I was literally about to ask about DAC's when I saw this. And funny thing is, I have the Modi Multibit, too.
@VRacer-111 what differences can you hear between a lesser DAC such as mine and a ~$500 one?
Indeed. I am quite happy with my modi multibit and I found it a big upgrade over my previous dragonfly red. I think I will stick to the R2R/multibit camp going forward, measurements be damned.
By the way, I want to mention something which has followed me in my audio journey...
Sometimes, when you upgrade your equipment, you "unlock" a certain ability to render certain tracks... Now, some tracks are more demanding than others, and some tracks are beyond saving. I'll give an example.
When I got into high fidelity audio a year ago, I was jamming out big time to Tycho's album Epoch. I was loving it, but at some point my critical listening skills improved, and I could hear that it was a tad bit too muddy with my denon ah-d5000 some months later. When I got the TH 900, the muddiness was gone and I had very crisp and clear rendition of the tracks, which was great. However, once I got my HD650s, I noticed a flaw in my TH 900 - the lack of mids and overbearing high end made the track less balanced albeit still enjoyable ( and obviously the hd650 is much more laid back overall).
Now when I got Stax SR-L300, of course all this changed and Stax took almost every song I had any issue with and turned it into audio perfection - with a few but consistent flaws. Most notably the L300 was my first headphone to truly manage Carpenter Bruts "Roller Mobster". TH 900 got close, but the L300 was the only one that could truly keep up.
But there was one song which my headphones could never handle. This track always turned into sibilant ear rape no matter what. But now, with my Stax SR-007 and SRM 727, I can enjoy it to its fullest. The track I am talking about is Preludes/ book 1. ll.117:2 voiles, a live recording performed by pianist Krystian Zimerman (composed by Claude Debussy). For those of you familiar with the song, there is a famous part where the piano plays a dramatic breakdown. This, on all setups, has been very unclear, harsh, shimmering, even downright painful. But I am happy to say that my current setup plays it perfectly, and I can finally enjoy this beautiful rendition of the track to its fullest.
I would be interested to hear if anyone else have similar experiences.. I have of course many more tracks I could mention, but oftentimes its more a question of taking something which was good and turning it into something which is absolutely great - not directly "saving" the track so to speak.