with Node 2i :-)
“I have an Esoteric K-01xd with the best FPGA programmable DAC (64 bit) that I have heard...beats both the best DCS and MSB Tech DACs in my system.”
@gerryah930,

Can you please elaborate on ‘best DCS and MSB’ since they have different tiers of reference. I would like to know which models you’ve tried that were bested by K-01xd? 
+1, @jjss49 

Exactly! I’ve asked OP to reveal his system and budget for DAC. No answer yet! I am willing to bet majority of recommendations here are not even pertinent or far off from his consideration :-)