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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
rushfan71
291 posts
 
Don’t sleep on the Sonnet Morpheus.
Same Engineer from Metrum Acoustics , Cee’s Reutenburg.

Better than Metrums best in a much less expensive case. Great value to performance. R2R, volume control, optional MQA module
jjss49's avatar
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 
i second the morpheus - it is truly excellent, exceptionally enjoyable
mewsickbuff
234 posts
 
I had a Calyx Femto DAC. It was excellent but I sold it and bought my current DAC, T + A DAC 8 DSD. It has many options for PCM or DSD with multiple filters and settings. I bought it because it was capable of converting everything to DSD @ 48/512. To me that is its best feature and that's how I listen to all my music with Signalyst HQ Player. Some downsides, your computer has to be powerful enough for DSD 48/512 and lots of people no longer use computers to listen to music.
ebanksms
92 posts
 
Up until recently my DAC was the least costly component in all my systems. In quick succession I made several DAC upgrades each costing approximately 2x the previous.  Unfortunately, in my specific example the differences were minimal if any.  IT wasn't that I had issues with the existing sound, but upgraditis.....  Anyway I'm backing out of that rabbit hole and filling it with concrete.  No more DACs for me.
oldschool1948's avatar
oldschool1948
489 posts
 
Moving from a Mytek Liberty to a Audio Mirror Tubadour III SE I saw a very clear and substantial improvement, all other things in my system being equal.  Later I bought a PS Audio DirectStream Sr. DAC, it wasn’t as bright an improvement but it is clearly a better sounding DAC - in my system.
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