How much does a DAC do the more expensive it is?

just getting an early rise on president's day morning 🤣🤣🤣

Depends upon clean power, all cables and all components.  You need a quality source and analog side to hear value in your DAC

I was in the camp of DACs under $2K being more than good enough for my needs. Especially with the Benchmark DAC3B for my tube headphone amp. I like it more than all the other DACs I tried with this amp.

Some of the lower priced DACs I have owned include:

• Matrix Audio i-3 Pro
• Topping D90LE and D90SE
• Benchmark DAC3B
• Audio Mirror Tubadour maxed out version from 3 years ago.
• Gustard X26 Pro
• internal DAC Peachtree Nova 150 and KRELL K-300i

All of these DACs were sort of the same level (except Peachtree). I enjoyed them when I had them, I still have the DAC3B. I think it is the best in this group.

I wanted to try a little bit more expensive DAC, so I got a Musetec 005. This DAC is slightly warm on my gear but it is also better than all the others listed above. Only caveat was that it was not good on my tube headphone amp. The DAC3B was preferred on that.

I recently got a used Lumin X1 and I find it a bit cleaner sounding or less warm than the Musetec 005. I think the 005 was purposely made slightly warmer but I like the X1’s sound a bit more now, especially with my neutral Benchmark preamp and mono amps.

I have saved up some cash to buy a very expensive amp for my Livingroom. However, I also need a third DAC and after my Lumin X1 experience I am going to try out the Playback Designs MPD-8 DAC. I was planning on using the Musetec 005 and the MPD-8 is a lot more $.

I like the idea of FPGA based DACs but did not want a Chord or PS Audio. If the MPD-8 DAC does not deliver the goods, I can easily sell it for close to the buy price and use a Musetec 005 which matches nicely with slightly warm cheaper amp I got.

Is it akin to what a good phono stage can do for a cartridge?

Yes that’s very close. It’s much less about the chip or any other circuit that does the conversion from digital to analog. Like the phono pre or a preamplifier or an amplifier it’s mostly about the power supply and the analog circuits. As in a pre, or the others, these can be very elaborate (and expensive) or very cheap (and cheap). There are no bounds on what these can cost. Then there are the cases that can cost more than the components within. You must, yourself, draw the line and perhaps seek out the bargains, that is, find the best value for yourself.

@mastering92 Thanks for the comprehensive answer along those points.