Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days?

That being said 15 years ago there we’re great sounding dacs                            Mark Levinson 31 , there were many Multibit ladder chips out there from              Burr Brown , and Analog devices , even Phillips 

Benchmark dacs are terrible sounding, these make dogs go wild with their highly and I mean over the top analytical sound. I also had the Audio Resesrch Dac 1 way back which would sound pretty bad these days. When traveling for work 14 years ago, I had an external battery powered  $750 dac hooked up to my iphone that sounded very good. 
The question should have been, are there any current dacs that sound bad or are not an improvement over what you get in a non-audiophile cd player. I’d still take my dac in my older Sony cd/sacd player over a benchmark dac, and the Sony dac can’t hold a candle to the newer better dacs.

Anyone listen to and had time with the new Hegel D50 DAC ?  https://www.hegel.com/en/products/dac/d50

@curiousjim

I wish you luck!

@jmrrobbie1 

No but there are some reviews on youtube. If I recall, the highs are reputedly somewhat "lively". As soon as I saw that, I crossed it off my list.  Not to say you wouldn't like it. FYI, Listen Up!  is a Hegel dealer and they've offered returns on new Hegel gear in the past. 

@chervokas 

Absolutely fascinating!!  Any penny that bright can get thrown on the tracks can't happen often enough.  Do you mind sharing your background to have that knowledge?