What the Best Dac have you heard or owned. How could you tell it was that good.

@vthokie83 sold my Terminator II for a Lampizator Baltic 4, for me in my system it is more accurate for tone/timber/pitch and more resolution, bigger soundstage. Tube rolling and cable swapping can tweak the sonics substantially, for better or worse of course lol.

Lampizator Baltic V4 is the best DAC I've had in my system for most vocal or acoustic music, for electronica/ambient and often (not always) large scale symphonic music, the DAC in the Lumin P1 is my preference. Among budget DACs I really like the Weiss DAC204, it's got me thinking the Weiss Helios might really be end game for me.

@dz13 IME the difference between a good sub $10K DAC like a Lampizator Baltic V4 and a great $25K DAC like a Lampizator Poseidon can only be realized/heard in a high-end system, so it makes no sense to invest $25K in a DAC unless each of the rest of the components that make up your system is $$$$. Ergo, folks who pronounce that there is no point period in a $25K DAC don't own a high-end system and should avoid making blanket statements about expensive hifi gear if they want to avoid sounding like the guy with the smallest *yacht at the posh Palm Beach yacht club.

@jetter excuse me I should not have been insinuating, I should have been more direct: apropos, you are correct that the guy with the smallest yacht at the posh yacht club doesn’t care what I think since I don’t own a yacht and don’t belong to his club, but he ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY cares what the dudes who are club members that have bigger, fancier more expensive yachts say and think about him, it’s human nature given his proclivities.

As to my point about pecking order, Life as currently ordered in a capitalist world and more directly by evolutionary biology is a pecking order whether we are talking hifi systems, girlfriend’s looks, size/quality of yacht* lol or bank account. Those who denigrate expensive hifi gear or yachts or rich folk for being rich folk etcetera are wasting time and looking some combination of envious/foolish/pathetic.

However, I will concede that you might be living in your own world as a Buddhist monk who is free of these considerations/constraints, if so you have my respect 🙏 let us leave it at that?

One thing to keep in mind when evaluating a DAC is that it is hard since it is not the source, the "source" is the combo of network provider, router, switch, cables, digital files, software and maybe DDC and master clock. I have experienced a big jump in performance from a DAC when the whole source chain has been fully optimized. Even "cheap" DACs - say the Gustard R26 - can perform at a surprisingly high level when you fully commit to optimize the entire source chain.

@calvinj i know of Ron, what does he do for a living btw? Just curious lol, great DAC collection, I follow a Lampizator thread he started on that forum.

This comment isn’t directed at anyone in particular, but the goal of obtaining giant killer aka "unicorn" gear (DACs especially) has been IME a fool’s errand that’s cost me money and time better spent on just buying the very best gear I can afford and which makes sense in the context of my system’s $ level. I do believe that one doesn’t need to spend a ton to put together a good-sounding system, but for example a $20K DAC is underwhelming in a $20K system, whereas it can be a jaw dropper replacing a $7K DAC in a $70K system. A $500 negligee is money well spent if your lady is Sophie Vergara.