Beings that this thread was started in the sound science forums. You'll have your dedicated(same people in every thread) sound science posters that'll tell you that there's no difference in dacs. There's no difference in amps. It's all in your mind(plecebo). That those particular pieces of gear contribute to nothing that is affecting your ears. Then will follow. "I bet if you did a controlled blind A/B test , you'll know the truth". Then if you do a blind A/B test it'll never meet the standards of said blind test proposal.
With that said. It's for you to decide if they're worth engaging. No matter how much you hear a difference in dacs and amps. They'll never accept what you are saying. They'll dismiss you with SCIENCE. Science says that you're delusional and expectation bias is playing games with your head. Unfortunately, expectation bias doesn't work the other way. " I hear no difference between dac A $100 and dac B $1000 it's all snake oil" it's just not possible to suffer bias when you're telling yourself repeatedly that there's no difference because science says there's no difference it's 1's and 0's and 1 clean watt is 1 clean watt. And don't get them started with tubes. Lol.
Enjoy!
Dismissing change unless proved that there is one is a common testing approach. The null hypothesis. Some take it too far, of course they do. And many audiophile don't understand that and assume we're all claiming the opposite of whatever it is they're saying, but that's mostly not the case.
Now, are you convinced that DACs all sound the same after bigshot has told you so? Surely you need more than that. It's the same result the other way around. Just because you claim to hear a difference, doesn't convince him of anything about your DACs. Not because it's you, not because it's him, but because not bringing any actual evidence to support an impression or a belief, that's not very convincing. and yes bringing up blind testing will predictably come right after, because like it or not, it's the go to solution to test our senses without having to stick electrodes everywhere on/in us.
BTW, all the annoying people actually agree that it's fairly common to notice a difference. What they're really saying is that once you've matched the voltage at the output of the DACs and you've setup an actual listening test, the stats for people being able to tell DACs apart just so happen to fall down very drastically. Something that could be interpreted as "audiophiles on average, don't know how to do a listening test and their conclusions can't be trusted".
Anyway, given the usual magnitude of change between 2 DACs, it's one of the last places I would go look for OP's problem. A different headphone, maybe a different amp with some warm and elevated distortions would feel better to some? But DACs are bound to have less of an impact, given that they're in general the most stable and accurate devices in our rig. It seems logical to me that some DSPs could have way more impact in a more controlled way. Even if only as a diagnostic tool to try and put a finger on the cause of the problem, DSPs are by far the more versatile options.
