What I think you fail to consider is that many of these professionally designed products are designed to a price point and have lots of room for improvement. An expensive piece of gear doesn't automatically guarantee top quality parts. Sometimes the designer has had to consider user convenience or ergonomics that are a tradeoff in terms of sound quality.
Absolutely agree.
Cheap imports from Korea and China
Yes there is a cluster of interesting discrete NOS DACs flying in through customs barriers. I heard the Kitsune Holo Spring DAC at Can-Jam through the BHSE and Stax 009s with my selected tracks on a USB stick (AIFs). It was nice, but not my cup of tea for a long term what I would call a high end DAC.
A similar feeding frenzy surrounded / surrounds the Yggy on the Head-fi and Head-case forums. I have also heard that DAC, and even though it is a great 2K unit, maybe beats some 4-5K DACs, again, IMO it is not a high end DAC. The USB was weak, it was better using SPDIF input at that time. To me it still sounds synthetic and not up with the better DACs I have heard so far. Maybe coming form some DS DACs the change in timbre is what excites those users? Maybe they should here more NOS R-2R DACs to judge it a bit more?
4 years ago, I had the Audio Note DAC 4.1 Balanced, and wanted a spare DAC for my parents house to use with my Stax 007s. I read so many insanely positive giant killer reviews of the Metrum Octave Mk1 and MK2 DACs, I went and bought the MK2. Well, sorry, flat soundstage, flabby bass, dull and uninteresting presentation. OK less than 1K DAC. Yes smooth enough v many DS DACs but NOT the giant killer it was lauded as by both hifi magazines and posters. It has a ridiculously high score on Martin Collums master list of the best DACs, so much so I came to the only conclusion that list was not worth reading.
Are there a a few standout DACs , maybe a giant killer?
The thing is, many built to a budget and small casework / physical size have a weak PS, pathetic line stage and ok digital sections. It is NOT all about the chip and the conversion, far from it. A DAC is 70% a pre-amplifier, 30% DA convertor. Ignore the rest with SMPS's, Opp amps, opp amp for I/V conversion, or heaven forbid resistors, resistors at the output etc etc.
BUT I do think there are some high end DACs that stretch the imagination in pricing. And many could say do you need or want an external clock which in some cases may add jitter? Or an upsampler, I for one believe in NON up sampling and no filtering or as little filtering as possible. Does such an upsampler just allow a less aggressive filter to be used? Why not ditch the filter altogether?
But I can't hand on heart say I have heard the dCS Vivaldi, to say it is not up to scratch. It may be amazing?
I would really love to hear a giant killer DAC, maybe one time. But until then I am in the big box big parts bigger budgets which tend, in most cases to equate to better performance in general terms. :roll eyes:
YMMV and all IMO. Opinions welcome!