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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
chopandchange
44 posts
 
I think you have to be aware that some DACs could give you that WOW upgrade based on the fact they may have better re-clockers compensating for a budget-ish transport (assuming that is the case in some circumstances).

If you already have a fantastic transport the differences in some DACs is less to do with re-clocking and more focused on the DAC engineering itself.
An example perhaps would be the Audio Note DACs - Audio Notes shun complexity expecting your Transport to be up to scratch - an AN DAC improves significantly with the right transport on the shelf. But if you put an AN DAC on the end of a lesser transport - you are not getting the best out of it.
mward
102 posts
 
Another vote for multibit dacs.   Very analog sounding. 
zimmerma's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
zimmerma
102 posts
 
Never.....
hollowman's avatar
hollowman
30 posts
 
What DAC upgrade made you say “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?
No DAC is worth using swear words over. Jesus saves!!!!!!!!!!
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,134 posts
 
My uncle works in digital mastering  studios around the world and he spoke very highly of Bricasti being the best he has encountered ,not just in accuracy 
but in but as a whole in separating each instrument  and bringing out the best 
in tonal shadings and even variances in pitch to hear as a whole it was just on another level ,that was the Bricasti M1-SE that being said he said their new
M3 with streamer card is not far behind at1/2 the cost he was spot on .
I bought it with a trade in with on audition from Perrotta consultants on the east coast very fair pricing and nice package deal with cables . After having heard Denafrips terminator side by side and Audiobytes with separate power supply 
they were very good But just did not present this level of realism especially after the long burnin around400 hours, and filter put in minimum mode.at $6500 with streamer card Roon ready a true high end bargain ,and built superb all CNC ,and  fully balanced and use in dual mono mode using the classic  AD 1955 Multibit dac chips their-separate  patented 1bit DSD ,and true Analog preamplifier which is exceptional if you want to run direct to amp, or just set to  -0 to fully bypass great engineering 👍
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