Hah hah haaaaaa $400? Forgive me for not agreeing. Many years ago, I bought a used Adcom DA700 for $250. it was great, I used it for years.. Even returned a $2300 new raved in TAS and Streophile DAC since my $250 toy was just as good. But... Finally last year my dealer loaned me a SACD player he thought I would like. $7000. Well yeah it was better than my old DAC. So I went and bought one. I still use a 1990's five disc changer I paid $40 for on eBay.. (the Toslink to the DAC cost three times the cost of the CD changer) and golly the sound is very very close to the $7000 playing directly (vs the 5 disk via Toslink to the $7000.
So maybe the"$400" comment might apply to what the person writing it would be willing to spend..??
Yes, where accurate-measuring (flat response, SINAD and jitter below hearing threshold, channel separation above hearing threshold etc.) DACs are concerned, $400 gets one state-of-the-art performance from the likes of the Topping DX7 Pro. I recently compared a Chord Qutest ($1895 when released not long ago, and favorably compared to some $6K DACs by some owners) to a Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital ($399) and the latter was very much the former's equal, arguably just a hair better.
Now you might default to the claim that my system isn't resolving enough to hear the difference. Well, it's at least a couple rungs above anything powered by a Hint 6, so certainly resolving enough to apply to this thread. Oh, and I can still hear to nearly 20kHz as I'm in my early 30s and have been careful about hearing protection. I can easily make out the differences in Sabre DAC filter settings for example.
Had I bought the Qutest and expected a landslide victory, I'm sure that's what I wouldn've heard. I've made such mistakes in the past - not bothering to A/B the shiny new toy to its predecessor. Psychoacoustics is a powerful phenomenon and I'm now convinced its what drives the current DAC market, that and DACs that are full of distortion, measure poorly and thus sound different...and different is refreshing for some, and therefore "better."
