What DAC upgrade made you say “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?

Moving from a Mytek Liberty to a Audio Mirror Tubadour III SE I saw a very clear and substantial improvement, all other things in my system being equal.  Later I bought a PS Audio DirectStream Sr. DAC, it wasn’t as bright an improvement but it is clearly a better sounding DAC - in my system.

When I bought my Linn Selekt DSM with the "Katalyst DAC". All digital sources are fed thru the SDSM and make their way back to analogue via the Katalyst DAC and ultimately the analogue output stage. It really has been a voyage of rediscovery. Worth every penny to me. 

The new Linn KDSM is very impressive and very expensive. The concept will eventually trickle down in the way of upgrades to other systems since they are modular to some degree. 

Love my new Gustard X26Pro dac, beats my D90, RME ADI2 and previous Audio-GD DAC19 & Master/NOS11Extraordinary naturalness, both in timbre and detail on my main speaker system (Marantz PM11S2/Harbeth SHL5+40th), also the added stage depth is quite wonderful.

Apologies if this was already mentioned, but it's important to consider DAC type. Depending on implementation, there can be "night and day" differences between a tube-based DAC, a delta-sigma style DAC, an R2R NOS DAC, etc. 

Especially if it's your FIRST time hearing a DAC in a new style, it may hit you like a ton of bricks. In a good or bad way.

Once you've listened to a lot of DACs and learn what you like, listening to DACs in the same/similar build approach and within the same price point will be a more subtle experience. No "night and day", need a more extended listening process to determine what it is you want to live with long-term.

Go Streamer first. I'm analog-first but have been futzing with non-CD digital for a decade, having spent over two years bit-perfect-ripping 6000 CDs. DACs on two systems are currently mhdt Pagoda and Pagoda Balanced, and M2tech Young 3. R2R with tube buffer outputs and discrete i2V stages in the former; delta-sigma in the latter.

Have tried direct wire to DACs, and for several years used AppleTV Gen2 via Toslink for 16/44 as a decent convenience while I ripped discs.

Auralic Aries G2.1 on main system and G1 on secondary are revelatory. Better over their optimized wifi than (of course) AppleTV and direct copper. Now have 4TB of ripped CDs + Tidal HiFi + Quobuz streaming to the two mhdts via Auralic's excellent Lightning DS management app. Considering serious expense upgrades to DACs (Bricasti M1 Gold, M21, M3) for two systems. But while I sort that, the streamers seriously elevate the existing mhdt R2R DACs. Auralic does MQA emulation (which I think is better than real MQA) and their streamers include a 1gB playback cache with deep dejittering. I'll venture to say, the streamer is the key component before you sort the DAC.

Phil