I’m just a caveman lawyer, but…technological obsolescence keeps me very cautious on anything digital that is expensive…I have a thesis that a simple $300 DAC released last month is probably better than a five-year old $3,000 DAC, and so I buy simple, well-reviewed DACs at modest prices, and change them up every few years, and really don’t worry about it much. Using the iFi Zen Signature v2, and it’s perfectly enjoyable day-to-day (I have music on 12 hours a day, low volume, but always there). I know I am missing out on the quality I could obtain with say a Benchmark DAC3 (and I will buy one used if I can catch it for the right price). DEQX was apparently transformational to listeners when released (I’ve not heard it), and cost $5,000, but I can’t imagine they survive unless they just sell a $500 downloadable software package at this point
I have a nice vinyl setup on my rig. I use it to listen to a selection of maybe 90 albums that make sense to me to own on vinyl (love the music, sound quality, understanding the origin of the pressing, and the music is of a scale that it could have been played in my living room. Neil Young at the Cellar Door vs. Zeppelin). I use a DAC and Roon for 90% of my listening
I’m looking forward to the abusive replies, but maybe this point of view is a useful way to think about where to spend money on a system when maybe 10% of our time is really listening, and most of the rest is just day-to-day pleasure
Fun topic