The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype

@facten 

So out of curiosity why then do you have a $4K+ Holo May  DAC?

I was curious to find out if "better" DACs sound that much better. Rather than walking incrementally through various iterations, I rather go in all the way. I went by the YouTube review of the May by GoldenSound, whom I liked as he was the one who took MQA apart. -- I then was curious how a cheaper DAC, mainly for my secondary computer desktop system, compared to the much more pricey one. To be sure to hear differences (if there are any) go for an extreme comparison. Alas, not much difference.

@oberoniaomnia  no appreciable discernable difference but you still kept the May

@facten Yes, sunk cost idea. But I will not look for anything else for a long time.

I still want to compare it to the Topping D50 gen 1, and also the Dragonfly USB DACs. When I purchased first the red then black then cobalt versions, I heard slight differences through EarPods. Again, was curious, and they are relatively cheap. However, when the DF fails, I will get something more reasonably priced.

I hear plenty of clear improvements with tubes, phono stages, speakers, etc. Just DACs, it is not better/worse, just oh-so-slightly different. 

I did a a factory tour of MSB in Northern California in January.Their Principal engineer mentioned that the implementation of the chips and isolation of the signal is paramount in a elegant DAC configuration. So much more goes into a a great sounding DAC than just the chip selected. I found that synchronizing my clock with the DAC, transport, and DDC took my digital sound to a new level.

I found that synchronizing my clock with the DAC, transport, and DDC took my digital sound to a new level

This can be interesting. Could you be more specific on which kind of improvements you noticed with either the clock synchronization or your DDC, which particular synchronizer and DDC are you using?