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What DAC upgrade made you say “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?

As the title suggests, what was your overall system and DAC at the point where you bought only a new DAC and said “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?

I’m a novice and so many people talk about improvements from new equipment as if they were only listening to varying degrees of static until they bought more and more new equipment which added up to them finally being presented with music. It’s like Salome and the seven veils. But when does the last veil get peeled away? 

So what system did you have and what DAC did you swap in that made you say “DAMN!!!!”?

I guess I’m looking for night and day differences, not gradual progressions……


pip_helix
tweak1
3,533 posts
 
@ghdprentice


Apparently, that's true. Why I never investigated coax is a mystery to me: LOL

The Pangea XL 1.5m is spectacular after ~ 50 hours burn in. In addition to the spacing, dark backgrounds, amazing soundstage, I finally have bass

vegasears
1,173 posts
 
Musical Fidelity Trivista 21 to Esoteric D-07.
thieliste's avatar
thieliste
813 posts
 
I went from a Hegel HD 20 to Aqua Formula xHD Rev 2 so obviously this was a giant step!!My dream DAC is still Totaldac D1-Twelve Mk2 for when i retire.
luisma31
516 posts
 
I'll have a shootout between that and the DAVE/M Scaler combo
...
@larsman
Did you ever tried the shootout?
luisma31
516 posts
 
For the OP, no one has mentioned the front end, as a matter of fact yes, some have reported changing the server made most of the impact and I believe what they are experiencing

I have tried a project S2, rme adi-2, Denafrips terminator, holo may, all these dacs with a front end up sampler running HQPlayer
The biggest change in my system have been hqplayer, not the actual dac, good dacs will have differences with others but if your front end is crappy and noisy there is where a dac will excel over another and there will be wider differences between them, when the front end is good the Dac gap narrows

Maybe not  what you or others want to hear but it is my experience.




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