The sound quality from DACs - is it all the same?

Astounding!

What we say here about our experiences with products is meaningless as it relates to your ears.  

Do you ever read about acoustic/psycho-acoustic relation?

Absolutely not but, if they all sound the same to you, that is a very good news because you could just save yourself tones of money and effort and be content with the most affordable one.  One new audiogoner even said the entry-level Dac is indifferentiable to the built-in PC Dac to his ears.  Then that is a even greater news since no external Dac is needed for him.

But that is definitely not the story here.  When you make transition from the entry-level ($100ish, well-received) Dac to $200ish Dac, and to $500 level Dac, they all sound differently starting from each individual freq. signature, to tonal balance, dynamics, SS width and depth as well as the imaging/separation within the SS.  I have purchased and auditioned a total of 7 Dac up to $500 during the past year after extensive reviews reading and in-home trials for at least 30 days, and finally settled with Schiit Modius and Smsl Do200.  Both of them have the balanced design and they definitely sound their best when connected through XLR cable.  So if you have balanced amp, it is highly recommended you have also purchased the balanced Dac to go with it.  The dynamics provided by the 4 volts or higher output stage is just on the other level.  

If I think I hear something different, my inquiring mind wants to know more about what is going on. I know some just want the result and don't care to know the technical differences about the soundwave that is actually reaching their ear, but I want to know. If a dac creates a different sound then that means it causes the driver in the speaker to move differently than another dac, which means the pressure variations that my ear detects in the air are also different. I'm hard pressed to believe that differences in the sound reaching my ear that I can detect are not measurable with a good calibrated microphone and some software. Nearfield testing of a small speaker should easily do the trick. If the dacs are changing things then we can measure minute differences in level at any frequency, as well as phase, timing, distortion, and noise. Any ringing, reverberance, decay. Certainly it would show up and we could more clearly define what is creating the "good" sound. Is it increased accuracy or some kind of euphoric distortion? If it's a departure from linearity then we are off into a confusing world where people who are making albums are hearing something different than those playing it back, and components are all adding an array of colorations to each other to create effects that may appeal to some and not to others. I'd rather we all get as close as possible to a standard so we can hear what the content creators had in mind for us. I don't want my system to sound good. I want it to not have it's own sound so the creative content can be delivered to me as intended. I want the content to sound like it should, and my system to sound like nothing. Or if it does sound like something, it should be the same something the content creators had in mind. I'm not doubting that there might be some real differences, and that something is indeed getting better as dacs go up in price. But I'd like to see exactly what it is, not just an explanation of how well the circuits are implemented and how good the clocks are, etc. Exactly what about the sound that is reaching my ear has changed?

DACs DO make a difference in sound.

However, as with anything else in the audio world, it follows the path of diminishing returns.

A $20,000 DAC does NOT usually sound 10 times better than a $2,000 DAC.

Get a Chord Qutest at around $2000 (one of the best DACs around) and skip the dcs Bartok at $20,000 coz most likely, you will not be able to tell the difference.

Yesterday yet again one of the ASR minions stated that there is no difference in Dacs. I purchased a new Dac some weeks ago. Prior to this I listened to about 8 different Dacs to make up my mind. Interestingly the Dacs that rated very highly in the master minion's tests appealed the least.
I listen to a lot of opera and have gone to many many live performances. Topping made the female voice sound shrill in the mid range. It was quite unpleasant after a while and not remotely lke a live performance. I would suggest you listen to a recording such as Richard Strauss, Die Vier Letzten Lieder, Jessye Norman, , Kurt Masur, Gewandhaus Orchestra. In my opinion this is an excellent recording to compare the nuances of the female voice.
The minions at ASR state that R2R Dacs are distorted. Well I guess then live performances are also distorted. They probably only listen to heavy metal. They really disparage R2R dacs, preferring Delta Sigma. If you want to purchase a delta Sigma, at least get one with an AKM chip if you can. This is superior to Ess in my opinion.