Still, apparent performance no better than $90 D10, and arguably (imo) not much better - if any - than the $9 Apple dongle.. Look at all that grass! Why would anyone in their right mind pay $680 for this thing???
Well...
There are measurements and there are measurements
To me it’s all very tricky.
I am a very analytical, even pedantic. So of course I believe in numbers. But I also realize that audio is meant to fool us and so psychology is very important in that regard. We, humans lack oscilloscopes and we perceive music is a very odd way. Our mood matters and so a nice looking unit might consistently “sound” better - but how do you measure that?
And measuring objective stuff is hard. If you measure cars just by say radiator temperature as the only factor - then it would look odd and hard to compare.
About a year ago I bough a DAC. Me being me of course I looked at this site - numbers rule. So I got ADI and Modi 3 and listened. I could not tell the difference. While amps were easy to compare (they all sounded different), these 2 DACs sounded the same. My family could not hear the difference either. Finally a friend told me that he heard a difference and Modi 3 seem more “true”. So fine, I kept it.
Later I also got Schiit Gungnir. And I realized I can’t stand Modi 3 music but enjoy multibit. Numbers tell that it should not be the case. So why? I think it’s hard for me to hear the difference n general, so I must not be picky. I do not believe in cables (cables have capacitance and resistance, that’s all). So why do I like R2R and do not enjoy listening to cheap D-S? Maybe R2R introduce distortions that’s why they sound nice? Quite possible.
So to me it starts with the fact that R2R often sounds better for most people who compared them with typical D-S. Numbers that we use right now do not tell us why. And my analytical nature tells me that there are some other numbers (measurements) that can tell us why. Maybe R2R reproduce music more precisely than test signals and we need to measure music reproduction? Maybe it’s the opposite and R2R adds distortions and they are pleasing? I have no idea, but I think we would need way more numbers before we can predict how nice DAC will sound.
And for noise and distortions - there is a certain level that you need to reach, after that IMHO these numbers are irrelevant. Having 1% distortion would be bad. But the difference between 0.01% 0.00001% is irrelevant and given our human perception two units with several magnitudes of difference should be considered equal - as in “distortion below audible threshold” for both.