Neutral Dac?

@schw06 in your post above you say you got "caught up in the music" while listening to a $229 Schiit Modius.  To me that would suggest that going up their product line would give you more of what you know you already like. The most you can possibly spend on a Schiit is $2,700 for their top-of-the-line Yggdrasil+.  And, if you don't think it's worth it after you try it out, you can send it back and get 95% of your purchase price refunded.

For someone willing to spend up to $10K on a DAC, that seems like a no-brainer trial. 

Of course, sometimes we get infected with the "it has to be different than what I have now" disease even when we really, really like what we are currently using.  If that's the case, the Yggy probably won't cure your disease. ;-)

@mlsstl Very well said and I think that’s exactly the path I will take. The idea of having an expensive dac sounds sexy but I’m wise enough to know that chasing the dragon of the “perfect system” isn’t possible. Thanks for validating my own thought process and @ghdprentice thoughts as well. I honestly appreciate everyone’s input on this thread.

**Schiit Yggdrasil Less is More just purchased new from Schiit. It’s at a price point I’d rather support their business than buy preowned at a discount. I’m not opposed to buying Chinese dacs but do have a sense of pride when I support an American company. Thanks again to everone.

@schw06, if I’ve read through this thread correctly, did you say that you’re prepared to spend in the neighborhood of $15K to get what you’re looking for in a DAC? Now that’s a nice problem to have because IMO once you get into the world above $10k you’ve really got a lot of options and you can start considering Nagra, MSB, dCS, Chord DAVE, and the Mola Mola Tambaqui DACs, all of which are insanely good. If you start with a top shelf DAC and build your system around it, then you’ll have a stand-alone system that will last hopefully for years. The key is to be able to demo as many DACs as you possibly can without being in a hurry.

I built my system around a Chord Hugo TT2 DAC with a Chord M Scaler upsampler and WAVE High Fidelity Storm Reference BNC cables. The TT2 and the M Scaler both have Sbooster LPSU’s which are plugged into an AudioQuest Niagara power conditioner. Obviously this is far from a simple one-box plug and play solution. As if there is such a thing. But this is where my music journey took me and I’m pretty happy about how things came together.

Don’t be afraid to look at used equipment either. People who are obviously flush with way too much cash lying around sell super expensive high-end boutique audio gear at great prices just because they can.

If neutral means best measuring you can get that for a couple hundred bucks. Best sounding… well maybe subjective but not couple hundred bucks. Hooked up a Musician Aquarius yesterday and I have to say I’ve never heard digital sound this good. Good timing cause my vinyl rig is buzzing like an SOB and I don’t know what the issue is. 

Don't you find the same issue with cartridges? As many people upstream mentioned, it is the marrying of the entire system and room that you try and create that neutral sound. A better question is what is "neutral" because I believe each person has their own opinion on this.