A few things.
1. Analog is better than digital. If sound quality is your top consideration look instead into a record player system.
2. The quality of digital is in large part from the design of your source and especially power systems.
For point 1 this is a well-known fact among experienced audiophiles. My own digital journey stalled when after a huge amount of money and effort was spent on maximizing digital quality could not approach the dynamic performance of my record players. Dynamic performance (not dynamic range) I believe is one of the most important factors in making sound feel live.
Now, to answer the question what DAC is best to reveal layers of music information, this is something digital can accomplish well ** BUT ** your digital system including your DAC must be engineered for this. Essentially you need to strip power noise and digital hash from the system which is feeding a good DAC. Go get yourself a ESS 9038-based DAC to start off with, look for one with dual power supplies, lots of regulation and a high end output stage (ie, discrete not opamps / chip amps). Switching power supplies (ie, walwarts) are the devil and to be avoided at all costs. You need signal line conditioning and the whole system should be on some form of power conditioning such a regenerating power supply, balanced power block (you can find these from AliExpress for cheap) or a HIGH-END AUDIOPHILE-GRADE power conditioner. At the very least plug your DAC into an unused electrical circuit in your home, NEVER into the same circuit as your PC. Good power cables also help, look for OCC copper conductors.
The more you clean up the power and signal situation to your DAC the more you will notice musical details and layering. A junk DAC will always be junk, but a good DAC still needs to be fed clean power and signals to get the performance which makes their cost worth while.
1. Analog is better than digital. If sound quality is your top consideration look instead into a record player system.
2. The quality of digital is in large part from the design of your source and especially power systems.
For point 1 this is a well-known fact among experienced audiophiles. My own digital journey stalled when after a huge amount of money and effort was spent on maximizing digital quality could not approach the dynamic performance of my record players. Dynamic performance (not dynamic range) I believe is one of the most important factors in making sound feel live.
Now, to answer the question what DAC is best to reveal layers of music information, this is something digital can accomplish well ** BUT ** your digital system including your DAC must be engineered for this. Essentially you need to strip power noise and digital hash from the system which is feeding a good DAC. Go get yourself a ESS 9038-based DAC to start off with, look for one with dual power supplies, lots of regulation and a high end output stage (ie, discrete not opamps / chip amps). Switching power supplies (ie, walwarts) are the devil and to be avoided at all costs. You need signal line conditioning and the whole system should be on some form of power conditioning such a regenerating power supply, balanced power block (you can find these from AliExpress for cheap) or a HIGH-END AUDIOPHILE-GRADE power conditioner. At the very least plug your DAC into an unused electrical circuit in your home, NEVER into the same circuit as your PC. Good power cables also help, look for OCC copper conductors.
The more you clean up the power and signal situation to your DAC the more you will notice musical details and layering. A junk DAC will always be junk, but a good DAC still needs to be fed clean power and signals to get the performance which makes their cost worth while.