I disagree with the premise that one cannot hear the difference between dacs. Everything has a sound and sounds different through a top system. Obviously YMMV.
That said although I've done blind testing, I've not been able to level match, so my data is flawed. We didn't prefer the loudest unit, though, as usually hypothesized.
Having tried popular new dacs, I eventually ended up with an Audio Mirror R2R dac based on an obsolete Analog devices AD1865N-K. The nice thing about going with an old chip is that you don't have to chase the shiney new thing. And I preferred it to every shiney new dac I tried. I'm sure it'll still compare favourably to whatever is new in 10 years.
That said although I've done blind testing, I've not been able to level match, so my data is flawed. We didn't prefer the loudest unit, though, as usually hypothesized.
Having tried popular new dacs, I eventually ended up with an Audio Mirror R2R dac based on an obsolete Analog devices AD1865N-K. The nice thing about going with an old chip is that you don't have to chase the shiney new thing. And I preferred it to every shiney new dac I tried. I'm sure it'll still compare favourably to whatever is new in 10 years.