So, allow me to fire up the time machine here at first. Mid 80s, my father went to an audio shop and spent a large sum of money on a new Carver MXR-130 receiver, a Mission CD player and other componets, and a pair of Infinity RS4b speakers.
Not long after, I bought a Pioneer VSX-3300 receiver and already had an old pair of Advent speakers and I loved it.
During the first five years of ownership, the expensive Carver broke down and had to go in for service. I offered up my Pioneer, which cost less than half of what the Carver cost, for Dad to borrow while his unit was out being repaired. I remember him mentioning how the Pioneer sounded surprisingly good and seemed to be a bit "meatier" sounding, if I remember right. Years later, I inherited the Carver and those wonderful Infinity speakers. That Carver unit is broken down yet again. When it does work, it always seems to run out of power on strong peaks.
This is a perfect example of a "high end" audio product being outperformed by a much less expensive one.
Now, let's take any of the inexpensive DACs that perform well from the likes of Topping or Schiit. If you look at the reviews as compared to much more expensive models from, say, PS Audio, the inexpensive units run rings around some of these expensive ones.
I myself have been using an old 1793 mini-dac I got many years ago for... maybe $60? It still works fine and sounds very good, but it does have an audible noise floor if you turn the volume up a bit. In normal listening situations, it's fine. Just this week, I have sprung for a new Schiit Modi 3 to use with my Magni 3 headphone amplifier. It's a $99 product that, according to many reviews, performs very well. In fact, the ASR review was part of my decision process.
In my humble opinion, all a DAC needs to do is take digital audio (be it SPDIF or via USB) and convert it to a good clean accurate analog signal for the rest of the gear down the chain to do their jobs at reproducing the sound. I am perfectly happy with a unit that simply has a power on indicator.
My new Modi is supposed to arrive tomorrow and I am eager to hook it up and spend some quality listening time with it. My source is my PC, I have plenty of lossless music files (kthx my CD collection as well as online purchases). I am using coax SPDIF to the DAC, and I also have TOSlink going over to my NAD C368 (which I am very happy with). Why TOSlink? There is a benefit to having the PC and the audio gear electrically isolated.
Apologies for the long-winded reply, but I hope this is helpful.
