I myself have listened to many different dacs and all of them have about the same specs but the expensive ones tend to sound clearer with less distortion. Is there some other way to measure a dac quality other than price?
Only your expectations
Altering sound for better listening experience? I don’t think audiophile DACS are transparent.
Nothing.
Two things: Quality of the DAC’s po
The difference is pretty much in the power supply and analog output.
I have a couple of entry level ones as part of some headphone amplifiers. The fantastic and portable Oppo HA2, and the Musical Fidelity V90 HPA. Absolute clarity from the Oppo, absolute warmth from the V90.
I use smsl 9 and 9 pro both sound awesome
Do a a proper and controlled blind test. You’ll see
With all things equal in a system reproducing sounds the way you want, changing the DAC should be materially different for the better of what you value in reproductive sound.
Just listen and determine if there is value to you. I don’t chase perfection. I chase not messing up what I have achieved. I finally have synergy. I can listen for hours knowing it isn’t the most resolving or the biggest stage but just a magic enjoyment. Will I stop looking for more? Of course not.
All this talk about the best DAC is mute to me. There is too much competitive jostling for recognition. Camps form around different preferences. “Mine is better than yours”. Follow your ears and be prudent to your wallet. Somewhere there is a genius electrical engineer but also somewhere is a marketing department trying to part with your money.
Different is often confused with better.
Right,… On that point, so is new and vintage…
Listening is a good way to judge how something sounds
Ahh shit. Here we go again. Demo some shit and see if you like it. Measurable differences in DACs and amps can be hard to discern. Just enjoy what you want.
How’s does my node2 rate here?
I’m not a measurements fundamentalist by any means but this article is a good read in so far as it demonstrates measurable differences in DACs.
Interesting to note also that the correlation between price and performance on some of these graphs is, well, variable.
That’s exactly what I needed thanks!
Because you’re listening to the electronics around the DAC, as well as the DAC itself.