What the Best Dac have you heard or owned. How could you tell it was that good.

There are so many very good to great DACs these days! I went to AXPONA earlier this month just to listen to as many DACs as I could (and there were quite a few). I ended up purchasing a Bricasti M21. Why, you may ask. I have perhaps an unusual explanation. As time has passed, more and more I cannot recall the specifics of each presentation I attended, even if they were quite marvelous -- except for one, which was the Bricasti M21. It was exceptional when I heard it, and I can still clearly remember some of the tracks played and my reactions when hearing them. I have to mention, however, that the rest of the Bricasti room's demo system was also terrific, so, to a certain extent this purchase is a leap of faith on my part because I have been unable to hear it on my own system.

Follow up. I purchased a Bricasti M21 (with its optional internal media renderer), and it is now resident in my audio system. Initially, I found that while the playback was more clear, the soundstage wider and deeper, imaging was more precise, an overriding brightness spoiled everything else. Fortunately, this brightness issue was resolved by changing my Ethernet cable between my switch and the M21 to a Shunyata Sigma V2 and my interconnect cable fro the M21 to my preamp to a DH Labs Air Matrix Cryo. I can now say that listening to digitally sourced music on my syste is marvelous.