The law of diminshing returns?

@mapman 

To find out if there are any differences between DACs and what these may be, there’s no substitute for listening to them yourself. 

I don’t want to trigger another debate or an argument. But in my opinion toggling between DACs on the fly even with all cabling matching is at a minimum less than ideal way to compare DACs. This will only work if you are comparing a $200 DAC to a $5,000 one. 
I know people don’t like it when things begin to be bucketed based on price but DACs fall into this category. There different categories of DAC and each category gives you more in terms of improvement and refinement of sound quality. These are ball park:
1. under $1,000

2. $1,000 to $2,500

3. $2,500 to $4,500

4. Over $5,000 

5. over $10,000

6. And so on

In example: when you move into an over $5,000 category you get a taste of more natural sound and what’s possible. The improvements continue with the over $10,000 category. Over $5,000 introduces you to DACs of different end goal/objective - more resolving and analytical or ones that are voiced more towards musicality. You also enter a world of DACs that begin to feature decent network cards and volume controls. In the over $10,000 category the refinements continue. You also up the game in in:built streaming and volume control that gives you ability to eliminate preamps and separate streamers.

And no you don’t need a $10,000 DAC to enjoy music. Everything has to match and be on the same level. You would usually upgrade things gradually upping your entire setup into next category. 

@mapman use your favorite music to compare DACs. Albums/tracks you’re most familiar with. 

"I don’t want to trigger another debate or an argument. But in my opinion toggling between DACs on the fly even with all cabling matching is at a minimum less than ideal way to compare DACs. This will only work if you are comparing a $200 DAC to a $5,000 one." 

@audphile1 - If that is a response to my earlier post, I would ask you, have you tried it?  I would also clarify that this was not the old choose A or B comparisons we all did in the 1980's at the local stereo shop.  These were DACs that I either owned at the time or were on long'ish term loans from the manufacturer (i.e., like a month).  Therefore, the toggling back and forth was only one part of a much longer comparison process that involved a lot of different music, multiple cables, and other variations in set-up.  

My conclusion is that our aural memory is short and the longer the time between our comparisons, the greater the opportunity for our predisposition toward a certain outcome to override what we actually heard, IMO.  When I was able to simply switch between the two DACs, as a song was playing, I was much more confident in the differences and similarities I was hearing.  Roger Russell did the same thing with his cable comparator. 

Therefore, the toggling back and forth was only one part of a much longer comparison process that involved a lot of different music, multiple cables, and other variations in set-up.  
 

cool