The last time I was able to listen and compare bunch of higher end stuff was almost two years ago, while I was working in a headphone/audio gear retail. So I can't compare it to other products in the same class, as I don't own any. I will just share my own impression on it (which holds no value as a reference)
I am treble fetish. Ice cold, bright sound is perfect for me. So at first glance, this dac wasn't that thrilling. Comparing to my old dac (Dacmagic 100), it is not as sharp. But wanting to justify my purchase (especially without a chance to audition), I tried to compare them by repeating short passages of various music tracks. It was tedious since my amp only has one pair of RCA input.
note: I am very aware of placebo, I repeat many times to confirm a difference spotted. If the more expensive stuff is not better, I will only be very sad instead of hypnotizing myself to like it.
First I would like to say, quality dacs are quality dacs. Both dac sounded great to me, and the difference was subtle (but critical, will describe later). Immediately I found the V850 sounds richer and thicker. It is not warm or coloured, just the feeling of fullness of music. Then I repeated a short passage of female studio-recorded vocal, with my trusty ER4S. Yes, my old dac was colder. But the vocal was machinery and lifeless. It was very exciting to listen to, but could not trigger any emotion as it doesn't carry any itself. With the V850, the same vocal sounded
real. I could perceive a better image of the vocalist singing.
Piano test, with Liszt's piano sonata in B minor played by Krystian Zimerman (DG). I like testing gears with this recording. The piano was recorded very crisp and prominent. This time, with Beyer T1. Again, with the V850, it was more realistic and three dimensional. I repeated on few seconds fast passages. Both dacs showed the abstract of the music brilliantly, but with the V850 the melodic flow was better. In these fast passages, the dacmagic sounded messy and wild and V850 was controlled and organized.
I concluded it was a result of more details. Not any apparent details that you will spot immediately, but very small details that construct a sound. This dac has higher resolution(or say less distortion), so it make perfect sense. It is not a dac of excitement to me, but it definitely make music more enjoyable.
setup used: laptop->ortofon usb cable->V850/Dacmagic 100->van den hul RCA cable-> alo audio panam with mullard tubes -> Audio Technica AD1000/ Beyer T1/ Etymotic ER4S
settings on computer: foobar ASIO out with their own proprietary usb driver
settings on v850: resampling x4/"best"
music: level 0 flac ripped from CD, 16/44.1