DAC Question: Delta-Sigma vs R2R

@mod_asored, The Bricasti M21 DAC’s “advanced architecture means you can select, evaluate and enjoy three independent digital to analog converter signal paths: 24-bit delta sigma, 20-bit ladder DAC and true 1-bit DSD for DSD content". 

On my Bricasti M21 DAC, I experimented back and forth between the delta-sigma DAC and the ladder R2R DAC.  Two weeks later, I set the Bricasti DAC to the ladder R2R setting and rarely moved it.  In the R2R setting, to my ears, everything sounds truly outstanding.  The music is clearer, less dark, better bass and sounds more like music.  I suggest you audition some delta-sigma DAC and ladder R2R DAC’s and select the DAC that sounds the best to you.  

As was posted above, the technology is important but how the DAC sounds is your audio system is the only way to make a decision. 

Delta sigma is processing in a chip. R2R is a discrete resistor ladder. Neither topology predicts the SQ infallibly. Neither does the other of the top 3, FPGA. It's the cook not the ingredients.

The above post from @fuzztone is an excellent point and is absolutely correct. I totally agree with what was said.

The over all design of the DAC (the cooking) is what makes the sound quality. And, regardless of the DAC technology used, delta sigma, R2R or FPGA, I recommend you audition these DAC’s and then decide what sounds best to you.

+1 @fuzztone and others above. It’s not the architecture but rather the whole implementation and how it works for your system and tastes.

That said, IN GENERAL and just to give you a VERY basic guideline to go by, Delta-sigma DACs will tend to have a more detailed — some may say “digital” — sound whereas R2R DACs, especially those that don’t oversample (NOS) tend to have a possibly less detailed but more “analog” sound. Please do not take this in any way as doctrine as there are “analog” sounding DS DACs and clinical R2R DACs, but just to give you something to initially grab onto in your search. But, as the other wise people have said above, in the end the ONLY thing that matters is what sounds best to you — architecture be damned.