10-15 year old hi end DACs are still great.

Congratulations. Esoteric is Cadillac.

I have a late 90's Krell CD 250/2 cd player that I keep in my system. I also have a Jay's CD3 MK III transport and a Berkeley Alpha Reference MQA Series 2 DAC. I realize some people will scoff but that ancient Krell holds its own against the Jay's/Berkeley combo. You have to listen critically, going back and forth, for quite a while to hear any difference at all.

Many ABX tests have been conducted with DACs and the results overwhelmingly show that listeners can't reliably hear a difference when they don't know which DAC they are listening to.

The Esoteric you scored has a wonderful feature - pride of ownership. I'm sure it was a pain to put it where it goes but you now get to look at that beautiful design, flawless finish, and know that your 60 pound beast was built to an incredible standard. Enjoy.

I had a similar experience. I love my Lampizator Big 7 Gen 4. It originally retailed for around $9,000–$10,000 when it was built in 2016, but I picked it up last year for just $1,600. It absolutely outperformed my 2021 Denafrips Pontus II, which was nearly a $2,000 DAC when new.

My original plan was to upgrade to a Denafrips Terminator II or Terminator Plus, but once I heard the Big 7, I never looked back. As an added bonus, Lukasz at Lampizator confirmed that my Big 7 can be upgraded with the latest E12 engine, USB implementation, and grounding revisions, the same core technologies used in their flagship Pacific and Poseidon DACs.

The complete upgrade would cost approximately $4,800, including round-trip international shipping, effectively turning the Big 7 into a much closer performer to their modern flagship DACs while only be all in for around $6400.

I'd love to try other older flagship dacs in the future as well.

audiophiles weren’t deaf 15 20 25 years ago... what sounded pure then will sound pure today

there is newer technology available today but cost cutting/value engineering has also been optimized -- so newer stuff is a dual edged sword -- no assurance the sonic performance will be better