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

@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.

A lot of people are missing the point about the Gumby! I own one, and bought it used for a good price.What sold me over the other DACs is it is upgradeable. I can for a price, upgrade it when Schitt upgrades it. Also, I just love the proprietairy USB  side. Unison. I found out that I was overfiltering it. I plug it right into the powerstrip with Surge protection. I know what you are thinking, What !!!!! Straight out to a protected power strip? Yes, but I live 300 feet in my neighborhood from the transformer. And all my power is pretty good. And, I have a Schitt Freya + and a Prima Luna Prologue 5. SO, my tube rolling can change the sound dramatically!!So I feel every setup can sound good if you know what you are doing, and know how to tweek,and know the synergy with other components. We all upgrade, and it does help. But Does a 5k DAC sound better? Probably, but I get 97 percent of the way there. And I am happy. For now!

@kairosman +1

I must also admit that our biases, both positive and negative biases, play a role. For instance, the fact that ASR shills for Topping negatively affects my impression of their products in much the same way if your ex-wife likes strawberry ice cream. It doesnt matter thereafter, there will be no strawberry ice cream for me. For the record, I’ve been happily married for 26 years. Also for the record, I have no idea if my ex likes strawberry ice cream…I never listened to her long enough to find out.

@kairosman

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.

This is not a surprising finding. I have read comments from DAC designers/builders who say that even inexpensive off the shelf Op-Amps are capable of surperb measurements on a test bench. But they stated that this result is not correlated with good sound quality.

This explains why some lower cost DACs can have excellent performance numbers yet disappoint when actually listening to recorded music.

Charles