The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype

@facten Yes, sunk cost idea. But I will not look for anything else for a long time.

I still want to compare it to the Topping D50 gen 1, and also the Dragonfly USB DACs. When I purchased first the red then black then cobalt versions, I heard slight differences through EarPods. Again, was curious, and they are relatively cheap. However, when the DF fails, I will get something more reasonably priced.

I hear plenty of clear improvements with tubes, phono stages, speakers, etc. Just DACs, it is not better/worse, just oh-so-slightly different. 

I did a a factory tour of MSB in Northern California in January.Their Principal engineer mentioned that the implementation of the chips and isolation of the signal is paramount in a elegant DAC configuration. So much more goes into a a great sounding DAC than just the chip selected. I found that synchronizing my clock with the DAC, transport, and DDC took my digital sound to a new level.

This is spot on. I bought over 20 different DAC units and every time I get a new one I tested against the old one and I always sit there and think to myself why did I do this.? It sounds so close to the old one I should’ve just Kept the old one. I’ve had as many as four of them hooked up at once level match them all and did a blind test. I failed miserably I could not tell the difference. Put your money into amplification or speakers don’t waste it on a DAC once you hit the $2000 level Nothing changes

Well @raysmtb1, many have been there but won’t want to admit it. A famous US manufacturer of DACs said something similar to you that DACS have more often minor differences (to paraphrase) but the better route is to invest in amplification. That’s been my experience but not with a long line of DACs to offer comparison. A long line of listening to varied (mostly tube) amplifiers over years, yes.

Most know the tech options although there’s an emerging vein with DSD upsampling with PS Audio and Cen Grand DSDDAC plus other big boys like Playback Design. (Had one of the original top Sony SACD players back in the day too.)

Then there’s the software upsampling with HQPlayer being really powerful plus the internal options built in Roon and Audirvana. With Audirvana Studio in my system, the upsampling option is quite nice up to 256 YMMV.

The AKM chips fancy upsampling to one bit DSD, outputs to a lovely bluish light display on an RME ADI-2. Many have experienced that upside with Holo DACs, Harmony, etc. and note HQPlayer elevates them to a significantly better sound.

Unsure on what you have tested but I’d love to hear a DSD upsampling shoot out between the RME ADI-2 FS, the Holo May and the Harmony. That would be fun.

(One additional note on the RME ADI-2 FS. When playing DSD Direct you need an external preamp to control the volume as volume control is lost when you make the DSD Direct setting. Found there was a benefit that way for the RME not doing that double duty in my system too. Completely different capability all around.)