Point of diminishing return for a DAC

Usatran yup your right about the Mac however there exists a group in this hobby that will continue to believe others speculation including their own without actually trying out said components or what have you not to mention their poor choice of highly compressed music some seem to prefer while making sound quality judgement calls of components.
Is it any wonder many of them believe any specific components over their set price is a complete waist of money only for fools ?

Well in many cases this is so true however with certainty this isn’t always true something I’ve known for a couple decades.

For the past few years I belong to a small local group of other enthusiasts whom on occasion we share components ect from our own system including dealer borrowed and purchased with return policies just for the curiosity of it and fun and we certainly don’t all agree all the time , tastes ,biases and including system budgets play a big roll and the guy with the deepest pockets in the group I agree with him wholeheartedly that you do not always get what you pay for.

Anyway getting back to the OP question regarding diminishing returns , start with the Mac , the amount of noise is ridiculous masking any attempts at hearing improving sound quality. Hopefully with a better choice you will realize there’s a lot more to your favourite music , the best part of this hobby....

Just my 2c.

I've had the Yggy, Holo 2 KTE, and now the Rockna base model.  I've been able to compare them all back to back and the Rockna is the clear winner.  

From an MSRP standpoint - the Rockna is ~ 2.5x the price of the other two.  Is it 2.5x as good ? No.  So there are definitely diminishing returns at this level.    

That said, the Rockna is objectively better than the other two when you compare each quality/category individually (i.e. bass, staging etc.).  All of the minor % point gains in each category add up to a more complete listening experience in my system. 

More satisfying listening = less listening to the system, more listening to the music. 

So to me - totally worth it.  

As an aside - adding a quality streamer is a more juicy vein to mine relative to moving up from a 2k DAC to 4k+.  

So, a few have commented about the noise from the Mac.  Unsure what you mean...mechanical noise?  It’s dead silent from a mechanical perspective.  The fan very seldom evens spins up.  My mini is the latest iteration with an ssd.  There is nothing on the SSD except OS, Roon Quobuz...I can pause the music at a very loud volume, and again no noise....I don’t hear noise while playing music.  Please elaborate...

Stowaway noise on the ride out.

Interesting article...

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2019/2/27/apple-mac-mini-2018-tested-for-audio-...