Does the 'Buck' Start with the DAC?

There is quite a bit of information available in the various reviews of players that suggests the quality of the player is important to the quality of the sound produced by the DAC.  You can't expect a PC or Mac, or any computer with a hard drive to be as quiet, or sound as good, as a player, which is designed to minimize noise and interference in the signal transmitted to the DAC.  

But... I've found that the DAC makes a huge, huge difference in the sound quality of the combination.  I have a number of both, and I've found the sound quality of the Bryston BDP-3 is about as good as it gets for the money (very quiest, very clean signal), and anything above that is likely diminshing returns.

However, I've found the Schitt Yggdrasil is far and away about the best DAC available - just a whole lot more real / live sound, with all of the resolution, transparency, clarity and vibrancy and holographic sound that you will find at virtually any price.   But, as you would expect, the rest of the system must be able to present the sound that it produces, including the player.   

@bassdude. How are you connecting your BDP-3 to your Yggdrasil?  I have a similar setup but with the BDP-2. I’m using AES/EBU currently since that’s what was recommended by Schiit, but I haven’t experimented much with other connection methods.

Everything starts at the dac, which processes the information 
once processed it goes down stream good or bad . It is in some respect the most important part of the chain , and don’t forget the digital cable- USB  ,I have compared many of them and without question make a audible difference.

Hi,

First I want to be very clear and say that we are the North American distributors for Rockna dacs and server.

Over the past 40 years I have had 78 different digital front ends. Lots of them were A/B direct tested and the best front end became my reference. I was in the camp that the dac made the biggest difference and that the dac was the most important digital piece of equipment until I got my hands on some very good servers/streamers. The server/streamer IMHO can have just as big of an impact on your system as your dac can. The problem is finding a really good server/streamer that matches your dac properly. From my experience, I prefer an i2S connection and a digital designer that builds their own dacs and their own matching server/streamer. The reason I like this is because the 2 pieces are designed to work together. I also prefer the clock to be built into the server/streamer, this saves you money.

For the record I do not believe there is a BEST when it comes to digital but instead really well designed digital. The reason I say this is because I have heard many $30000 dacs with average server/streamers that don't sound as good as a well designed $10000 dac with the matching server/streamer.

I understand in theory this should not be the case but when you get into the more expensive digital front ends, the server/streamer makes a huge difference and therefore must be considered as important as the dac.

Thank you, for the above posts. All are helpful.

It’s good getting feedback on strongly held positions, as they inform.