I guess it depends on how far you want to push the SINAD. IMO, the SINAD of the Liberty is beyond any audible gains. And while a lot of people claim that a $99 DAC has better SINAD, I think people are missing the feature set of the Liberty. And while $1000 is some decent money, it's dirt cheap compared to everything else in that list.
I'm hoping Audio Science Review gets the new ifi NEO iDSD to analyze. That could be a game changer if it tests good.
There’s definitely sense there, once the SINAD stops being audible arguing for more is pointless.
When I look at the Liberty, in my use case with respect to outputs, currently my SU-9 trumps it. I can do standard XLR out to my headphone amp, and standard RCA out straight to my stereo amplifier (it doesn’t support XLR) however with the Liberty I need to find or build a special cable or get an adapter for its secondary (I don’t care about the fact it is balanced) output option because of the space saving size socket Mytek chose, adding to its TCO.
If I compare dollar for dollar the features, the SU-9 comes out ahead with the Liberty ultimately costing me AU$1200 (
https://addictedtoaudio.com.au/products/mytek-liberty-digital-to-analogue-converter) + whatever extra the cost is for the adapter/specialised cable vs the SU-9 which cost me AU$609 shipped, so let’s call it half. It just isn’t worth it to me for that one extra feature and one extra optical input and AES/EBU, at the loss of bluetooth, 768khz pcm and DSD512 (I don’t really care, I don’t listen to music where that matters - if it even exists)