many many dacs out there, new and old, with varying designs
many can sound excellent, in the right system
it is about understanding your use case, your preferences and system synergy
sometimes the differences in sound can be rather subtle (heard only in very good systems) - examples
-- audio mirror vs mhdt vs doge
-- chord vs rme
-- ps audio ds vs ayre vs w4s
sometimes they can be rather stark
-- chord vs denafrips vs audionote
the dac is the voice of the digital front end, so it is all about finding the right one with the right presentation to make the music sound right to you (assuming you have a credible, low jitter streaming source) - one illustration is that many solid state very hifi sounding systems can be transformed by using a dac with a well voiced tube output stage...
many can sound excellent, in the right system
it is about understanding your use case, your preferences and system synergy
sometimes the differences in sound can be rather subtle (heard only in very good systems) - examples
-- audio mirror vs mhdt vs doge
-- chord vs rme
-- ps audio ds vs ayre vs w4s
sometimes they can be rather stark
-- chord vs denafrips vs audionote
the dac is the voice of the digital front end, so it is all about finding the right one with the right presentation to make the music sound right to you (assuming you have a credible, low jitter streaming source) - one illustration is that many solid state very hifi sounding systems can be transformed by using a dac with a well voiced tube output stage...