A new dac?

Good idea to try lower cost options to compare  first and return if needed.  
 

DAC technology has matured to the point where it’s almost a commodity item.  There are differences among them but shame on any company that manages to offer a bad one these days.  I have yet to stumble across a bad one these days. The further you go back, the more mediocre ones around when compared to today. 
 

Dare I say it’s a golden age for DACs these days. 

Let the Black Friday shopping begin!

Dare I say it’s a golden age for DACs these days. 

i would tend to agree with you @mapman 

schiit and numerous chi fi brands have really made budget dacs better sounding than ever

that and the bluesound nodes (w lps upgrade) make for a pretty much unbeatable, great sounding dac/streamer combo for those coming into streaming for <$500!!!  

@mapman 

@jjss49 

+1

Yes, I agree. DACs have come so far that you can get decent sounding budget DACs. I remember getting screechy sounding DACs with poor dynamics for a lot of money twenty years ago. Even DACs for $10K were not as good as today. 

Of course when put up against high quality DACS jumping to $5K and $10K they are even better. But huge progress in all categories. 

A friend of mine just upgraded from essentially a $3.5K Linn DAC to a ~$7K Linn DAC... I got a call with one estatic person... telling me he just could not believe that anything could have sounded so much better... He had been afraid he had wasted his money... now he thinks it was cheap, 

So, yes, it is a great era for DACs.

I got the Laiv Harmony Dac. Last year it was 'the thing.' Most audio youtubers gave it raves. Then Laiv came out with its DDC which these same youtubers raved about saying it brought the DAC up a notch. So I got it and I heard a clear improve in its already very good sound. It cost total $3,500. Only a DAC obsessive can tell you if you can get the same sound for $2,000. A youtuber compared the combo  favorably to the Denafrips Venus 15 which last I saw was $4,000.

There are then other youtubers who claim a $150 DAC sounds as good as one for 30K. I'm not sure how they know this. Did they have unbiased acquaintances do a blindfold test? I bought a cheap Schitt to use when my previous expensive DAC had to be repaired. The Schitt sounded pretty good. I had to keep it a while as the repair took a long time. When I finally got my old DAC back in the chain its superiority was striking. A placebo effect? Does it matter? It's what you hear that matters. I don't have the capabilities to do a blindfold test. I'm the only audiophile among the people I know who are as heavily into music as I am. So there is nobody I know who can set up a blindfold test for me of 7 DACS at wildly varying price points as one of the anti expensive DAC youtubers claimed he did. That is the loud angry one who claims everyone is being scammed.