My experience with this is I’ve had 3 different Dac Amps DAC x6 was the first one I had which I did not have any reference to before switching over to a Schiit Magni 3+ and Schiit Modi 3e (Both give plenty of volume). On the Hifiman Edition XS using the DAC x6 the sound was very claustrophobic and warm compared to using the Schiit stack which was much wider and neutral sounding, for me this was a huge upgrade. To add to this I also tried this on a portable DAC Amp which is the DC03 Pro which soundstage sounds closer on the side but a bit sounds warmer. What’s your experience?
Yes but you shouldn’t loose sleep over it. A lot of people have not branched out of one performance group, have noise/dirty power and sometimes have something specific to their hearing. I still remember when I got into audio and hearing how nothing made a difference, and then asking for someone to explain the difference between amplification types (D, A, A/B, etc) and basically no one could. Ironic.
Examples of what I mean. Amplification types that have an associated sound: OPAMP’s, NFCA’s, Tube amp’s, discrete topology amp’s, Forward Feedback amp’s, THX, non-negative feedback amp’s, Class A amp’s, Class A/B amp’s, Class D amps, current mode amps (Questyle), etc. Amp differences are easiest to spot based on the shape of the soundstage and how well sounds/effect/instruments are separated and layered. Amp performance is reasonably easy to gauge on an audition.
On DAC’s I am usually surprised when people can’t hear a difference in some. There are the obvious outliers like Chord DAC’s or any FPGA DAC really (like Sony’s TAZH1ES) and of course R2R or Multibit DACs, chip based DAC’s are usually much more similar. The difference in DAC’s is easiest to spot based on tonality. If you hear a cymbal does it sound glassy? If you hear clapping in an audience does it sound like clapping in a room or a clap track from 90’s tv? Does a violin sound like an actual violin? Does a saxophone sound the same as a trumpet? DAC performance is hard to gauge on an audition alone.
I have no desire to change anyone’s mind about any of this, but to answer your question, yeah, I mean they do often sound different if you’re not only buying mid-tier and below and chi-fi or stuff from just one brand. Don’t expect major differences though if nothing noteworthy in the topology changed (power, galvanic isolation, design, etc). There may be differences still but generally, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a D70 Octo sounds like a cleaner D30 Pro, but very little like a Pro iDSD Signature. Just what I have experienced first hand over the past 15 years since I got into headphones.
I‘d highly recommend getting into music production to fully comprehend how stupid this sounds.
Just because a low-level implementation detail differs doesn’t mean it has a “sound”. Your AAC audio doesn’t sound different depending on whether it was encoded by an ARM or x86 processor.
I‘ve said it in my other comment but these people would really benefit from spending a weekend with a DAW just to see how hard it is to “widen the soundstage” and “improve the layering” when you’re actively trying to do that with tools specifically designed for this purpose and have the individual song stems at hand, let alone if you’re working with nothing but the final master.
You are right.