Does a DAC need a large/strong power supply?

I thought it was ~1M ohm…

Are you paying too much?
Easy to determine if you have confidence in your listening ability. You own a DAC which you say sounds great. Presumably it has a high quality well engineered power supply. Why not buy one of the inexpensive excellent measuring DACs touted by ASR and “listen” to it and compare to your DAC.

I don’t think it works that way, unless maybe one brings their own ear phones.

The room and the music have a huge effect, so the idea of being able to AB with an hour or two of time is not going to happen.

Some people want their DAC to sound like nothing, similar to how some people believe that the best preamp is just a passive one with a quality attenuator - nothing but a straight line with gain

This is largely a problem if one like listening to their music at very low levels.
In that case the output impedance of the passive passive pre amp screams towards infinity… and any low impedance power amp, and the capacitance or inductance in interconnects, then becomes a real (filter) effect to consider.

Many hifi designers believe you are essentially listening to a power supply that is merely controlled and regulated by your pre and power amps?

And this is also largely true.
The stiffer, and lower noise of the power supply is what does separate the men from the boys in the better sounding gear.

But, answer the OP’s question, it also makes a difference as to what the input impedance of the preamp is, and what the output impedance of the DAC is.
It the pre amp has a 1000 ohm input impedance versus, say a 100k ohm input impedance, then a 600 ohm output impedance will likely be dragged down more.

The Audio Precision measurement gear likely has a super high input impedance, so it does not likely suffer… or it is not likely to pull down the DAC’s output in any measurable way whatsoever.

Luckily, most manufacturers provide the input and output impedances of their gear. So that helps to a large degree.

 

I am afraid that I don’t follow your reasoning. If he were to purchase the inexpensive DAC, he owns it. He can then do comparative listening over what ever period of time he chooses. There’s no better way than direct comparison in one’s own audio system.

Charles

Yeah @charles1dad ^that^ works.

The idea of hearing the voices of the angels in a shop, and having that be representative of what one would hear at home is a bit hopeful (IME).
A shop has a total advantage with the room, the content, etc.

But when two units can both be shown to measure well, then it is doubtful that there is a lot left to hear.

I understand this is your experience. I “very “ respectfully disagree.
Charles

I think that depends on what we are measuring.
For instance steady state tones will not show any filter ringing behaviour. But they should show noise and harmonic distortion. (Both of which should be low anyhow.)

Large and strong cannot explain things well when the output voltage is 1V and the impedance requires <~1mA.

That is <~ 1mW, so it must be something other than large/strong. I can abide better filtering, but that can be done pretty cheaply… 

There are few places for the energy in a large storage bank of capacitors where the energy can go in order to drain out.

The ones with wall warts can also have decent filtering built into them internally after the DC comes in.

I think it is easy to put the whole enchilada into a big and heavy box and it gives the impression of quality. But how do we know that it’s better, and not just ‘feel’ like it is better?

It would be great if we knew how to do that.

Thanks @adg101 !