Is low cost DAC worth it?

I have found that you save a bundle of money, depending upon how serious you are about audio, to spend more, and buy less. This is a diminishing returns hobby. The more you spend, the less you get. There are a lot of items that you would have to spend double your money or more to better. Take a JC5 amp. It's not a Boulder, but for us peasants, it is. I have not heard this, but Steve Hoffman highly recommends it, and while that's not everything, it's something. Check out his review. It's slightly over budget, but it sounds like you'll be able to live with it for years. You may later want to upgrade to a Lampizator DAC, BUT you'll still be able to use this to feed it. Buy less, save more. The voice of one who has spent a ton before learning this, save and spend less!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vniWmD-HAoU

Have to disagree soix.  I did just that using my phone as a streamer into an Ares II.  It sounded almost as good as using a Node to stream in the same setup.  Never tried the Zen but can't imagine things changing that much.  But maybe they could.

@marco1 I started using an Apple Camera Adapter into my DAC and was happy.  Then, because the Apple CA looked like crap I tried this, which was a huge upgrade in sound quality over the Apple crap cable…

https://www.lavricables.com/cables/reference-silver-lightning-interconnect-cable-for-oppo-ha-2-centrance-mini-m8/

Then I got an iFi Zen Stream that was a huge upgrade over the LavriCable.  Get a good streamer and you’ll be greatly rewarded.  That’s my experience anyway. 

OP,

Pretty soon you are going to hook up a decent streamer and DAC and hear why they are important. However if you don’t invest some money in both it will sound like a waste of money. So far you have been splashing around in the kiddy pool.

Soix, i've been on a similar journey and had similar results as you. I'm currently way beyond the streaming and DAC components I mentioned earlier.  I was only trying to relate an experience I had that could improve upon the OP's current situation and at the same time keep things within his stated (very low) budget.  No question a good steamer will improve the listening experience.  The two Aurender streamers that I currently use, one in my speaker system and another in my headphone system are huge improvements from experimenting with a phone and other lesser streamers that i used before Aurender. Again i was only trying to suggest another method that had been suggested to me by a well respected person in the industry that worked rather well for me using something people already have, a cell phone.  I understand that your experience was different using a phone.

And after re-reading what I said above, i could have been clearer in my point.