DAC That Punches Above Its Price Point


I’ll make it short. I’ve spent some hours reading the DAC threads on this forum. I am aware quality of digital matters as superior DACs usually the costlier ones will sound better than cheap DACs, making music sound more analog, lifelike, real, believable with all the soundstage and detail etc. All the good things. There are some who thought it’s the music that matters, and although different DACs may sound different it’s the music that makes the most difference. In other words, the differences that exist between DACs are not that important as it's all about the music. I can see the point that people are trying to make.

Back to the topic. I’ve read great things on the Denafrips Ares II and Pontus II, and other costlier high-end DACs. I’ve read about the Chord DAVE. I personally own a Chord QBD76 and have no urge to replace it with anything else since it sounds splendid in my system, for the money. I may be setting up another system and was wondering if there is a DAC in the lower price bracket that punches way above its price point, sounding close to if not better than the costlier designs.

I presume the Audioquest Black, Red or Cobalt are not worthy of consideration and sound noticeably inferior to the costlier options? FWIW I tried the Musical Fidelity M1 DAC and this one really sounded poor to my ears. Very digital sound and I stopped listening to it after a while. The Chord sounds a lot more analog, lifelike and real to my ears.

I would appreciate any advice. Thanks.


ryder
Merason Frerot is an outstanding dac $1349 you can add their power supply too which takes the SQ to a much higher level. If you want to go higher up the food chain the Merason DAC1 is an incredibly musical and detailed dac for $5500. It has transformed the sound of my system and my brother has one too and said it added as much to his system as his Vinni Rossi L2i Signature integrated and his Antipodes K50 did! Pretty amazing
"Take 3 very different caps, paper-in-oil cap, teflon film and a bipolar electrolytic of same value and the plots will be exactly the same, meaning... they measure the same”
not really, better capacitors always show better measurement results, if measured with usage conditions assumptions.

herman, for many ppl here understanding “simple” critical for sound quality path capacitor and it’s electrical model behavior, including nonlinearities, frequency dependencies, aging, dielectric loss, etc., is beyond range.
pl ping me privately if you want to discuss sound engineering problem' specifics