@cavy
If by outstanding you mean complete dog💩, then yes. I mean, look at the L3’s
filter response in NOS mode, so much aliasing/images, as a reference to what is good, I present the
Chord DAVE’s response, and also let’s look at the
insane amounts of IMD, as a reference,
I again present the Chord DAVE’s IMD.
Simply put, you are blindly believing what you read online by people who think they know what they are talking about and also likely believe in cable risers and cryo-frozen cables. I haven’t seen any R2R DAC on the market that is more transparent than an equally priced DS DAC. And yes, I did say “see” and not “heard”, if you believe you can evaluate a DAC once you know what it is, you are deluded, you have to look at measurements and/or do a scientific double-blind listening session.
Being “more musical” is a non-descript term, some people (like Paul at PS Audio) use it to mean transparent, whereas other say it’s the enjoyable audible THD and boosted bass of a tube amp, others describe it as something else.
A DAC converts digital to analog, it only controls a few things:
* Frequency response linearity
* Channel mismatch
* Channel crosstalk
* Noise floor level
* Volume linearity
* THD
* IMD
*Jitter reduction
As well as few other things, some being blown out of proportion, like phase mismatch (there is no time smearing by even good $9 DS DACs, despite what MQA proponents will lead you to believe).
