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?
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?
If the measurements are the same, the performance is the same. If the measurements differ, then that difference can be audible. About 0.5 dB differences in frequency response can be discerned, and good rule of thumb is that it must have at least 100 dB SNR. Most DACs have performance that is considerably better than this relatively low bar. If you try to compare DACs that require superhuman senses and barely differ under measurement, chances are the effect is placebo or due to errors in test protocol such as not precisely matching the volume.