[Toothless]

I hope this is the right category to ask this question.
I have just bought the Schiit Modi/Magni stack. Before the purchase, I already own a Chinese dac/amp (This one), which the seller claims to be as good as the Meridian Explorer DAC. I initially thought the Schiit Modi would be leaps and bounds better than that Chinese dac and had very high hope, but after an hour listening test swapping back and forth between the two using: Nuforce USB cable, component cables connecting to the Magni, and Beyerdynamic DT880 250 ohms headphone, I personally come to a conclusion that the difference is minimal, if there is any at all. The big difference actually comes from the Magni amp, which can produce much more power than the TDA1308 amp chip on the dac/amp.
So, I want to aks if there is other more reliable testing method than my ears, that can show the difference between the two aforementioned DACs? To be honest, I will sell the less competent one to fund my other future upgrades. Please point me to the right direction. Thank you!

 

[ProtegeManiac]

You can buy measuring equipment, but then you'd probably need to sell one of them to do so. The thing is that unless a DAC is designed specifically to be colored then there's not much difference. With speaker systems sometimes one of them can improve the overall imaging of the system, but that depends on the downstream components. That's very true with headphones where as much as some of them are engineered to reduce the typical trident-shaped soundstage, the thing is you're still using headphones that don't really image the way speakers do. At best, try subjective listening with binaural recordings.

 

Personally though I'd keep the Schiit just to keep a neat stack on the desk.

 

[cel4145]

This thread in the sound science section of the forum would probably help you since they are already discussing this: http://www.head-fi.org/t/771254/testing-claims-about-the-sound-of-different-dacs. Join in the discussion after you have looked through it