Well Elizabeth, I owe you a big apology, I've got your thread Hi Jacked and off on another tangent. I'll respond once and then ask others to open another thread if you'd like to take it further....
This whole thing that there aren't performance differences between DAC's.... Where did that come from? Seems like my words were really twisted.
So, what I said was "on well designed Dacs" that the differences are less than that of different designs of amps/preamps etc....
I still stand by that.
Take a EE Dac Mini, A Holo Spring, A Soekris, An Ares, Denafrips and I'm sure others that I haven't thought of.... Great Dacs in their own right. All Affordable Dacs that would not be embarrassed in any system. Can you hear a difference, OF COURSE!
I have myself sat in front of many systems with other people... On person says, "The Difference is Hugh" another says, "I can hear it"
I feel like that when someone wants to hear things that they do and as our ears become more refined over the years that yes, one person is capable of picking nuances that another may not.
@douglas_schroeder Doug, I read your reviews, you've earned my respect, but I have also been in or around audio for 39 years and have rubbed shoulders with granted old timers, but none the less with some of the industry greats. I've heard many many systems and have come to KNOW that I don't have tin ears and have not needed to question my own judgement for many years. As I stated here, I think that its easy to over state what HUGE is.
@bar81 No one said that All DAC's sound the same...
Again, On Well Designed Equipment............
My own current DAC is a DIY ES9018 DAC... It was ok, I was a bit disappointed and took it to my old friend Ed Martin from Marcof. He built a filter network and regulation for the power supply and absolutely transformed this DAC. I would have no fear putting it in any system and being embarrassed, but I'm not delusional that many top notch DACs would outperform it to some degree.... So, not being embarrassed???? are the differences Huge? To one person yes, maybe, but to another, "I can hear a difference".