The sound quality from DACs - is it all the same?

@jssmith 

"What if there are two dozen cars that go fast, handle great, and stop good? You gonna waste your time test driving all of them? "

Nope-- I read pro and user reviews to get an idea of various DACs' sonic profiles then based on that, I listen to as many as I can (within my budget, of course).I listened to 6 DACs in my system before making a choice. 

Music is very important to me so, no-- it's most certainly NOT a "waste if time"-- quite the opposite!!!

If you regard listening to gear as a waste of time, I cannot fathom why you are even attracted to this hobby. 

@stuartk 

I prefer to not let myself be influenced by others confirmation and cognitive biases.

I don't consider gear a hobby. I consider achieving the best sound at an acceptable cost/benefit ratio a hobby. The gear itself is meaningless to me. In fact, the less gear, the better. My main source currently is Amazon Music HD via an Echo wirelessly straight into a preamp, so no CDs, LPs or hardware streamers.

Knowing how to read graphs, and understanding through measurements what is audible to the human ear and what is not allows me to "filter" gear before wasting my time with it. I don't consider it time well-spent to listen to something that measurements show obviously won't sound any different to my human ears.

The room the equipment is in and where the equipment is placed is IMHO even more of a factor than the equipment itself. ASR cannot determine, by testing one speaker of a pair, how music will sound on a pair of speakers in all users particular rooms. Thus for me, ASR is the ultimate in snake oil.  Worth a quick check before buying something but more worthy of a chuckle or two.

I prefer to not let myself be influenced by others confirmation and cognitive biases.

I don't consider gear a hobby. I consider achieving the best sound at an acceptable cost/benefit ratio a hobby. The gear itself is meaningless to me. In fact, the less gear, the better. My main source currently is Amazon Music HD via an Echo wirelessly straight into a preamp, so no CDs, LPs or hardware streamers.

Knowing how to read graphs, and understanding through measurements what is audible to the human ear and what is not allows me to "filter" gear before wasting my time with it. I don't consider it time well-spent to listen to something that measurements show obviously won't sound any different to my human ears.

The most straight out admission of confirmation bias I've yet read.

All the best,
Nonoise

The gear itself is meaningless to me

🙄 Obviously. For those who think everything sounds the same.

My main source currently is Amazon Music HD via an Echo wirelessly 

Yup