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

@johnah5 I had an Esoteric N05XD which is a very high end DAC.  It didn't sound natural to me as in if you go hear music it would not sound like the Esoteric which was sooo quiet between notes that it was odd. 

I now have a Reimyo R2R that was substantially less than the Esoteric

I would also prefer the natural sound presentation over the hyper detailed type of presentation. There are definitely different niches of listerners and audio components.

Charles 

@simao you experience a wow moment after adding the Gungnir then pose the question, what do even more expensive DACs do better/different than cheaper ones like your Gungnir, then later you describe a listening session where an uber expensive CD player wasn't memorably better than your digital front end, which anecdote suggests you are persuaded by those posters here who state that there's no correlation in hifi between higher cost and the feeling the higher cost ALSO represents value-for-money. The Law of Diminishing Returns IS a thing in digital hifi, but the resolution of the rest of your system will determine whether you get a value-for-money feeling if/when you upgrade from the Gungnir to, for example, a Gustard R26 streamer/DAC for $2K. I guarantee you the Gustard is MUCH better sonically than your Gungnir, but whether your system can exploit that sonic improvement is something nobody here can say. You will have to take the plunge and listen for yourself in your system, there is no other way unfortunately 😕 

I guess my original question was either phrased incorrectly or has been interpreted wrongly. What I'm getting at is more technical for the most part: like, what can more expensive DAC's (which I rationally believe would have better design, parts and build) do for a signal that a much less expensive one can't? 

Also, @kairosman My system is probably well equipped to appreciate the Gustard. However, I'm quite happy with what I have. My original question was more rhetorical than applicable. 

@knownothing thanks for the thread link. What I read there corresponds to what I know about phono stages (which I'm way more experienced with than with DACs). Yet DACs, by their very nature, seem more complicated and technical than phono stages. 

@charles1dad …”I would also prefer the natural sound presentation over the hyper detailed type of presentation.”

+1

I completely agree. First that there are a lot of components with different ultimate sound goals… and consequently sound very different. Hyper detailed system unless really high quality can be accompanied by a high noise floor and distortion, higher level ones eliminate these, but frequently do not sound natural.

Second, I prefer natural sound (highly detailed… but in natural perspective) to details at all cost or accentuated chest caving bass, or super fast transients that create a cool effect, but do not sound like real music.

@simao great that you are satisfied with the Gungnir, I must admit it has been expensive suffering from upgraditis! My limited understanding of the technical design differences between expensive and cheap DACs is that power supply, isolation, and clocking are the key areas. I'm not an engineer so I can't assess design choices, but one look inside an MSB Reference was a damn convincing experience of what your money buys you when you spend $$$$. As an aside, it's interesting that "superbly" measuring DACs like my Topping D90SE don't sound as good as the more expensive DACs in my collection that measure comparatively poorly... whatever design and parts choices that lead to great measurements don't correlate with great sound necessarily.