And the simple conclusion based on the above is: If you are serious about the sound, don't even consider a DAC costing less than six figures!The evolution of DACs that has produced superb measured performance and sound quality at drastically reduced prices in recent years has broken audiophile brains.
This review reads like a wounded counterattack that attempts to reestablish the primacy of trusting that increasingly expensive DACs deliver increasingly brilliant artisanal sound-quality magic. Thus the opening salvo, an indiscriminate tirade trashing the hi-fi bona fides of all reasonably priced DACs, followed by these assertions restoring audiophile pricing to its rightful place as the unfailing key to sonic excellence:
“The main things I notice as I move up the digital-component price ladder are a more visceral, less processed feel; more precisely drawn images; more color-saturated tones; and, especially, a more captivating transparency.
“Most of the six-figure DACs I've auditioned made recordings sound incredulously vivid and hyperdimensional, like MQA on steroids. Listening to these million-dollar sound systems caused my brain to wonder, how much of what I just heard was actually in the converted file?”
Our shining golden audio credo: the “price ladder”! It causes my brain to wonder too!
The negativity of John Atkinson’s measurements of the reviewed DAC is the chef’s kiss.
Isn't that obscene (among other things)?!?!