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

thanks for all your replies. Money and price were simply the easiest metric for me to use, having been immersed in analog and vinyl up until recently and dependent simply on the 105 before something hinted I should try a Gungnir. 

It’s going to be difficult to part with my 105. That unit is golden. Still, if a better transport can be had, then I can move the 105 to its duty as a blu-ray player in the theater system (i.e., the family room with the Onkyo).

@macg19 Unfortunately, money IS an object. Blah.

When you find the right DAC, it will not be about lack of coloration or smoothness.  It will not be about speed or openness or lack of sibilance.  It will not be about resolution and detail that brings out the sound of the singers lips touching or being able to feel the size of the room that the performers are in because you can hear the faint echoes off of the walls or the stage.  It will not be about the drums so clear and sharp that they make you jump or the feathery light shimmer of the cymbals that give you chills and make you long for the feeling to never stop.  The right DAC will make the music connect to you on more than an emotional level.  That one in 10 songs where the music will wrap around your soul and each heartbeat will pause, just momentarily waiting for that next beat in the music.  When you find that DAC, it will be like the gem you have been searching for your whole life and once you find it you simply gaze into that gem and it fills you with euphoria.  When you find the right DAC, it will not be about measurements, it will not be about cost.  It will be like that gem.

Gee, I'm such a poet and didn't know it.  We have a wide cross section of experience on these forums.  I think the wisdom of the wise is often passed over by the newer hobbyists here.  No problem, we all tend to do that.  Audio can be very personal and we each have to try and learn for ourselves.  It's not uncommon to enter this hobby focused on measurements.  We must.  We need something to ground ourselves as we sort out the bewildering amount of options.  So Watts/channel and THD are of primary concern.  Eventually, like a master craftsman, we go beyond measurements and learn to feel what is right.  Someone well experienced in audio can dial in a phono cartridge beyond what can be measured with a ruler.  An experienced person can position speakers in a room without a tape measure.  That person can find the right spots for the speakers knowing exactly when it feels right.  Go measure the speakers and don't be surprised if they are together within 1/8" from the walls.  And if one speaker is a 1/2" different from the wall vs the other speaker, you might feel compelled to move it.  And suddenly the magic is gone.  Hopefully you are able to put it back exactly where it was.

This phenomenon  of course applies to all hi-fi components, not only DACs.

But DACs have a unique job to do that is not required of any other component.  And which is impossible to achieve.  The DAC has to reassemble accurately the analogue signal that has been smashed into billions of small pieces when converted to digital.  No DAC can do this with total accuracy in the time domain.  It is possible to spend $50,000 or more trying to do a job that would be unnecessary if the signal remained analogue.  In general, more expensive DACs will give results nearer to the analogue signal.

As @tonywinga says 'The right DAC will make the music connect to you on more than an emotional level.'  Like analogue.

@thyname 

Thanks for posting the late Charles Hanson comments. Much wisdom on display.

The analog circuitry - 99.9% of all DACs are designed by digital engineers who don't know enough about analog. They just follow the app note. The specs on the op-amps are fabulous and digital engineers are inherently seduced by the beauty of the math story. There are minor differences in the sound quality between various op-amps, but it's kind of like the difference between a Duncan-Heinz cake mix and a Betty Crocker cake mix

Wonderful cake mix analogy to make an astute point with regard to Op-amplifier utilization. Mr. Hanson isn’t alone with this observation.

Charles 

I think it’s more about features or decoding the latest file rather than sound.