If your volume knob is broken then maybe. Volume massively affects the perception of music.

If you have never noticed this "more complex tune in some percussion" before it doesn't mean it's not there when listening to a DS DAC. We tend to not notice a lot of things in music, our attention is limited. 

  To suggest that you just listened more attentively would be a totally crazy idea, wouldn't it?  

  Are you referring to current driven amplifiers? Is it just hard to lower the impedance in such designs or do they think it would sound better with higher impedance?

  A loudspeaker or a headphone driver is much less perfect than Amps and even less so than DACs so there is always some coloration present. Since there is no way to get rid of this coloration anufacturers have to chose the coloration they like most.

It's easier to tune a guitar amplifier (Marshall, Fender) to a particular sound signature (isn't supposed to be transparent) and a headphone too (supposed to be perfect, but unfortunately modern headphones are not there yet). Amps and DACs on the other hand are very close to being transparent...

  Not interested in this in this post. I own both "objective" and "subjective" amps including Lyr and enjoy all of them.     No, not looking to discuss subjective vs objective. And I respect your position on discussing other manufacturers' products. Your original statement that I...

I'm asking to elaborate.

I understand differences between JDSLabs and Schiit, but I'm curious why a product like ODAC couldn't have been designed at Schiit from the technical standpoint.

Yes, but O2 and ODAC were separate too from the beginning. There is a version that combines both but I think it was introduced after that Jason's post was made.

  Could you please elaborate why Schiit would never design the product like O2/ODAC? What are the main design differences?

  DAC's main requirement is to be transparent which means to sound exactly like the original master would sound. It doesn't "enhance" the soundstage. So if you are listening to a turntable and then throw in a reasonably good ADC/DAC in the signal chain you shouldn't hear the difference. In 2015...

Do you hear any noise coming from your PC DAC? 

It's wouldn't be bit perfect at least because some (inaudible) noise would be injected into the recording at every conversion stage. But it would be audibly indistinguishable from the analog source the digital recording was made from. Which in turn means that DAC1/ADC1 didn't detract "stage...

Of course they do. Even air pressure changes all the time, so every playback is not the same (not even mentioning the more prominent psychological perception changes). The only important question is whether you can hear that difference. Again — I proposed a very specific test. 

  If it sounds different from DAC1 then either DAC1 has some coloration or Theta has. I don't know what else to call these differences. Let's say DAC1 is not transparent and Theta is (or both of them are not transparent but different). I propose a very specific test to show that DAC1 is not...

Because the title is the thread is very misleading. People tend to believe everything they read and will plop $2k+ thinking they got something vastly superior.

The soundstage and level of detail will improve if you increase the brightness slightly because you will hear the reverb better and most of so perceived "details" are in treble anyway. That doesn't mean this level of treble was in the original recording though. Increased mid-upper bass will make...

Hint: You might want to add a decent voltmeter to that combo before actually agreeing to do a test :)   My point is that ADC1/DAC1 will not add any coloration to the sound. And if you prefer the coloration your theta does, you will still have it regardless of analog-digital-analog conversion...

Gosh, why does this thread have 400+ pages of comments? Studio ADCs and DACs use D-S modulation and most relatively modern recordings went through numerous analog-digital / digital-analog conversions which means if there do exist D-S imperfections they are already on the recording and nothing...

  Ah, I mean switching between digital in and analog in. I have a CD player I would like to use separate from a computer and switch between it and DAC easily.

Is there a way to retrofit the gain switch to switch between digital/analog input instead? There doesn't seem to be a switch unless I am missing something, so I guess when there is a usb connection the analog in will not be used? Button would be convenient.