For me it’s my 1974 Marantz 2325 > Sprout 100 > La Figaro 339 Tube Amp > Chord Mojo. There is a big drop off at each downgrade. I got into the whole headphone hobby because I didn’t want to spend the money on expensive speaker amps and the other components. There is no THX 789 equivalent (yet) that punches way above it’s price point that I’ve seen. But, if you do invest the money, you also won’t have to upgrade as often as you do with desktop gear, and you will be future proofed if you ever want to get yourself a pair of RAAL SR1As (I do).
Also, what kind of levels do you guys listen at?
Oh…loud, these beg to be played loudly. BUT, they also sound just fine at moderate volumes, but damn do they get enjoyable at excessive volume 
To get them to sound good on the Mojo, I really had to crank the volume to a point where the sound distorts. It would be deafening on any other headphones I owned
These headphones produce a good amount of “ear wiggle” when pushed hard. They are the loudest clean headphones i own, but the volume levels they push out Make my ears ring afterwards so be careful.
Damn, i had to look up that Dac, sweeeet!
I mainly play at “reasonable” levels. Most people would say it’s reasonable
It’s a really good dac for sure. I do have my better studio dac but I kinda get more enjoyment out of the spring
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I’m just going to wait for the next generation when comfort and sound improve lol
So, I have 3 pure Dacs i play with. Each different chip set, so i can figure out what sound i prefer and then later on decide if i want to make a step upwards into upgrade-itis-land. The truth is tho, I’m finding myself satisfied with each one and haven’t been able to pick an upgrade. If, you don’t mind, what sound quality aspect was most influential on your choice of Dac’s?
Well, I mean pick which one you like the best for you lol. Personally if a dac is good quality and I want to go higher, I look for spatial recreation and timbre. A high quality dac will already be fairly uncolored (or colored to your preference), transparent, detailed and revealing. But some lower end dacs really don’t accurately recreate a good sense of space. Also when you get into the over 1k on dacs it’s really all preference. I really like most of my dacs. I use my spring with most music listening along with other dacs, but use my studio dac with my studio setup (it’s going to be in the upcoming studio as well) along with it’s matching adc
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Hmmm, you use words VERY similar to what the guys out in Arizona were using when they were allowing me to hear the difference very expensive cables were making in the system sound signature they were using to demo. I need allot more time tuning my ears at this point and learning to appreciate the nuances of sound. Also, there is a point of diminishing returns and technical limitations/capabilities of equipment at hand. I appreciate you taking the time to explain to me your preferences in such a well worded and understandable manner, thank you again.
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Lol, yeah I wouldn’t be surprised. The difference is you can typically hear the differences in a good dac in a high end system lol. What wording did they use? Did they mention something about the frequency response with the air in the treble or something like that. Or about becoming more realistic sounding?
I found that my spring2 just had more emphasized spatial information, a bit more vivid than other dacs. But with stuff that was mastered to have a bit emphasized spatial information was a bit too much. The spring2 also has a warmer more lifelike characteristic timbre to me from more traditional offerings. Really it more comes down to what you prefer for what dac you go with.
Also I should mention that my studio dac is a Lavry Quintessence, and while that is an excellent dac that imo outperforms the spring2, I personally enjoy music a bit more with the holo dac
Edit: something also about the studio dac. When I initially got it, I set it up and tbh there really didn’t sound like a difference between an rme-ad2. But then when I heard it on my future speakers, there was a sizable difference. So it really comes down to what level the rest of your gear is on
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They were being particularly expressive in speaking about a sense of “air”, and “spaciousness”, with many references to darker and lighter sounds along with reference to overall tonal quality. Now remember this was in reference to the difference $5000 ea. cables made over $1000 cables. They were comparing power, XLR, speaker, cables and some very custom power transformers/conditioners/softeners? I tried really really hard to hear the direct a/b comparison differences and I know at least 2 others in the room w/me who could not hear any differences either but there were 4 other folks who clearly heard differences and tried to point them out to us and used those types of words to describe things each time a type or group of cables was swapped out.
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I clearly understand the difference each particular type of equipment makes and that there are limitations. If you have a severe mismatch in quality you are throwing away good money. That’s particularly the reason you have to be careful in this hobby. If you upgrade too much in one piece you outperform your others and then have to make the hard choice of moving backwards or forwards which will dent your pocket hard either way.
Hmmmmmmmm. Stand up and be like “I don’t want a larger sense of space, I want it accurate to the music” or something like that lol. By spatial accuracy I mean the dac is more capable of conveying the information of a room, so your speakers can (try to) accurately recreate that space. It really doesn’t have a ton to do with “spaciousness” lol which I’m guessing they mean separation.
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Just curious, what dacs have you tried and how do you feel about them? Also what about a dac that the sound can be changed?
I have to wonder how this works.
There is no crosstalk between the channels on a balanced setup, so it has to be tonal, or possibly phase related.
Technically introducing a phase error between channels could give a larger sense of space.
And certainly ears are more responsive to certain frequencies for positioning.
It’s just the fact that it’s a better implemented dac with better components. All dacs can do this
Regarding the r2r I was talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were messing with the phase or other aspects to form their sound
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I’m just always interested in what it is that people are hearing when they describe things.