What the Best Dac have you heard or owned. How could you tell it was that good.

Audio By Van Alstine Insight multibit dac from 2008.  Retail was around $900 then,  about $1250 as of 2024.  Bought it used for $300  a few years back.  Great sounding dac for the money! 

Hello, I'm new to digital. I've been listening to Lps & FM stations for the last 50 years. I recently purchased an Onkyo RZ-50 for my 5.1.2 system. The RZ-50 allows me to stream via bluetooth. I just joined TIDAL & use the phone app to control my music. I first connected the Onkyo to my analog system via RCA's 2nd zone, which was less than stellar, but tweaking a little here & there, I got it to sound pretty good. Then I decided to switch the connections to my OPPO 203 back to my tube preamp & the SQ of the OPPO took me closer to the real thing that as missing from the Onkyo. I can only imagine how a real DAC would sound with my setup. I can now listen to albums before I decide to purchase them.

My point was, that I think I'm getting away easy.

I own a Bricasti M1 with MDX processor. I’ve heard many DACs and I thought many sounded good for digital. When I heard the M1, my impression was that it sounded good- no “for digital” qualifier 

Case closed 

+101 @kairosman The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.