Well, I’m glad it helped. I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise had you not asked the question first, so kudos!
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That’s an interesting comment and it makes sense to me.
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I would say that the upgrade from a D50 to a Bifrost 2 for me was definitely noticeable and worth, but the immediate difference a higher tier dac like a la voce s3 brings is just nuts. I can absolutely understand why there’s so many people that think dacs don’t matter… there’s just no wow factor in the budget end for dacs and you have to start spending into $$$$ to really start getting that.
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I’ll add to this, at one point I had two what I would consider significantly different DAC’s at a comparable “level” in my system (Lampizator Amber 3 and a Aqua LaVoce S3), and could swap between them using a passive pre amp. One of those is R2R, the other DSD, one of those is an NOS DAC, one not, one of those has a tube output section, one is SS.
Because of the way my system was setup, both would be playing the same input signal at the same time at the exact same line level.
I could not hear any change at all on an instantaneous switch, but give it 60 seconds and I would know definitively which one I was listening to.
The difference isn’t in Frequency Response, though sometimes people talk about fuller Bass or Dark/Bright, it’s all in the presentation, and fast A/B’s really do not expose it.
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This is something that I think holds true regardless of what you are trying to compare. Longer term A/B is totally viable, but quick switch A/B almost never leads to any usable or accurate results imo
It’s basically everything that’s not frequency response lol
And a quick note on dac technology as well since you bring that up. While there might be some smaller constant characteristics, the type of tech the dac uses or what components it uses doesn’t really mean it will sound a specific way. As mentioned earlier it’s all in implementation and things can vary a wide range, so when looking for a dac I wouldn’t get stuck up on the actual tech inside but more focus on the end result. There’s no real superior tech over the other or the “right” way to do it, there’s many different types of approaches to making a dac, and the majority of them can be pretty excellent as long as they are executed/implemented well.
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Absolutely to point this out for the above two DAC’s
Amber 3 - DS DAC
LaVoce S3 - R2R NOS DAC
And yet the LaVoce is the more technical of the two, more resolving, more analytical, and the Amber has the more natural stage, and more “analog” sound.
I feel like this is a generally good thing to get to grips with for all kinds of gear (and not just audio). I suppose that’s a side effect of us seeing digital technology as being theoretically precisely knowable as opposed to the supposed fuzziness of analogue? I’ve come recently to think of that as a bit of a distraction as at some point it all has to return to being a waveform in order to be heard.
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Digital signalling, especially at higher frequency, is just all layers of hell.
Analog is, expensive in space, time and knowledge.
Especially when some guy with a camera strapped to their head has very little idea and just does Buzzword Bingo. “Class AB biased into A” is a common thing people say, and looking at the circuits of a lot of devices described as such, there is no biasing at all… (outside of the one to work around the Crossover…, anyway)
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I’m definitely late to the party and also have trouble describing the benefits of higher-end DACs through text. I would say it has a very large impact on presentation and the technicalities that fool you into “sounding like the real thing.”
During my first DAC ~$100, I would say the presentation was extremely narrow and flat. It still did what I needed it to do and it was smoother than my direct PC. It was almost like most of the instruments were coming from a single point in space, but not as bad as a mono speaker.
After upgrading to a ~$700, the presentation was much wider and taller, but things were still flat against the wall. The timbre was more accurate and things were smoother.
When I got to Amber 3 level, the stage became more real. I felt like I was imagining a performance happening in front of me. The texture of the sounds coming from the instruments were more realistic. I was starting to pick out instruments and can distinguish a violin from a viola from a cello, etc.
At a level above that, it just adds more of the realism. Now when I close my eyes, I can imagine reaching out to the performers. It is very holographic. I can hear the space between them. Lots of room information, lots of microdynamics and detail.
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Without reading any responses just your initial post. If a system was compared to a car:
Music Source = Dash (feedback to driver) and driver controls of the vehicle
DAC = Suspension and road handling ability
Amplifier = Engine and drive train
Cables = Performance enhancements made to drive train.
Speakers/Headphones = Windows and your total environmental visibility.
Now take a while to think about this. Over the past 36 years I have had the pleasure of driving a variety of makes, models and styles of vehicles and I can absolutely tell you all about the type of vehicle I am driving based on the “feel” once on a variety of road courses. A stereo listening system is very much like a vehicle and in this example it think I have captured a really great way to understand how different equipment affects the performance.
Exactly like in a vehicle the further up the performance and cost scale you go the more impact you get from each subsystem on the overall entirety of the whole. Once you get the analogy you can’t “unsee it” and you will understand how all this works. Unfortunately if you have not had experience driving a variety of vehicles that had true performance differences you still won’t understand and you may simply question if there is an actual difference in performance and driving experience between a $30K Toyota Camry and $250K Rolls Royce.
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I know @M0N went a little extra with his analogy, but I also liked his comparison to a water system. It made sense to me and what the DAC and other components do.
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For me despite the fact that I was fortunate enough to spend some hours listening to very high end systems, until recently I did NOT know what I was listening for! Sure stuff sounded great but the truth is that with my eyes closed I could not tell the difference between $10K worth of gear or $100K because I was still uneducated, inexperienced and still focused on old biases of what constituted good sound from 30 years past and a lifetime spent focusing on volume and bass never the nuances of quality.
Currently when listening to music the “tighter” my ear gets the more focused the musical genres get because I am being more and more critical of the equipment with each extended session. This is why for the most part when you visit anyplace that is auditioning high end gear you will hear jazz or classical much more than modern Rap and Hip Hop.
Same as when I get into a vehicle, I will get much more sensory feedback driving a long winding course across many miles with the ability to vary speeds, as opposed to driving 50 blocks across a major metropolitan city going block to block and red light to red light.
Lastly, I will get much more sensory feedback comparing a nissan sentra, to chevrolet corvette to a ferrari, to a bugatti than comparing a kia soul, to a camry to a avalon to a trailblazer… Both comparisons will yield some telling results but the impressions of the latter will not be as severe in impact as the first.
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Ok so I had to think a while about this analogy. Not because I don’t understand what you are saying but because something about it made me have a very different reaction to the food one earlier in this conversation. I don’t have that experience. I’ve never driven a car that cost me more than ten thousand euros and I never will. I can understand your analogy, it’s easier than getting dacs because it’s about something mechanical. Even cheap cars vary a great deal so it isn’t hard to imagine that expensive cars would too.
Then I realised what it was. My reaction was “well yeah but that cheap car still does everything I need, it still has value”. I think something we skate carefully around in all this is cost. Not all of us can afford the expensive experience or every will be able to. We do want to all share our hobby though so we find ways to talk about it that don’t make it about this. Still sometimes it is hard not to envy those of you who have the cool expensive experience 
I could react two ways, I could listen and try to imagine the things that are talked about. Try to find similar things in my own cheap gear and I think this is where the hobbies like cheap tube rolling arise. Trying to find lower cost ways to experience different flavours. The other way is to ‘prove’ it is a meaningless waste of money and that the best things are the cheap ones anyway. That’s where measurements come in. For a lot of people who will never get an expensive experience it must be very nice to be able to say
“yeah? Well these numbers prove that you are making it up and just wasting your money because my low cost choice is not just as good but better even!!”
So yes. I feel like this might be the heart of the subjectivist / objectivist divide for a lot of people. Sometimes it is annoying to hear that the gear you have lovingly collected and enjoy listening to is actually just very average. I can empathise with those who respond strongly even if I think they are misguided.
I have no real conclusion to this idea. Just food for thought Thank you @NickMimi for your comment. It sent me on a really interesting line of thought!
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Just to offer a different perspective. I kind of disagree with this (about not being able to afford the expensive experience). I see this comment in some shape or form a lot. But if you think about it, all this can be achieved by shifting your priorities. If you want something, then naturally you would be willing to sacrifice be it time, money, or effort. That being said, I’m well aware that everyone’s situation and status is different and by no means am I trying to downplay that. But is it really that you can’t afford it or is it because you’re not willing. It’s all a balancing act that takes time, experience, and maturity to develop. If you set a goal for yourself and work towards it one step at a time, then I definitely think it’s possible for anyone to experience what we’re talking about here.
Anyway, slightly off topic but hopefully you understood the point I was trying to make.
Thanks for that, I do get what you mean and it’s a good point. It is all relative however as you also suggest.
The reality is that I will never own “high end” gear simply because if I did save up that kind of money there are far more important things I would need to use it for. That is about priorities, yes. For perspective an investment of five hundred euros is a big deal for me. One I have to think about for a few weeks before making because if it is a bad choice then I can’t afford to write it off.
That is the cool thing about audio though! It can include people on low income and very high income and we can share and exchange our enjoyment! I think we should be careful about telling people that if they really wanted to they could have the expensive toys though because not all of us can without it being a very poor life choice. That said I do think your point about priorities is a good one. One of the things I get to enjoy is anticipation. It takes me ages to get a bit of gear. I think about it, plan for it, save for it, look forward to it and treasure it when I do get it. I think that aspect is stronger for me than it might be for those with more disposable income. That’s my advantage! Others may envy it if they wish 
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This is very good discussion and I am still trying myself to understand and appreciate difference between the dacs.
I wanted to point out that you don’t necessarily have to buy/own a higher end gear to have a chance to experience it.
I guess one way would be to find another people in your area who share this hobby and try what they have. This might be tricky and I am struggling to find anyone besides my wife who would be interested in this hobby. I would be actually very pleased to let people try what I have and share thoughts and vice versa.
Or like some of the members here who are in US loan the gear to each other for a certain period of time to try it. I feel like Europe community is much smaller here so it is harder to build the system and trust but still it would be nice option. In that way you could experience more expensive gear and see if that is something that you value enough to justify the investment.
Also if you have some dealers around where you can demo gear would be great. Again not something available where I live that much.
Additionally if you buy used and you get a good price you can still sell it later and minimize the loss. I am still learning to do this lol.
But I also get the point with prioritizing things in life and also this links a bit to the other topic with peers/community pressure. It is awesome to be part of this community but it is also hard to not thinking about how on earth can Susvara sound on 20k Dac and 10k amp while reading experience with such setup of other members.
To be honest I don’t see any pressure here in this community just incredible amount of knowledge and love for music and gear.
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Absolutely agree with this. I don’t think this conversation is possible in many places online which is precisely why I find it so valuable to have.
I’ve noticed this in other hobbies too. I think in Europe we live closer together so there is much more emphasis on local activities and less on things like get togethers and loans or swaps. A pity really! I get the impression that in some countries it is a more common hobby? I am from the UK originally where there is a tradition of hifi enjoyment. I got my interest from my dad who used to collect hifi stacks for his vinyl. These days I live in Belgium and I don’t know of anyone who thinks music fidelity is worth spending money on, even those who are into music don’t think that spending money on gear is worthwhile. It’s deeply weird to me! Everyone I know thinks I am crazy for owning five headphones, I’ve never even bothered to tell them about the amps and dacs 
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My analogy was to prove a point and i had to think really hard to come up with it, but once it finally came to me i could no longer “unsee” the similarity and it is now stuck in my head and forever will be the way i view this hobby. This analogy is the most general purpose application i could come up with that would make sense to the bell curve average user, and i plan on using it next time a co-worker or anyone else decides to get into deep discussion on the money i waste/spend on this hobby and why. I happen to work with many mechanically inclined individuals along w/ having a knack for equipment and tools myself so all this makes sense in my mind.
The beauty of this analogy is that it should give an astute hobbyist HOPE! Exactly because we are talking about mechanical items, physics, and set in stone science mixed with “performance enhancements” that you can “feel” despite the science behind the numbers. Next, do a search on “Poor man’s sports car” or anything high-end hobby related and add the word “POOR” in front of it and you will find thousands of examples across many hobbies of enthusiasts finding work-arounds to get similar performance to the “big boys” of their own beloved hobby. The arguments, experiences, conversations, and back and forth banter within their own hobby worlds will mimic our own.
Yes some things are cost prohibitive, but don’t necessarily remain that way forever. If you told me back in 1989 that i would one day have enough computing power in a device i carry in my pocket and use it to “facetime” my mom on a daily basis while living halfway across the world; while driving to work in the morning on the highway, as naturally as i would converse with her standing in the room next to me back then, i would have thought you insane despite the fact that the science was there but NOT yet accessible to me. And then we would probably argue about the fact that it is NOT the same as being in he same room but only a facsimile, until someone figures out a way to make even this task more life-like someday.
Anyway, back to the topic on hand. A DAC and what it does is a single part of the musical chain and it has all different applications and performance metrics situationally dependent. I have an old CD player, which i used for many years in my living room, that was an all-in-one unit with detachable speakers. I used it daily along w/ the radio function and was very happy. I saw no need to go beyond its capabilities. A few months ago i tried to incorporate it in one of my set-ups and was very saddened to find that in no way was its performance any longer acceptable to me. We grow, i grew, my equipment grew, my priorities changed and my desires refined over the years. My knowledge base and experience of musical reproduction was no longer the same and I was instantly able to recognize that old CD players limitations. It still played music “just fine” but i could now instantly hear the differences between what is acceptable to me and what is not.
Today, i am better able to articulate and understand differences that 4 years ago i did not know existed. Heck, on a monthly basis my experience and knowledge grows in this hobby because i choose to rabidly persue my own growth in it. I have opened my mind to the fact that a mixture of science and “feel” need to co-exist in this world. I no longer JUST “listen” to 2 channel, I now close my eyes, sit in a very dark room and “watch” the music being played. Wrap your head around THAT comment and come back to me later. 
. 
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I had to re-read your post several times to grasp the fact that the discussion is also about “feelings”, and being “butt hurt” over what other people say and do, especially on the internet.
Yes, THIS place is a pretty “nice” place, i get that. Myself and others try to share our joy, knowledge and experience as we grow in this hobby. Way back in the late 1980’s and early 90’s i actively participated in what was known then as car stereo competitions. There was More than one circuit, each with a different focus and separate classes for various forms of competition so that there would be a broad spectrum of abilities and price points people could participate in giving everyone equal footing to pick and choose based on both their fiscal and experience levels where they wanted to play. There were always outliers and those folks were well known in the community and as the “sport/hobby” grew we separated out amateurs, professionals, manufacturers etc. and i still remember folks actually LYING about their abilities and affiliations in order to participate amongst less experienced individuals just so they could “win” at something.
We self policed and if you were caught, you would get banned from that class and be forced to move to the appropriate class of participation or “get the fuck out” so that the playing feild would not be terribly skewed. Some folks, got SO good at it they voluntarily stopped participating in the competition and simply showed up to share their knowledge and experience so other could have a chance to learn and grow.
The hobby grew and so did the abilities of the equipment because there was money to be made and some very passionate people sided with some very business savvy folks and we are where we are today 30 years later.
Some folks get very competitive, and find places and ways to exhibit that nature. We all react differently to this competitiveness in life. I think is see partly the other discussion points you are making. I’m so focused in my own little bubble my blinders keep me ignorant of the world/community around me at times. Lol, i grew past pure science a long while ago and incorporated “feel” into the hobby and never questioned that some things just work. I believe i have been known to refer to this as synergy and never thought anything weird or off about it.
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Fascinating!!! (insert Spock picture here)
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