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

A lotta bullsh here and in the previous post, are you recruiting chat gpt for the word salad as well?....there’s no frequency domain analyses, none, happening in human perception/auditory/cns.

Some crappy design/analysis tool never fit in your ear. Keep the human out of it and crunch away.

This is totally wrong. But I’m not sure how much reading or study you’ve done in auditory perception, hearing, psychoacoustics, etcs. I recommend Brian Moore’s standard text, An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, for a more layman’s but incomplete look, maybe Nina Kraus’ Of Sound Mind. Susan Rogers has some overly simplified but may more understandable videos at Berklee like this one, which is only slightly on the topic of cochlear tonotopicity -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A83gc7qnCPI Honestly, I think you need to study up on hearing, auditory perception, the function of the descending auditory pathway not just the ascending one.

In psychoacoustics they model the cochlear function as it splits of the sounds as a series of audiotory filters, though that's just a way of talking about the functioning -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZj1YjwJ7sE

Btw if anyone cares, this is a reasonably simple explanation of how the ear ans brain separate incoming frequencies and map them to separate places in the braind -- https://www.augusta.edu/mcg/discovery/bbdi/neuroscience-of-hearing/6-12.php

And this is a pretty good look at how the active amplification and frequency selecttivity in the ear/brain system works -- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2888317/

@laoman I actually listen to quite a bit of classical/Choral. I'm a huge Arvo Part fan. As far as actual solo operas, I rarely listen unless it pops up while playing Qobuz in the background. I'm also a huge classic/bob Jazz and classic Rock fan. The choral music sounds quite "silky" without any harshness on the E70V. The overall sound of my previous Pro-Ject Prebox S2 sounded nice and even (almost flat) across the sound spectrum. The Pro-Ject sounded excellent. The e70V adds a hint of dynamics across the board. However the mids and highs do not sound "rolled off" like one could do with an equalizer. I'm running a Luxman 595 class A SS amp with ZU Omen Def speakers. My system is quite revealing. The E70v brings up things I never heard with my previous dac (Guitar pic clicks, some mallet clicks, etc). The bottom end goes really deepwhere you can actually hear some chair rumbles, etc. However, the Topping is way smoother and just a tad more analog like without being "wooley". I hope my info helps. 

@aberyclark 
Well, too each his own. Topping is definitely a brand I avoid. Any dac that makes the voices of Renee Flemming and Joan Sutherland for example, sound harsh is to be avoided by me.

I have had 2 of the top Topping DACs a few years ago. It was not a great DAC but not terrible either. It was much better than the DACs that are in most integrated amps and cost a lot more. A warm system helps keep the Topping in check.