Next best exponential DAC quality level?

@milpai,

Person 1: I like this chocolate ice cream better than this other ice cream.

Person 2: It is the same ice cream, I just put it in a different bowl. (this argument does not apply to wine where the glass can have a minor difference -- for the pedantic in the crowd)

Person 1: I like the taste of this chocolate. It has to be a better chocolate, it costs 10 times as much as the other chocolate.

Person 2: They add ingredient KZW to their chocolate. It slightly masks the chocolate flavour, but gives a hint of saltiness that many people like. They use the same base chocolate as the lower cost chocolate. You like salty foods, so that is probably why you prefer it.

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Science also can’t make people not apply bias to what they read, such that they see what they want to see, not a more accurate representation of what was written.

I am not sure there was even 1 comment in this thread that said anyone’s personal preference was wrong, nor that anything was irrelevant, but it also did not accept both easily proven false claims, and irrelevant claims as being relevant either. I don’t think anyone even said in this thread that a well measuring DAC would sound "better". In fact, it was repeated that there was every likelihood that it would not.

Your post in many ways is serendipitous. Bias can be a powerful influence on perception.

the relentlessness and a lack of resolution indicates that your are missing something.

What is he missing? Is it something metaphysical? Only explained by philosophy perhaps?

I am referring to DACs of course...converting digital to analog....nothing personal. 

The most enjoyable Dacs I have heard are the Tambaqui and the Emm Labs DA2V2, and they both cost a lot more than $99. If anyone cannot hear the difference, fine, stick with $99.00 Dacs and save yourself a lot of money. However I can hear the difference.

@loaman,

Oh, you heard these DACS in your system? You said you heard them, not that you owned them. I guess pointing out that it is impossible to pick out the characteristics of a DAC in a system you are not fully familiar with is pretty much impossible would be pointless huh?

For op, if $400 is all you can pay for a dac than your list of dac's is great. If you are curious what better dac's could sound like I think you should try a $1k dac, a $2k dac and maybe a $3-5k dac also. If you still can't hear any difference they just be happy with whatever you got. If you do hear a difference you may still choose to stay at or below $1k, it is up to you.

I personally don't think measurements are that important but for those who argues that it is the most important thing you should remember that the company dCS also thinks measurements are _very_ important. They produce dac's from about $15k and up. So they must be able to measure things that improve even in that price range.

I want to buy new speakers before trying to upgrade my dac but if I do I will probably look at the offerings from $1k - $2k there seems to be a lot of good ones in that range.