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

My most recent "Holy S?!T" moment was the move from a Chord Hugo 2 to a Weiss 501 during a customer demo.  The Weiss was new to me and I use the Hugo 2 all the time.  These are not in the same price class (Hugo 2 and 2Go are $3800 and the Weiss 501 is $9k) but there are times when you make a change and the difference is subtle and you aren't certain how much of an impact one DAC had vs. another.  The Weiss is very warm and almost analog sounding while the Chord sounds a bit colder.  Not bad just very different presentations.  

I have owned many DACs. Starting at the ~$1K range and then higher: Ayre QB-9, Sim Moon 650D with the add on $8K power supply, Schiit Gungnir multibit, Schiit Yggi, upgraded Ayre QB-9 2020, Audio Research CD9Se, and Berkeley Alpha 3. The most profound was the Audio Research CD9se.


My dealer brought over a Audio Research 160s amp for me to audition. Without me asking he also brought over a ARC CD9se (DAC with transport). He said, “you should try this”. He knows me well and we have similar tastes… I have the system and space he would really like to own. I was almost a little annoyed. I could barely afford the amp, I was very happy with my then current Sim Moon 650D (with extra power supply $17K). I auditioned the amp. It was clearly a winner. So, I reluctantly hauled out the CD9se. I felt obligated to at least be able to articulate why I didn’t want it. I hooked it up to my streamer. Literally 2 seconds listening… to get to “wholly cow”. And another 10 of 15 seconds to conclude he just sold me one… and damn, where am I going to get the $17K for this thing?

There was absolutely no question I had to buy the DAC. It was so natural, and detailed, and real. It completely transformed my system, in all good ways. So, is it my last DAC? Well, maybe. My audio guy really likes my system and space and wanted to test the Berkeley Alpha 3 (22K) he just started carrying. So he came over and we spent the afternoon with it. He left it for a couple weeks. I was able to use both DACs, volume leveled and switch back and forth. The difference was minuscule… but the ARC was a bit warmer (tiny… itsy bitsy), but in my mind slightly better.

So, “Damn, that is so much better than my last DAC”. Yes.

Adding the Naim nDAC and Pardo T-XPS.  I tried several others, the nDAC/Pardo are staying.  

Moving from Schitt Yggdrasil gen2 and Auralic Vega G2 to the Mola Mola Tambaqui  was a major WTF experience. 

Well of course I would never start a sentence with that particular word...  
i am very impressed with my tambaqui after having many well regarded dacs over the years.  But I do say “WOW” when I play a record.  Just something on vinyl with a nice setup that digital misses. It is almost as if there is another layer of detail that digital misses.