I look at it this way: at what point do I hear a difference in SQ between two products. So there a multiple levels, not just three. I had a $500.00 DAC, and although the $1-3k DACs sounded different, and in some cases better, I was not really impressed until I went a little past $5k for a new DAC. I expect I’d have to go to $10-12k to get a profound difference from there, and so on.
So the jumps are less ‘digital’ and more ‘analog’…just depends on where and when you started the journey.