What is the benefit of very expensive DACs?

Yes, great post, thanks for sharing!
May I ask which devices you have upstream to your DAC?

Matt
I use a Bricasti M5 streamer, connected via AES to the DAC. I was also using an Etheregen and AfterDark clock, but the ER stopped working so I stopped using it (and the clock) and can't say I've noticed much difference.

Yes, That was why I suggested he look into the relationship :) Was being polite. But, as I understand it, the Playback has the better version of that kit and for way cheaper
I am aware of the Playback DAC and the connection with Nagra. Whether one sounds better is probably speculation, but if you know of anyone who has directly compared the two, please post a link. I am certainly happy with the Nagra DAC so don't feel compelled to try the Playback.
 
I use a Bricasti M5 streamer, connected via AES to the DAC. I was also using an Etheregen and AfterDark clock, but the ER stopped working so I stopped using it (and the clock) and can't say I've noticed much difference.

I am just curious if you tried different streamers as well (as different DACs) and if yes what the outcome was (sorry for OT).
Thanks

Matt
 
I have used a number of different streamers over the years - Lumin U1 Mini, Ultrarendu, Optical Rendu, SOTM stack. Differences were minor - stability and software issues were more critical. I think the Bricasti M5 is probably the best of them, but all were good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rblnr and matthias
Your

See my posts above - I use a Bricasti M5 streamer.
Sorry, I think my comment might have been somewhat delayed. Impressive, seems like you have a TOTL digital setup. I enjoyed the story about the purchase. Do you have any other upgrades in mind for the future?
 
No further upgrades planned, although the rest of my system is a bit more modest.
 
The obvius point of an expensive dac is pride of ownership lol but if the system sounds good then you get both good sound and hey look what I got
 
  • Like
Reactions: christoph
The conventional wisdom is they sound better (no big surprises here). The question is how much better and at what price difference, and how fast is price performance improving.

I was slightly disheartened to read the Stereophile review of the new $3500 Marantz NA11-S1 network streamer / DAC, and the reviewer commenting he was hard pressed to hear ANY difference between it and the $43,000 MSB stack. While this observation should delight the general audiophile population, it inevitably has the small population of uber expensive DAC owners (of which I am one) second guessing the wisdom of their investment.
The reviewers pander to advertisers, and lower dollar gear outsells high dollar gear. If I say that a $10 DAC sounds better than a $100 DAC I please more readers, hence I broaden circulation, and make more money. It's a game. That said, lower end gear learns from the high end, and it is getting better all the time. If you don't suffer listening fatigue just enjoy! Some are thrilled with Vandersteen 2's, I wish I was one of them!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Steve Vu
I really appreciate Atkinson's candor here. Putting components of such a price difference on basically equal footing is rarely seen in reviews and I don't think that's because it's so rarely the case with certain types of components and cables etc
Patting the low dollar buyers on the back is good for circulation. If they only praise high dollar gear, and spank the low dollar gear subscriptions drop off. I don't put much stock in reviews because of that. I just use my ears, or try to find listeners on the net that seem to look for similar qualities in playback to mine.
 
I moved recently from a Lumin T2 to a Lumin X1. The SQ difference is not slight and I’m pleased with the purchase. I can’t imagine spending more on a streamer/DAC. I can imagine there are some who would gasp at the money spent and others who would scoff at the price compared with other Uber-expensive gear. I did a lot of research before making both purchases and the Lumin proposition, including the rare X1 fiber connection and outstanding after-market Lumin support, sold me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: L3RD
I moved recently from a Lumin T2 to a Lumin X1. The SQ difference is not slight and I’m pleased with the purchase. I can’t imagine spending more on a streamer/DAC. I can imagine there are some who would gasp at the money spent and others who would scoff at the price compared with other Uber-expensive gear. I did a lot of research before making both purchases and the Lumin proposition, including the rare X1 fiber connection and outstanding after-market Lumin support, sold me.
In my mind, excellent customer service is part of the investment in an expensive product (not only audio). Kudos to Lumin for providing that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tim Link and L3RD
As I went also through the hamster wheel, chasing for best DAC. ...what many of us forget, source is important, no doubt about, but synergy of amp/preamp/speakers+room is way, way more important!

Having a DAC beyond €40k makes for me no technology sense..just a matter of owning certain ultraphile brands.

Like Janos from Real Audio World says, it is not about chasing for HiRes, DSD vs PCM, it is all about synergy and listening to music and not eq'ing everything to perfection...which was never the intent of the original musician(s)!
 
Last edited:
One reason to try an expensive DAC is to explore solutions that would be prohibitively expensive for mass market manufacturers to try. I have owned solid state DACs for 35 years, and I’ve tried pretty much all the major brands (dCS, Theta, Levinson, Esoteric, Chord etc.). My reference DAC now is a Lampizator Pacific that uses direct heated triodes like 300B in the output stage. This changes the sound completely and I find in a way highly beneficial to listening to classical and jazz music, particularly choral and chamber music. As someone who never thought digital would rival analog in terms of natural timber, I can finally enjoy digital again. I do have other DACs in house including the Chord Dave, not an inexpensive solid state DAC, and even a $700 Topping D90. In my mind, there’s no question the Pacific transports you to completely different level of sound. Whether it’s worth the difference in price is largely a personal matter. As an analogy, you can buy a $300 digital camera to take pictures with a run of the mill plastic lens. Or you can buy a $8000 Leica. The difference in quality is obvious to my eyes. But if you don’t care about image quality to that extent, save your money. Go el cheapo. Same with DACs. You can get eminently reasonable DACs for under $500. If all you are doing is listening to background music while you work or cook etc., it’s hardly worth paying more. But if you are really into listening to music, meaning it’s a 100% total concentrated experience like meditation, then after a few years you’ll naturally find quality pays. Just as with cameras. The world’s best photographers shoot with Hasselblad and Leica for a reason.
 
One reason to try an expensive DAC is to explore solutions that would be prohibitively expensive for mass market manufacturers to try. I have owned solid state DACs for 35 years, and I’ve tried pretty much all the major brands (dCS, Theta, Levinson, Esoteric, Chord etc.). My reference DAC now is a Lampizator Pacific that uses direct heated triodes like 300B in the output stage. This changes the sound completely and I find in a way highly beneficial to listening to classical and jazz music, particularly choral and chamber music. As someone who never thought digital would rival analog in terms of natural timber, I can finally enjoy digital again. I do have other DACs in house including the Chord Dave, not an inexpensive solid state DAC, and even a $700 Topping D90. In my mind, there’s no question the Pacific transports you to completely different level of sound. Whether it’s worth the difference in price is largely a personal matter. As an analogy, you can buy a $300 digital camera to take pictures with a run of the mill plastic lens. Or you can buy a $8000 Leica. The difference in quality is obvious to my eyes. But if you don’t care about image quality to that extent, save your money. Go el cheapo. Same with DACs. You can get eminently reasonable DACs for under $500. If all you are doing is listening to background music while you work or cook etc., it’s hardly worth paying more. But if you are really into listening to music, meaning it’s a 100% total concentrated experience like meditation, then after a few years you’ll naturally find quality pays. Just as with cameras. The world’s best photographers shoot with Hasselblad and Leica for a reason.
Since I'm currently listening to a very inexpensive DAC/streamer while my usual DAC is being repaired, I have puzzled over this question. With the right support (power conditioning, excellent amp/speaker interface, acoustic treatments for the room, etc.), even an inexpensive DAC can sound very good and be musically engaging (at least to me).

For me, the large and important difference is the tone and timbre that more expensive/better designed DACs provide. If those qualities are important to you, then it is worth at least trying a more expensive DAC at home. Having had a Lampi many years ago, I understand the appeal of tubes. But solid state DACs have progressed and can provide excellent tone/timbre too. A comparison is the only way to understand what you prefer using your own ears in your own room.
 
Solid state DACs have indeed improved, but as someone who’s owned a lot of solid state DACs over 30+ years, I sometimes wonder if that’s really the case. Certainly, the modern DACs resolve more codecs, so if you want DSD 512, you will not find that on a 20 year old DAC. I owned the dCS stack 25 odd years ago (the Verdi SACD player, the Purcell upsampler, and the Elgar Plus DAC). If you restrict yourself to high bit rate PCM, are modern solid state DACs really better than this classic dCS stack? I sold mine a long time ago, sadly. I do have the Chord stack (Blu2/M-scaler/Dave), and yes, it’s a nice combo, but I can‘t say it’s unequivocally better than my distant memory of the dCS stack. Of course, the Chord combo has the classic solid state signature, so it sounds very different from my Lampizator Pacific.

Here’s another analogy. I’ve owned a lot of phono stages, but no solid state phono stage I have owned has come remotely close to matching my ARC Ref Phono 3SE. I used to own the original Ref Phono 25 years ago, which I kept for 20 years. Listening right now to a humble Technics SL-10 linear tracking turntable with a cheap Shure P-mount cartridge. The Ref Phono 3SE is so good it makes this humble front end sound better than almost any DAC I’ve heard — analog is analog at the end. Luxuriant strings and wonderful burnished gold brass marks Rubbra Symphony Number 2, which is what I’m hearing. Through even my Lampi Pacific, even on a high res 24-bit recording, it’s hard to match the sound of the Ref Phono 3SE with a humble vinyl playback system.

1668832953750.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: morricab
The conventional wisdom is they sound better (no big surprises here). The question is how much better and at what price difference, and how fast is price performance improving.

I was slightly disheartened to read the Stereophile review of the I was slightly disheartened to read the Stereophile review of the new $3500 Marantz NA11-S1 network streamer / DAC, and the reviewer commenting he was hard pressed to hear ANY difference between it and the $43,000 MSB stack. While this observation should delight the general audiophile population, it inevitably has the small population of uber expensive DAC owners (of which I am one) second guessing the wisdom of their investment.
 
I second guess the the value of expensive DACs fairly often. I recently A/Bd a 5k DAC/streamer, the Teac 701 vs a couple of 10 and 15k DACs — I found the difference on a very high end , highly revolving system to be marginal or too subtle to readily justify the additional cost. Is it meaningfully adding to engagement and immediacy? While I understand the concept from those who say that ‘it starts with the source’, my experience doesn’t bear that out. I find more value spending more on speakers, amps and preamps, bigger improvement per dollar, than DACs, and have done this A/B quite a bit.

Could be I’ve just compared the wrong DACs. I’m quite interested in the latest DCS stuff with the new software, knowing the DCS stack pretty well. That said, reading the stuff here and being a tube fan btw (always like to have tubes somewhere in the chain, and have an AMR DAC I quite like that has small tubes in it), I wonder if the Lampizator is simply using the tubes to sweeten the signal and make it more ‘palatable’. Or IOW make it more ‘analog-like’, which to me is an entirely wrong-headed way to think about digital music.

Dunno. But do know that each time I A/B, with a clean switch, level matching, etc to compare, I’m just not hearing it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tim Link
...honestly? ...OWNING it is my answer and pretty sure for lot of Audiphiles ;-)

I'm also someone spending some money on DACs and have listened to very expensive one. Going heyond 20k, is for me just worth a smile... yes, getting extremly detailed, amazing blackness, soundstage, most powerful linear psu and wordlclock ever...

So what, ask yourself:
Was it ever the intent of the musicians, singer to have the most amazing background details, or listen to his/her vocals & melody... or even worst, having a DAC adding "his sonic"?

wanna compare..go to m0n's list:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tim Link
Solid state DACs have indeed improved, but as someone who’s owned a lot of solid state DACs over 30+ years, I sometimes wonder if that’s really the case. Certainly, the modern DACs resolve more codecs, so if you want DSD 512, you will not find that on a 20 year old DAC. I owned the dCS stack 25 odd years ago (the Verdi SACD player, the Purcell upsampler, and the Elgar Plus DAC). If you restrict yourself to high bit rate PCM, are modern solid state DACs really better than this classic dCS stack? I sold mine a long time ago, sadly. I do have the Chord stack (Blu2/M-scaler/Dave), and yes, it’s a nice combo, but I can‘t say it’s unequivocally better than my distant memory of the dCS stack. Of course, the Chord combo has the classic solid state signature, so it sounds very different from my Lampizator Pacific.

Here’s another analogy. I’ve owned a lot of phono stages, but no solid state phono stage I have owned has come remotely close to matching my ARC Ref Phono 3SE. I used to own the original Ref Phono 25 years ago, which I kept for 20 years. Listening right now to a humble Technics SL-10 linear tracking turntable with a cheap Shure P-mount cartridge. The Ref Phono 3SE is so good it makes this humble front end sound better than almost any DAC I’ve heard — analog is analog at the end. Luxuriant strings and wonderful burnished gold brass marks Rubbra Symphony Number 2, which is what I’m hearing. Through even my Lampi Pacific, even on a high res 24-bit recording, it’s hard to match the sound of the Ref Phono 3SE with a humble vinyl playback system.

View attachment 100511

Have you ever heard a cheaper tube dac that you liked such as the musical paradise? I talked to one amp builder who said he really liked it but the lampi pacific was in 'another universe'.
 
  • Like
Reactions: christoph

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu