Here's another goodie...
But in a good way?

 

For audiophile enthusiast listening? Sure. A DAC is probably the least important bit of the chain for end user experience. The important place for a DAC is in the beginning of the process. Even then, it's importance on the checklist is fluid. Especially in a bedroom studio, knowledge of process will trump any gear.

That said, all other things being equal...if you run a raw intake session (not a single track like this guy did, full session - we'll say at 40 tracks) through a Behringer UMC or Focusrite Scarlett (both provide great values for different needs, not gear shaming) and then a RME UFX or Digi/Madiface with some Ferrorfish or Orion or similiar and you cannot hear the difference between the raw tracking then I'll have to assume your favorite pastime is traveling each date of a Sunn 0))) tour and raw-dawgin' the shows

 

Remember that boomers hearing decrease as they age. Take that video with a grain of salt.

Test for yourself.

 

i dont believe this.. i can hear difference!

 

one thing i have learnt thanks to being in the audiophile community is that there is legit differences on dac chips: from their performance to how their implementation makes the audio sound

 

Not claiming golden ears or anything but its pretty easy to tell the difference between a low end ESS Sabre chip and a Cirrus Logic chip or AKM in lower end audio interfaces..once you get into the £1000 price bracket the differences are splitting hairs and a matter of preference. For cheap interfaces though i wouldn't touch anything that isn't based on ESS Sabre e.g MOTU M4. The difference in DA conversion is quite stark because ESS Sabre handles clock jitter better at those price points and Cirrus Logic chips are garbage until you get to Lynx Hilo, Antelope Goliath territory, Burr Brown are weird and AKM are sort of inbetween all 3. In terms of true to input though at the lower end i would stick with whatever uses ESS Sabre chips. The circuit around the chip is going to be rubbish quality anyways no matter which one you get as they can only be powered with USB C and draw no more than about 3 volts

 

If only. My eardrums were raped to oblivion in claustrophobic rock/metal bars in Turkey long before I'd ever heard of Sunn 0))).
When I listen to them I only hear triangle waves.

 

I don't personally give a shit about what DAC chips are in use, I give a hell of a lot of shits about the electronics around them.

And because there isn't a test bench where you can compare the chips with identical electronics I find comparison tests pretty useless.

 

Hah, one time a friend got mad when I said they "just sound like a synthesizer"

 

This is going to be a great thread, there's already a few nutjobs already who believe in the fairy dust and all of the DAC nonsense audiophile swear by.

There are two truths about any DAC debacle: people don't know how digital audio works, and people don't know how to read a spec sheet.

 

Ok Foster.

 

One time on a one lane country road my 200,000 miles under the hood 1984 Honda Civic beat a 1996 Ferrari Spider and the Ferarri couldn't overtake me...Honda's are demonstratably better cars.

 

I'm too old to hear the difference if there are any these days. I buy audioz interfaces based on physical i/o vs features vs support, thus my affection for my RME. Also, I do lo-fi music. I don't mean the genre, rather I have a lo-fi sound, so that takes all the worry out of it.
Pretty convenient.