Neutral Dac?

@schw06

Forget measurements. Forget the cost.
What is your definition of neutral and uncolored? How would you possible know that you heard it? What is your reference point that would help you determine that?

How do you know that you just heard a dac that colored the sound or didn’t color it when you literally have every single element starting from power, outlet, cables, source, I can go on and on here, impacting the overall presentation. Unless you can answer these questions and eliminate all of the change factors from the equation, there’s no way to get to the answer. No one could possibly answer this for you.

Don’t burden yourself with getting to ultimate neutrality of components. When you build a system that gives you goosebumps when you sit down to listen, that is a far bigger achievement than soliciting thoughts from others on whats the most neutral DAC. Who cares. 

@audphile1 

I agree about measurements and cost. Apparently asking peoples opinions about what they consider an uncolored dac is unanswerable in your opinion. Thanks for weighing in. 

You completely missed my point but that’s ok.

Have some mention the Soekris 2541 as a candidate.

@audphile1 I appreciate your time and thought in your response and apologize if my response offended you…not my intent at all. I appreciate your advice about not seeking out absolute neutrality in system building.
Maybe I should put a little more “meat on the bones” of my point/question as the lack of background has led the thread a bit astray. I’ve been afflicted with the hobby for close to 25 years. If you look at my feedback (which embarrassingly is probably only half the transactions) you’ll see I’ve rifled through way too many speakers/amps/sources. For future system building I’m just trying to assemble a few pieces to use as neutral/relatively uncolored benchmarks to compare against. They won’t necessarily be in my primary system (but might depending on synergy).
For me, too much seasoning in a system with compensating one colored component for another is not the approach I want to take and believe there’s usually a spot or 2 where uncolored gear improves the system…hence my question about what people view as a neutral/uncolored dac.