Hey,
Thank you for your message have googled after part umm yes a nice little small car or a good deposit for a thick car, lol.
Seriously, where you are sitting at the source of something like this, does it make a difference if you are aiming for the $1000-1500$ range or is it a waste of money?
A Youtuber in Germany said yes up to 1000$, but higher it gets quite narrow.
I can confirm that when I coupled my Fostex Hp A3, Cambridge Audio dac with a headphone amplifier and now the Singxer is standing there, it was a world of difference in all areas.
Of course the comparison is not quite fair because under 1000$ you can almost say it is only built to fit and the other is a question of cost from the production and of course you want to sell “high end” audio for a ridiculous price.
Your fancy part is clearly built differently because the parts are carefully selected and partly tested for the requirements.
So the question is, does it really make audible differences again or is it really the minimum range?
Otherwise have fun with it.
I mean it all depends on your signal chain if I understand what you are asking (not quite sure what you are asking)
You can get wayyyyyyyyy more out of a higher end dac, it’s absolutely worthwhile if you have the right signal chain
Sometimes in the high end imo a dac can make more of a difference than amp
Didn’t you buy some refrigerator sized DAC six months ago that was supposed to be the end all be all DAC? You sir, have got it bad.
EDIT: I just took a look at this new one, are you sure it’s good? I don’t see the yellow and black Hi-Red Audio sticker on it.
I’ve got 11 more lol, I just rarely talk about it on the the forum since it’s really not the right place
bah…the M21 Classic has the Platinum’s description on it’s page…and the specs tab for both are identical. no way to see what the difference is. 
So apparently it’s similar features but the platinum has the signal paths better isolated from each other and the flashier build, also more outputs
hmmm. the Classic is $5K lower in price vs the Platinum’s $21K.
sheesh!
While isolating you from your money! grumble grumble. LOL
I enjoy this hobby but man the cost for those last couple percentage gains hockey sticks up big time.
Spending some more time with it, I noticed that while it might sound a bit on the cleaner side of things, tonality is really accurate to the recording, if you give it poor material it will sound really unnatural, but give it the right recording it can be super organic, so it’s pretty damn unforgiving lol. It’s really good at balancing it’s accuracy with impact and slam, initially I thought this was a bit light in impact and weight, but now I’m not feeling that today after listening it for awhile, it really tends to be recording dependent, and also I should say it doesn’t immediately impress, but after listening more with it, it’s really quite impressive the balance it strikes. This sounds more uncolored than most of the dacs at my desk for sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a good thing lol.
Digging deeper into the staging and spatial recreation of this dac, it’s accurate to the recording and does a good job, but nothing that really stands out to me at this price point. Typically I would be more critical here, but for how refined and composed the rest of the dac, I kinda am not minding it too much. Also to be clear it’s not bad, it’s just not standout. Typically with a higher end dac, I only care about 3 things: spatial recreation/accurate presentation, timbre, and dynamics, if it can do those correctly you have me sold lol. I think the pure resolution and no nonsense this dac can provide while having very accurate timbre and dynamics to me kinda make up for the shortcomings or unremarkable stage. I knew this would be a more studio oriented sound going in, but I think it ends up being better than that imo. More listening to go lol
This is actually a very good piece of commentary. I think that I can now begin to understand some of the gains I’m hearing having experienced more and more of the spacial recreation and dynamics. I’m not entirely sure what timbre sounds like other than you know it when you hear it. Are the words resonance and decay a good substitute for the word timbre?
What’s your definition of it?
More importantly, how much of this nuance do you get and where would you place the yardstick of diminishing return? (different for everyone I know). I ask because I KNOW that I’m never going to sink money or even hear what a $10k DAC can do, so what’s the impetus for someone with a fantastic $5k DAC to move to the next tier and the next tier after that?
IMO that’s where the most improvements are to be had, in the intangibles
That would be more speed and time domain things for me. Typically when I say timbre I could boil it down to does this cymbal sound like a cymbal, or does this horn sound like an actual horn, as in like the tone of the instrument and how close does it sound to real life if that makes sense. You can have gobs of detail and other technicalities, but if something doesn’t sound tonally accurate to life that’s kinda off putting to me lol
Uh it really depends, like if I take my living room setup, the difference from lets say a 5k dac like the holo may to a dac like the totaldac d1-direct (with the d1-drivers) is pretty damn massive, but like a holo spring 2 kte to a may kte isn’t actually as large of a jump in comparison. I guess it just really depends on your setup and needs. Also with higher end dacs like this, ofc never pay retail, most of the higher end dacs really come down in price so it’s more affordable than you would think
Honestly I should really have just made a general high end dac thread lol
The timbre thing helps, I do get it. Subjective but I do get it.
@M0N would you say the MSB Technology Select II DAC is a tier above or is that just old tech?..and askew question on a speaker set up how would you rate a high end turntable setup compared to a high end digital one on spatial recreation/accurate presentation, timbre, and dynamics?..a bit off topic I know but interesting non the less?.
That’s a substantial tier above lol
About the same, just a different flavor imo, I think both digital and analog can be equally as good if you have gear on the same tier imo and you give it a fair comparison
I mean tbh for me the final test is basically “how real does it sound” and if it doesn’t sound real it then “how does it make what I listen to more enjoyable”
Although, I don’t own a summit-fi DAC, I would say I am using an end-game DAC for most. I would agree that the upgrade is quite noticeable, especially if you have gear that scales well with electronics. I think electronics play an important role in the chain and you certainly receive good dividends. Both of my amp and DAC upgrades transformed my speaker setup in which I wouldn’t even recognize the previous sound anymore.
Pretty much lol, they can make or break a system in the higher end and imo anyone with a high preforming setup is doing themselves a disservice ignoring their source gear
Timbre has a dictionary definition that’s surprisingly close to the audiophile one, it’s if an instrument (including the human voice) sounds like the instrument in question.
For the most part It’s a lot about the subtleties of the sound, for example I find timbre in the Aeolus to be lacking, everything is too smooth. The ZMF Biodynamic drivers don’t do this. It’s not really lacking detail per se, but it doesn’t manage it with the rest of the instrument sound playing.
There are tube amps out there, that can make a highhat sound more like a bell, these can be otherwise good amps, and there is a question of how much weight you put on it.
Personally it’s one of the more critical things especially in the midrange.
Honestly I can’t see myself buying a 10K DAC for headphones, but I didn’t see buying a 3K one either, and I very much don’t regret that, and I’ll probably buy another.
My 2c, for me the $3K DAC (now closer to $4K I guess) was as much of a leap over the $1K DAC as the $1K DAC was over a $200 DAC, but you have to have the rest of the chain in place to get the win.
A lot of the Nuance for me is the same across almost all the gear, better staging/separation, the ability to hear the space where the recording is taking place (which plays into the former), and the Timbre.
I also struggle to explain the differences, and I’ve thought it about it a lot, the best I can describe it is the ability to hear the small details while the big sounds are being produced.
It just gets to the point where it’s really hard to explain anything outside of “it just sounds better” lol
Thanks for this, it’s funny how much of a struggle it is to describe things that I can now hear that I couldn’t before. My first example of this was upgrading to a USB reclocker which didn’t so much ADD to the music but instead I want to describe it as taking away noise from the music and hearing silence in passages of songs now is as exciting and revealing as the music itself.
Looking forward to the timbre experience. My current cans are about at their limit I think. LCD-2 f. Still patiently waiting for my Eikons to show up which I think will open up the bottleneck that the LCD 2 is currently.
I’m honestly though afraid of the dark side, it’s fucking easy to slip down the rabbit hole of wanting more. But what’s the ultimate high right? At so many points during the journey these last couple of years I’ve said… yeah, that’s perfection right there only to realize that there’s more BUT you gotta open your wallet up wide. Really wide. 