Couple days ago I posted this. Found it pretty interesting especially as to where technology is heading. In the end, DACs are like cell phones. The technology and capabilities are moving so fast, that waiting a year is always going to get you a better product. We still have to decode stuff today though.
I didn’t rank a DAC as high in the scale of importance, now though I think after speakers or your HP they’re probably the 2nd most impactful link in the audio chain. Excluding the media of course.