I have the Schiit Jot with an included DAC. I'm a newb at this.
What I want to know if I would hear better SQ using the Sonica (I mean $700 is a lot for some people
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$799 is indeed a lot of money!
Hearing a difference depends on what else is in your chain and how long you've been under the influence of adaptive hedonism - the inescapable tendency to find the current level of performance inadequate, as you move up to ever more pleasurable performance, only to again adapt and find it inadequate or boring. A man who has never had steak or prime rib might think creamed beef on toast is bettered only by a big juicy cheeseburger.
The weakest link in your chain could completely mask any improvements made with a DAC. I've seen people roll op-amps in a headphone amp, only to report they hear no differences. Those same op-amps can sound significantly different to people who have better gear in the chain.
Then there's the issue of experience. The more adaptive hedonism you've suffered, the more discernment you'll have. Anyone with healthy hearing can effortlessly train themselves over time to hear subtleties and nuances not heard when their ears were "naive."
I know of a Head-Fi member who bought or borrowed about a dozen DACs for simultaneous comparison with his Audeze LCD-3 that was directly connected to a very nice speaker amp. After much ado, he concluded that nearly all of the DACs sounded
the same as the one he had started with.
Many people who were following his thread were flabbergasted. He had the money, the passion, the enthusiasm and the patience to deal with lots of "backseat drivers" telling him what to buy and how to perform the testing, but in the end, he revealed himself to have unseasoned ears.
I will leave it to you to decide if you've got the chain and the discernment to hear a difference with the Sonica DAC, but I will add that I've only been at this for about 5 years and have never allowed myself to buy any component costing more than $1000 before tax and shipping, new or used. I've also gone out of my way to
avoid spoiling my ears with anything other than a quick listen to systems I cannot afford. It's bad enough I can no longer enjoy listening to my car stereo or my low-end HiFi system - I've got no interest in jading my ears to the point I can no longer get excited listening to roughly $3000 Head-Fi systems.
My advice, therefore, is to slow down and enjoy the journey. You'll spend less money buying used and selling used, but hang onto stuff long enough to do some mixing and matching or you'll be going back to buy the same things again, a second time. I know people who've bought the Senn HD650, for example, two or three times!
If you have other interests in your life for discretionary spending, you could save some money in the long run, by leap-frogging the "journey" - cheating yourself of the fun of upgrading in steps - by drawing a line in the sand, in terms of total budget, then emulating one of the systems assembled by those who seem to have the respect of the community at large. This requires a lot of reading!
One thing's for sure: If you like the bang-for-the-buck had with Schiit products, you'll find the same is true with Oppo - they both offer a lot of value for the money.
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