A comparison between two DACs, one R-2R, the other ES 9038-based.

OP: I’m not going to go into depth of the banter between Jason and me other than to say he felt jitter at 120 psec was “low” although he suspected it was nevertheless inaudible. I disagreed with him, holding the position that jitter at any level above 10 psec was audible in terms of absolute SQ.

Steve Nugent and a parade of others agree with my view. The Jay’s Audio transport when inserted into my system confirmed this view for me.

I'm interested in the LAB 12 DAC SE.  Can anyone confirm if it has changed in any meaningful way since it was first produced in 2013?   

More than 10 years ago, when I could afford it, I purchased an MSB Platinum with upgraded R2R ladders, one in each channel, upsmpling to 384,  and a buffer to eliminate jitter. It sounds very good. I later got an Oppo universal NuForce player for 5 channel SACD and movies. I use the MSB for computer music from youtube and for DVDs. I read that the resistors in an R2R can age and lose some accuracy over years so that limits the practicality of the very expensive ladders.
I too find it difficult to tell the difference between the Oppo and the MSB Platinum in switching back and forth in an AB comparison.

Just be happy YOU and YOUR system gets to jump off the bus very cheaply, but do not rush to judgement that the same must be true for everyone as I can assure you it’s not.

I’m generally not one who responds on here although I often read people’s posts and the trail of comments. This one however is rather topical for me as yesterday evening my friend and I tried out a number of DACs , all of which we own between us. There was a difference in each and every dac that varied between levels of apparent detail, emphasis of different parts of the sound spectrum, image , Timbre , Tone , dynamics and added sibilance or absence thereof . We only used 3 pieces of music to keep the listening session short. Broadly you could divide them into acceptable and unacceptable. The ones that made the acceptable group where only two , one single AD1865 dac and the other PCM 1704 x 8 (4 per channel) and in this instance the output from the dac chips did not pass through an internal output stage but fed to the same 15x gain circuit located in the final output of my phono stage (obviously not the equalisation part!), and each one had its own differences, both acceptable but one just reached down deeper in the bass region and gave more spacial clues with stronger imaging , the other perhaps a touch polite. Now it absolutely depends upon your system , I mean what if the system did not go that far down in the bass region to start with then you wouldn’t notice that difference. 
Furthermore the output stage on the other DACs where probably more responsible for the sound than the DAC chips them selves- but that I’d have to do more work to prove that. If you find different then that’s fine we are all different