Neutral Dac?

@hilde45 +1

@schw06 you didn’t offend me at all. Besides, you came around. We’re good.   

You completely missed my point but that’s ok.

@schw06

Forget measurements. Forget the cost.
What is your definition of neutral and uncolored? How would you possible know that you heard it? What is your reference point that would help you determine that?

How do you know that you just heard a dac that colored the sound or didn’t color it when you literally have every single element starting from power, outlet, cables, source, I can go on and on here, impacting the overall presentation. Unless you can answer these questions and eliminate all of the change factors from the equation, there’s no way to get to the answer. No one could possibly answer this for you.

Don’t burden yourself with getting to ultimate neutrality of components. When you build a system that gives you goosebumps when you sit down to listen, that is a far bigger achievement than soliciting thoughts from others on whats the most neutral DAC. Who cares. 

As to that bit of a background you provided, I would look for the most natural sounding DAC. I think we’re past the “neutral” dac discussion here.
From there move on to level of resolution, details, imaging, soundstage. You will begin to scratch that surface at around $5k retail price. Benchmark and Schiit won’t be your ticket. 

@schw06 there are multiple discussions you can read and learn from.