Massive, noticeable, subtle

Everything I have heard in DACs fits into three words. Cheap to good: massive. Good to great: noticeable, and great to cost no object: subtle.

I have tested from the $300 WiiM Ultra to the $100,000 MSB Select, and lived with the Eversolo A6 Master Edition, the dCS Lina, the Chord DAVE and now the McIntosh MCD12000. Diminishing returns hit hard after about $5,000. Beyond that point, the refinements matter only if your system can resolve them and your ears have been trained to hear them.

The measurement people are right that a well-designed $1,000 DAC measures perfectly, and I would not argue with a single graph they show me. Where they go wrong is assuming that measurements capture everything, that we have already found every measurement that matters to human perception. We have not. Science is about humility, and claiming we know everything is the opposite of being scientific.

The golden ears are wrong too, when they believe a $100,000 DAC always buys something better than a $10,000 one. It does not always. Subtle means subtle: real, but small, and dependent on everything around it.

Massive is worth paying for, and noticeable usually is. Subtle is a luxury, so buy it knowing that is what it is.