A great and informative post by the reviewer John Darko recounts the annual changing DAC flavor of the year every year for the period 2010 - 2026:
Reconfirming the known: DAC hierarchy
I have used separate DACs since the late 1980’s. I have had many and understand the hierarchy well. But recently just had a reconfirmation. As always hearing the differences is always more striking than just thinking about them.
About five years ago I was helping introduce a friend to the high end and ultimately build a system. He wanted to start inexpensively so I suggested a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC and since I needed to upgrade my office system I bought a Schiit Gundgnir multibit ($1.3K) for him to check out and he ultimately bought the Yggdrasil (A2) $2.5K. Not long after he bought ARC equipment with a Linn front end with Majik DAC... a very notable upgrade... then a couple years later upgraded the DAC to Exakt... for a surprising improvement... he was shocked. He experienced the multiple surprising improvements Gundgnir --> Yggdrasil--> Majik --> Exakt.
My office system was pleasing until a month ago or so my Gundgnir bit the dust. I asked to borrow his unused Yggdrasil. I was shocked (this is what keeps you in this pursuit for a lifetime) how much better the Yggy sounded... I knew it should and I could describe the difference before putting it in... but when I did I am always surprised at how obvious and substantial it is. My friend was kind enough to sell me the Yggy so I didn’t have to buy a new one.
I had lazily used my M4 Mac Studio as a streaming source when I had gotten rid of the last of my Microsoft / Intel stuff ( big tower for the desktop computing). So since I had to pull out the audio rack I decided to use the Bluesound stream I had gotten for breaking in cables and stuff. Wow, a big improvement... I mean, I knew it was coming... but it's alway surprising when you hear it an it sure was a reconfirmation of how a really low level budget streamer is better than a PC. Which I have proven to my self many times... but that still, when I hear it is just really obvious
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Well written post. My first external DAC was a humble Topping E30 for a $130, and it was an improvement from the stock DAC in my early 1990s Denon CD player. Some articles had suggested that it probably wouldn’t make an audible difference, but others said it might.... I was curious. After it died 3 year later, I auditioned to a handful of potential replacements that all sounded different, ultimately settling on a modified SMSL C-100 that got a MUSES02 opamp upgrade and a regulated linear power supply. I know there are better, but I’m still really pleased the result. |
@facten a high end pc can mimic any streamer if you know how to write code so any program you can run on a pc. A streamer is just a stripped down pc and over inflated prices. Technology is technology and chips are chips. |
@facten + 1 |
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