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

@calvinj   I did notice that the upstream gear has a lot to do with the ultimate SQ. In my case, I use a Esoteric SACD player as a stand alone transport. If the server or transport is not that synergistic with the DAC, this can have an impact on the SQ. It does seem that Esoteric DAC's work best with upstream Esoteric transports/servers. Although I have heard some great sound from a Esoteric DAC and a Aurender server. 

@daveyf exactly. I have infigo dac, cables, and amplifier. I actually use a stripped down mini pc with only audio optimized as my streamer and it’s controlled and runs Audirvāna Studio for playback. Great sound.

Has anyone tried the Holo Cyan 2? It seems to me that DACs are fairly overrated in terms of the difference in sound quality in a system compared to the amp, speakers or initial source. This seems like a quality product at a reasonable price rather than spending $5k - $40k to get some very small differences. 

@dz13 dac is very important. It’s your source. The rest of your system can only reproduce what starts there. 

@calvinj I beg to differ. The DAC is not your source. It converts your digital source to an analog signal. It is in the chain with the source which is your streamer or music files but it doesn't create the music or the type of file that the source comes from. 

I've tried some different DACs and while I get some differences, I've tried comparing an expensive DAC against a significantly less expensive DAC playing from the same source into the same amp/speakers and didn't find any significant difference that justified the additional outlay of expense.