A warm DAC?

@antigrunge2 

Some believe tuning a system akin to tuning a car's engine or suspension. For instance, to use a car analogy, which camp would you fall in? "I like my car to tell me exactly what the surface of the road is like. I want to feel every bump, crack, crevace and pothole but man, when we get to that smooth stretch of road, there is nothing better".

Wouldn‘t that amount to fighting one coloration with another? My own experience throughout many years of improving my system has been that avoiding any deviation from neutrality and transparency is the only good way to achieve life-like sound reproduction. Usually this means reducing the number of analogue connections in a system to a minimum and fighting power related noise intrusion wherever possible, ideally with a dedicated spur to the mains. 

On digital, things are even more complicated: DACs can sound very different when fed via USB, SP/DIF or AES/EBU. I have from experience ruled out optical and am still experimenting with Ethernet. In my System SP/DIF is still the preferred route, USB is making progress but still prone to interference from the 5v line and poorly designed USB receiver chips. Here again, reducing mains and IR interference is paramount.

So cleaning up rather than compensating is my preferred way to go.

Who's version of "neutral or transparent"? Listen to a Steinway in the Village Vanguard or the exact piano in Carnegie hall. If it was recorded with identical equipment down to the cables? Of course not. We are listening to the space/musical interface. Please share with us what is neutral and transparent.

My point is and has been that compensating for one component‘s forward or harsh sound by chosing another ‘warmer’ component down the chain amounts to adding colorations. I have no desire to define absolute transparency nor neutrality, when people though hear relative improvements along either dimension they tend in my experience to agree about it. Obviously intrenta, venues and recording equipment have impact on the reproduced sound, that however tends to not affect relative neutrality and transparency of individual components. 

Take a walk on the pro side. The Burl B2 DAC is highly regarded in the pro world and at $2,449 is just within yr budget. Very involving but not in a bloated way.