High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.

My Audio Note 3.1 is the best I have heard and it does not upsample at all.

Someone said the Mytek is "not bad" ... if you are referring to the Manhattan, that's selling it way short.  It's a great DAC.   Same for the Bricasti M1SE.  Lesser DAs are surely coming up as the OP says but it's not my expertise.

Bottom line with playback ... is knowing the mastering source sample rate.  There is no advantage to upsamping and MQA adds distortion.  Just the 24 or yes the 16 of the real deal file is great.

Older DA needed the higher rates, great DA never have needed it.

There is no audio perfection, and that quest is costly and pointless.

my NAD D1050 still sounds awesome 

    Imho, musical original masters recorded directly to a hi-res digital format should be the norm.  It has the highest capacity for frequency response and detail accuracy, a lower noise floor and the ability to capture the actual transient response/dynamics of live instruments and voices.
     Hi-res digital files also don't deteriorate over time and unlimited exact copies can be easily made without any degradation to sound quality.

Tim

@erik_squires 

I had a very weird experience last weekend. My friend has a DIY dac. In it was a NOS TDA1543 Philips chip hooked on a  a Rasberry pi with i2s. It could only play 16/44. The power supply was a very cheap phone charger with an extra usb cable in the charger (2nd power supply). I looked at the psu and my thoughts were. "are we going to listen to music through this?"  

When the music started playing i fell off the couch in disbelieve. The music was so pure, tangible. It was audiophile heaven......  He paid €300,- for this setup. It sounded like a million bucks.  

I'm seriously thinking to sell my own dac after hearing his. 


My own stuff is no slouch either. and i buy new cd's constantly!