Quite a few Bricasti M21 DACs for sale cheap

tvad

I prefer to compare components in my system because it offers a familiar baseline.

Agreed. It'll be the best option. But most cases ($10K dac?) it is hard to do. There are many videos of certain gears and listen to them to guess the sound. I've been doing that for a long time and my guess is correct almost always. Better than nothing for sure. Alex/WTA

If I am not mistaken, the M21 also has a third DAC - which is a one-bit converter for DSD streams. This additional DAC is ideal for utilizing the DSD output of SACDs as well as for converting high-resolution audio files downloaded from sources such as HD Tracks.

I think even the M3 has a one bit DSD converter which is selected by switching to NDSD option. That’s native DSD. You can toggle between it and the PCM. Or may be it’s implemented differently in M21.