The sound quality from DACs - is it all the same?

What I want to know is if the left channel of my dac sounds the same as the right channel? Do two copies of the same design always sound the same? If your hearing is acute enough to be bothered by differences between samples of the same design you're going to have a really rough time, or a really fun time if you like buying 10 copies of the same  dac and listening for the best one. It may be that cheap dacs with more variation between units have the possibility of striking up magic from time to time. If you've got the ears, money and time, then go hunt for the magical sounding  cheap dac! If there's a real science to separating good sounding dacs from bad ones, that would be interesting to know. So far I haven't heard of any good explanations for why expensive dacs should sound better, other than by adding distortion that some people like. 

I assume that most of the posters on that site have never heard a high-end DAC and are fearful they will get "taken" if they buy one.  All based on the "knowledge" of all the other sheep who have also never heard a high-end DAC, but insist that they know how they will sound based on measurements that one person posts. 

It reminds me a lot of the "fans" group on Facebook for our local football team who all profess to know more than the coach and general manager, even though many of them appear to live in their parent's basements and can barely spell.

What's interesting is that Amir purports to also listen to items he measures, yet his listening impressions rarely line up with mine when I have also heard the item being reviewed.  Confirmation bias?  "It measures like this, so it should sound like that" and voila, it does!

No. 

That statement says it all your expert is none of the above .

hav8ng owned a Audio store ,parts quality and design are essential to good sound as well as quality digital cables which I just was part of extensive testing in our audio club ,and yes even a quality digital cable makes a audible difference .

on average 25% of the price of the product goes into the build including packaging meaning your $400 dac is msybe $80 in parts = Youwill hear a pocket radio 

worth of digital , there are great buys like the $900 Denafrips Aries-2  which is = to a quality $1500 dac , but I feel $2k on up is needed minimum. to get true Audiophile quality digital $$5-6kk  is the sweet spot  after discounts .it’s just my extensive observation , I spend $1k ,and $1500 on digital cables which make a dramatic improvement in the sound of any dac , One of my favorites

Very unique cables from Serbia Final Touch Audio , Lampizator uses these exclusively on their dacs. Very natural -Un digital their Callisto usb is class leading ,the best under $1k usb cable I have heard to date , the top Sinope usb cable I recently bought ,as well as Ethernet cables streaming now sounds so much more detailed and natural ,I just had to point this out.

I am afraid Audio Science Review is a completely useless site for any useful information on actual sound quality. Having been an audiophile and a scientist over the last fifty years. Amir or what ever his name is… is a guy obsessesed with measurements and is completely clueless about musical reproduction of sound. I can appreciate his interest in measurement… but the relationship to sound quality is virtually non-existent.

I have owned DACs costing in the hundreds of dollars, $2K, $5K, $10K, $17K and $22K. I assure you theyor sound is far more correlated to price than his measurements. This is because companies that produce good DACs start by using parameters…. Then they listen to then, to make them sound good.

Stuff that measures flat tends to sound terrible. Audio Science Review is really good at producing pretty charts. After put together a fantastic sounding system… go back and see what his charts look like for your equipment… oh, that is right, you will not find any… it’s all budget stuff.