In your opinion, do you feel a flagship DAC and setup necessitates a flagship cable or would that be going too far? Do you feel there is a natural stopping point for cables or like DACs, it can keep on scaling?
Hmmm. Thatās going too far considering how ridiculous some of these highest end cables can go, you might even end up spending the same price of the damn dac on the cables lol. So definitely not lol. But, dropping a few hundred on cables is totally reasonable, and I could see it potentially justifiable to drop a grand or so depending on the level of dac and the level of the rest of your system. You would need to make sure everything is in order before you spent that money. I think bare minimum for these systems would be something like mogami/canare, stuff like that. I do think making that next step to the 300-600 ish range (used) for cables can be worth the added cost, as itās a noticable improvement over the typical studio grade cables as well. But justifying the jump over that is harder and less substantial, and you would really want to make sure things like your amp, digital transport, power solutions (perhaps some conditioning if needed, preferably a regenerator) are handled as those will make a larger impact than making the jump to like the 1k range of cables for things like interconnects. But idk, Iāve never really had any of the ultra high end top flagship interconnects in house so perhaps Iām missing out there? Idk, never felt the need for that lol (and didnāt want to spend that much either)
Also to be clear, since this is about dacs, this is mainly in relation to interconnects and digital cables. I would say that headphone/speaker/iem cables have made a more noticable difference in my personal setups, but thatās not exactly relating to dacs
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And make sure theyāre wired to best practice!
How many systems are āfeaturedā with with $15k cables extolling the virtues while they lazily leave signal and power cables looking like spaghetti. Itās hard to take an industry seriously when theyāre saying mumbo jumbo science and not practicing the PRACTICE theory of wiring.
EDIT: Iām very proud of my $180 dollar 2nd hand Kimber Kable 8TC speaker cables, but I didnāt hear a god dammed difference between them and my other self made good quality 10 gauge OFC copper teflon shielded twisted pair Monoprice cables that were $60 bucks new. $30 dollars a foot retail versus $4 dollars a foot retail.
I can however hear the difference if I move my speakers 1" in any direction.
Not many, at least for the shows or dealers I have personally seen use high end cables, they tend to practice really good cable management and wiring practices. But it depends on where you look, Iām sure thatās out there
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No, I mean in YouTube video clips in peopleās homes.
Ah, well, I mean I canāt say Iām surprised there then if itās coming from the youtube community. It pains me sometimes to see how terrible rooms can be with just high end speakers plopped in the middle for random peopleās systems, the entire time you just think āthereās no way that can sound goodā lol.
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e.g. @ the 5:15 mark. Ugh.
Added on some extra tidbits of info on some substantial possible changes you can make or adjust with these dacs above, near the bottom of the 3rd part. If you click the arrow on the quote it should take you back up to it
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You live and learn, the itch started when I wanted to check what had happened to the market in 10 years. But at least Iām an experience richer. Plus I did repurpose the SU-8 for my speaker system and the SP200 went to my laptop rig. But otherwise yeah it was pretty much a downgrade in all but some minor technical differences and the synergy definitely wasnāt there with the SU-8 to the Ear90. The D90 and Ear 903 is pure sex though.
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I guess I should also clarify another goal for writing this, I am going to be downsizing from now on, so I wanted to get these thoughts down before I fully committed to doing so, and also forcing myself to really compare things has helped push me to find the ones I will axe (as I really donāt want to, but it needs to happen). They all sound fantastic and itās really hard to think of selling them after you listen to them, but something has to go lol. While it is nice to have like 14 top tier (to me) dacs in the house at one time (at one point I had 20, thatās when I really should have done it for the bigger comparison lol), I donāt know if itās worthwhile to let it stay that way.
So I ended up deciding that I will be getting rid of my Waversa, Etalon, and BAT to start off with. I do really enjoy these 3 dacs, but I find myself not using them as much in others for my collection for the most part, and I canāt say I have as strong of an attachment to them as some alternatives.
Some more info on why these 3 are on the chopping block:
Waversa
- To be honest, for how cool it is, the presentation really is so specific it seldom gets used, and when it does it isnāt really for anything serious and is more casual, which doesnāt seem worthwhile to me. Thatās pretty much it why this one is going
Etalon
- So this is partly just not using it as often, and also partly because of another dac that has ended up taking itās spot: the mojo. While the mojo isnāt as casual and as relaxed as the etalon, it is more fun and engaging, feels more refined and mature at the same time, and when fed by a nicer ddc it does end up performing a fair bit better than the etalon overall. The etalon is casual enough to sometimes just feel uninteresting even if it is solid in isolation.
BAT
- So this one is for both logical and illogical reasons. Lets start with the reasonable lol, so I think this strangely ends up competing with the nagra for use case, even if it really shouldnāt. I think it just gets to me when I listen to it and it reminds me of a more brutish nagra to where I instead use the nagra. I have other dacs that have more of that command and slam when I need that, this one just feels like it strikes a balance in my setup that I donāt really have a use for unfortunately. The less rational reason is that I would have an odd number of dacs at my setup if I didnāt get rid of 3 at the time, and that wonāt do lol (since it is one of the main desk dacs)
To give a quick explanation on why the lavry gets to live another day even though I might like the waversa, etalon, and bat a bit more in comparison, is because it was yanked from my studio setup, and I have the matching lavry adc in that setup and the lavry dac has great synergy and gives me a sound I find more suitable for the studio, rather than casual listening. While the lavry is more a studio dac I included it because I do think it can easily be used for enjoyable hifi listening (just like other studio dacs like crane song and burl for example), but it ended up being put up against too tough of competition.
But I might actually upgrade one of the kept dacs, I may end up trading up my berkeley reference 2 to the reference 3 if I get the chance to make it more compelling there
Also due to this comparison testing, I also am really feeling the limitations of my current ddc for usb audio. I already knew that it was a weak point in comparison to the streamers, forcing the auralic stack into the desktop chain for a few months really highlighted these problems. So I will be addressing that in the coming time as well, with a pretty nice change overall lol, may end up updating the thread when the pieces get here. So I will be treating the rest of my dacs on the table.
You can also most likely notice that in the section that more deeply covered desirable synergy chains, and there were a few headphones that came up quite often lol. Those being the 1266, susvara, utopia, and mysphere. And of course the shangri la sr lol. These tended to really respond the most to higher end electronics and ended up being the most sensitive and most revealing of these changes, and had commonly had the higher capacity to scale out of other headphones I have or have had in the past. It is likely I will find myself coming to prune headphones as well, and as I push myself to reduce the amount of source chains, the number of headphones will likely drop as well. Iām already in the range of missing some of the stuff I have been selling lately, so it will get more tough to decide what to keep and what not as things get thinner lol. But no real comments about my potential headphone changes here, this is for dacs so I wonāt continue talking about that lol.
A final everything against everything rundown, to add more context and clarity linked below:
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Wow @M0N great work! 
I like that you kept the write up clean and succinct yet standardized across the board!
The only notable Dacs I can think of that are missing are:
Ypsilon 1000
DCS Bartok
Chord Dave
Link Klimax
Esoteric
MSB
We canāt expect you to have access to every TOTL Dac now can we? 
A few questionsā¦
-
Can some of the best at the $5k (ish) price point compete with anything on this list or is price truly a differentiator or class/performance? Iām thinking Holo May, Sonnet Morpheus, Lumin T2, Lamp Amber 3, Mytek Manhattan etcā¦
-
When you did your Dac evaluation was is 100% on HPs or did you include 2 channel listening as well?
2b) If Hps only then what did you use for evaluations (Susvara + Phi TC + D8k pro?). If 2 channel what was your primary speakers used for reference? -
For HP amps did you use a mix of tubes and SS if so what were your primary amps? (OJI + Egoista + Primavera?).
I personally havenāt heard this one yet
Personally not a fan for the price
See above
I do like the Linn klimax dsm2 katalyst a decent bit, but there was never something that pulled me in to buy one strangely enough. I will be curious to hear the organik
So Iāve liked them but none stood out as super incredible to me outside the grandioso d1x + g1x combo, but thatās a lot to plunk down for lol
I canāt tell you how many times Iāve thought of trading all these in for a Select II, but didnāt end up doing it for reasons. But Iād love it have one once I get past my mental barrier lol
Not from my experience no, perhaps outside of the concert fidelity (which would trade blows in things like detail and technical performance but not organicness or refinement as thatās just on another level in comparison)
You can find the information you are looking for in the 3rd part of my comparison that covers synergy and system setups
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That is going to be one hell of a WTS post! I mentioned a day or two ago that you may be one of a handful of people in the world to have critically listened to this many TOTL DACs, and of those, not sure how many would have been motivated to the point of actually writing their thoughts and observations as succinctly and clearly as you have. Kudos my friend.
I have seriously got to stay way from any purchases but I have decided to sell my P car, so maybe Iāll treat myself to something āniceā when the car finds a new owner.
All are already spoken for surprisingly lol (since I somewhat gauged interest to people I know a week prior, and Iām trading in one of them to a dealer to fund the digital upgrade), but I did negotiate with them so I can hold onto them until I get my new desk digital setup in, just to try
Thereās more than you think
I guess we all have our various levels of Midfi hellā¦ Yourās just happens to be at or beyond 99% of peopleās TOTL endgame. 
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The reason I donāt do it is that I donāt have a setup nice enough to really get what that thing can offer, the rest of my setup would be a substantial bottleneck to it, it would have to go on speakers, and I just donāt have a setup capable enough at the moment
This entire thread made me come to the realization that $2k DACs are entry level in the hifishere. lol
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TBH based upon your writeup the oneās Iād be most drawn toward would be:
Aries Cerat
Waversa WVDAC
Berkeley Alpha
But the one Iād buy if I had the money would be the Mola Mola just something about it seems the be āitā at least for what I would want.
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I mean yes and no, personally Iād still call a 2k DAC high end, it can just go a lot higher
I donāt know if Iād base perspective off this thread lol. The title for this thread is misleading at best, 4/5 words listed in that title are a lie, the only truth is that it has dacs lol. It isnāt short, itās more than just high end, and itās only somewhat a comparison. But I wrote the title before I wrote the rest of the thread, and never bothered to change it lol
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A few questions on synergiesā¦ I understand that with 15 dacs, 12 hps, 10 amps, a few sets of speakers you get into 1000 permeations possible and the usefulness of comparisons get lost.
So to keep it generalā¦ Lets say your fav is the Aries Cerat and the most detailed is the Molaā¦ Do headphones in general start to become the limiting factor/bottlekneck in the chain? Where the Phi TC and Susvara can no longer scaleā¦ You would need step up to some $100k+ Pairs of towers to get any incremental benefit?
I know you may not be a āstax guyā but do you think the 009 / 007 and a kgss and bhse would be able to take advantage of the details/technicals of these dacs more than planars/dynamics?