Out of curiosity, has anyone here purchased something like this? In this price range? Is it just more audiophile snake oil? I'm not in the market for a DAC, but I am curious if people find them worth while

AnarchoPrimitivOut of curiosity, has anyone here purchased something like this? In this price range? Is it just more audiophile snake oil? I'm not in the market for a DAC, but I am curious if people find them worth while

I use DP5 and NAD M33， I think he is a product beyond the price

AnarchoPrimitivOut of curiosity, has anyone here purchased something like this? In this price range? Is it just more audiophile snake oil? I'm not in the market for a DAC, but I am curious if people find them worth while

It's very much not snake oil and price doesn't equate to snake oil either.

With good headphones/speakers a good DAC and AMP will make a noticeable difference. The issue is there are a lot of things that are over engineered to hell and back to the point the gains are minimal and made of premium materials (wood, single blocks of ALU) that the price goes up really quick for minimal gains or a difference that you can measure but won't make difference in what you hear. Those aren't snake oil either. They do exactly what they claim to do but their value is dubious unless you are really into it, but it's not snake oil. There's also esoteric stuff like power cleaners or clock generators. These are not snake oil but completely pointless for most of the population. Their only point is in extremely high end systems that are the domain of professionals, the super wealthy into audio, and trade shows.

Where do you get snake oil is in stuff that's just flat out a lie, doesn't do what it should do, or they just made stuff up. Case in point services to burn in cables this is crazy. There was also a company that sold hunks of metal to wind your cables around to improve sound, this is very much pure snake oil. There is TONS of stuff like this which is what you have to avoid. You also have the great issue with cable nonsense. Stuff like 4000 buck HDMI cables are pure woo woo. Is there such a thing as a better HDMI cable, well yeah of course! That's why you have to get ones with certain ratings to run them through the walls! They cost more, they have more durable connectors, use better materials, and are overbuilt. But this is not 4000 dollar nonsense. For all those copper/silver/gold type things this is where chaos reigns. Does it matter and is it better, yes but again the gains are questionable for most things. The main pluss is they are better built but there's no reason to buy a 3000 dollar headphone cable when you can get the same silly pure copper/silver type deal for around 100 bucks. So that's snake oil as well. Then you have the entire "made by elves at midnight" where people cut it open and it's just aluminum wire strands with shit shielding.

You have to learn to identify which stuff actually does do what it should do and buy there. Then you have to figure out do you want the want the off brand option, the brand option, or do you want the Rolex. The Rolex isn't snake oil, it's also not worth the money unless that's what you really want to have.

I own a lot of stuff like this in this range, cheaper, and more pricey. But I have the lossless sources and other stuff to take advantage of it.

AnarchoPrimitivOut of curiosity, has anyone here purchased something like this? In this price range? Is it just more audiophile snake oil? I'm not in the market for a DAC, but I am curious if people find them worth while

Its far from snake oil lol, you can even see this products benchmarked in audiosciencereview

AnarchoPrimitivOut of curiosity, has anyone here purchased something like this? In this price range? Is it just more audiophile snake oil? I'm not in the market for a DAC, but I am curious if people find them worth while

Where are you getting the impression that a mid-range DAC is "snake oil"?

As others have said you can look at how these devices measure on ASR and there certainly are differences between DACs like this and DACs in the $150-$300 range. The thing with reviews that only focus on the measurements is they are measuring things well past the point at which they matter and are not getting to why a DAC like this is better than a cheaper DAC from SMSL or why a DAC that measures worse like a Schiit Modi Multibit also sounds better than a cheaper delta sigma DAC yet measures worse. Luckily there are people that actually listen to audio products too and incorporate how they sound into their reviews. The mid and higher-end stuff from SMSL and Topping tend to measure well and sound quite good to most people while their cheaper entries just tend to measure well but fair less well on a subjective basis, take that how you will.

Also most high-end audio isn't snake oil. A lot of what most people consider snake oil is ultra high-end boutique luxury gear designed with little or no concern given to value. All that super expensive five and six figure stuff is way past the point of diminishing returns and a lot of it gets beat by companies with smarter designs offering similar performance for way less. This SMSL though has a ESS chipset that is probably $60+ by itself so that along with all the high spec capacitors, resistors, inductors, the higher quality enclosure and you probably have $250-$300 in material parts alone.

I’m going to get this then listen to Selena Gomez on YouTube and post my thoughts in audio forums to watch them rage.

But no external DACs are not snake oil.

OperandiWhere are you getting the impression that a mid-range DAC is "snake oil"?

As others have said you can look at how these devices measure on ASR and there certainly are differences between DACs like this and DACs in the $150-$300 range. The thing with reviews that only focus on the measurements is they are measuring things well past the point at which they matter and are not getting to why a DAC like this is better than a cheaper DAC from SMSL or why a DAC that measures worse like a Schiit Modi Multibit also sounds better than a cheaper delta sigma DAC yet measures worse. Luckily there are people that actually listen to audio products too and incorporate how they sound into their reviews. The mid and higher-end stuff from SMSL and Topping tend to measure well and sound quite good to most people while their cheaper entries just tend to measure well but fair less well on a subjective basis, take that how you will.

Also most high-end audio isn't snake oil. A lot of what most people consider snake oil is ultra high-end boutique luxury gear designed with little or no concern given to value. All that super expensive five and six figure stuff is way past the point of diminishing returns and a lot of it gets beat by companies with smarter designs offering similar performance for way less. This SMSL though has a ESS chipset that is probably $60+ by itself so that along with all the high spec capacitors, resistors, inductors, the higher quality enclosure and you probably have $250-$300 in material parts alone.

I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that folks on ASR don’t actually listen to the gear that is subjected to measurements on that site. I have turned there with much success to help guide my purchasing decisions for a hobby that I’ve had a lifelong obsession with, and I assure you that few if any of my fellow members offer their time and input there without the context of a significant interest in music, not just audio.

I also appreciate ASR for the opportunity to learn from some serious luminaries in the audio engineering field, along with many of the designers of the gear being discussed here. They have been quite transparent in offering the relative values of measurements as an indicator of the end result for every component in the audio chain. They’ve never said that measurements tell the whole story for headphones, amplifiers, or speakers—those who take that away from their experiences at ASR likely haven’t fully grasped what digital audio is about.

To that end, one of the most fundamentally enlightening, cost-saving lessons I learned there early on is that the function of a DAC—just a DAC, not a DAC/amp or similar multifunction device—is to restore a digital facsimile of an audio recording back to the closest approximation of the original master it possibly can, with a minimum of noise, distortion or jitter.

That is, the audio output from a DAC that is doing its job properly should sound like the original master recording—nothing else, just that. It’s up to your amp, DSPs/ASPs and headphones to color the sound further to your liking.

So it should be very clear that because this new SU-9 Pro is a pure DAC (a computational data processor that exists solely in the digital domain until its final steps) measurements should, and do, tell the whole story of how well it is doing its aforementioned job. Waveform analysis has been calibrated and validated as a gold standard measure of audio reproduction for decades, including by the folks recording your music and engineering your audio gear. This DAC is either reproducing that analog waveform cleanly, quietly and accurately, or it isn’t. Period, full stop.

And for this offering from SMSL and many others like it, that’s a fantastic thing! ASR (and many other sources) has empirically proven that DACs such as the SU-10, the Topping d90SE, the Gustard x18 and likely this newest SU-9 Pro do a stupendous job at reproducing the most accurate waveforms of the music we love, with a minimum of errors, noise or distortion.

And because the technology of delta sigma digital audio conversion has been logarithmically perfected over the past few years, we don’t have to bother wasting our time and hard earned cash on “boutique” DIY brands such as Schiit, PS Audio, or Chord, because ESS and AKM have figured out a way to do the job far better at literally a fraction of the price.

So if you think your Schiit sounds “better” than this SU-9 Pro, then either you aren’t comparing apples to apples in your setup; you like the sound of distortion (which based on tubes and vinyl may be perfectly valid); or you’re falling prey to cognitive bias. This SU-9 Pro is all anyone should ever need in a DAC, and since it’s a steal at less than $500, folks can save their money for their headphones, which truly do have a sound. Peace!

Your denfinition of "boutique" seems off here. For one schiit is a budget brand. Their big seller on the DAC market and the one he named dropped is the modi, which retails for an MSRP of 129. As they sell direct it doesn't go up or down. Their big seller on the amp side which retails for all of.... 99. Also it's funny you say because "ESS" among others already figured it out when the step up above the modi (which uses an AD solution) there is the modius which isues an ESS solution of all things. So here at least, schiit is selling stuff cheaper than SMSL, Topping, and Gustard using largely the same stuff. But you can get the same ESS on schiit for as you put it "a fraction of the price" as the brands you tout.

I'll give you that Chord is somewhat "boutique" in that they use FPGAs to do all the work but that's also a proven solution. Chords claim to fame was also the Mojo which did things better and cheaper than it's competitors despite going the less traveled way on it.

You sort of blasted a company that offers cheaper ESS solutions and another one that while using FPGAs is famous for a budget unit. The point you made kinda falls flat.

srkbearI don’t know where you’re getting the idea that folks on ASR don’t actually listen to the gear that is subjected to measurements on that site.

There have been more than one review where it was flat out stated that listening impressions were not done, just benchmarks.

More importantly though it seems like to be that all reviews are done with measurements first and listening impressions done second. If you are going to be doing this at all listening impressions should be done first and then measurements done to confirm or deny what you are hearing otherwise you are starting from position of bias.

srkbearAnd because the technology of delta sigma digital audio conversion has been logarithmically perfected over the past few years, we don’t have to bother wasting our time and hard earned cash on “boutique” DIY brands such as Schiit, PS Audio, or Chord, because ESS and AKM have figured out a way to do the job far better at literally a fraction of the price.

If you believe that the measurements ASR is doing encompass everything then you can throw ESS in the "boutique" category too because delta sigma chips like the ES9039PRO are already well past the point of significance of doing anything of benefit. Reviews like what are done at ASR are distilling a product down to a handful of measurements using equipment for which it wasn't designed (AP analyzer) and ranking them on graph. The measurements done by ASR are only scratching the surface as to why a DAC sounds the way it does, and past a certain point don't reveal any differences between units but that just means they aren't measuring them.

OperandiThere have been more than one review where it was flat out stated that listening impressions were not done, just benchmarks.

More importantly though it seems like to be that all reviews are done with measurements first and listening impressions done second. If you are going to be doing this at all listening impressions should be done first and then measurements done to confirm or deny what you are hearing otherwise you are starting from position of bias.

If you believe that the measurements ASR is doing encompass everything then you can throw ESS in the "boutique" category too because delta sigma chips like the ES9039PRO are already well past the point of significance of doing anything of benefit. Reviews like what are done at ASR are distilling a product down to a handful of measurements using equipment for which it wasn't designed (AP analyzer) and ranking them on graph. The measurements done by ASR are only scratching the surface as to why a DAC sounds the way it does, and past a certain point don't reveal any differences between units but that just means they aren't measuring them.

I say nonsense, especially since your argument is ad hominem and doesn’t accurately reflect what I believe or what I said. But let’s prove what all these ephemeral variables are you claim contribute to the “sound” of a digital device and go from there. Amplifiers and headphones can’t be fully assessed by measurements in any way, nor does ASR proclaim that they do. But a DAC is nothing more than a computational device that is performing a series of calculations based on a stream of ones and zeroes—what “sound” should it have other than what was originally digitized into the file?

Time after time the folks who throw rocks at ASR’s sun end up comparing the sound of a DAC to a DAC/amp, which SHOULD sound different, or they’ve parted ways with a felonious $14,000 in cash for the eight year old DAVE and aren’t about to accept that they’ve been duped. They defend their captor in Rob Watts like they have some form of Stockholm Syndrome.

I know with absolute confidence what to expect from a DAC because I’ve gone through the trouble of learning about the intricacies of digital audio—in other words, how a DAC works. The magic qualities you’re attributing to them make absolutely no logical sense based on what is going on under the hood. Until you can explain what you think is going on that makes one DAC sound different than another, the burden of proof is on you, and Russell’s Teapot arguments never end well.

You may have found other purveyors of these magical aspects of DACs to make you feel better about your purchase, but that’s just the magic of marketing. It is an absolute fact that no one should have to spend more than what this SU-9 Pro costs to achieve the highest performance one can expect from a DAC. The differences between a Chord or Yggdrasil and an ES9039-based DAC are likely inaudible, but if you want to pay the DIY brands more cash for that excess of noise and distortion, detectable or not, it would be best not to get officious or haughty about it. It’s nothing to be proud of.

srkbearBut a DAC is nothing more than a computational device that is performing a series of calculations based on a stream of ones and zeroes—what “sound” should it have other than what was originally digitized into the file?

This is the problem with distilling down a DAC (or anything really) to a small subset of measurements and presenting it to people without the proper knowledge to understand the context of those measurements. A DAC is not computational device, like a CPU, or network adapter, this is 100% incorrect understanding of how this works. While it does work with binary data its performing transfer functions (the DACs filter) to create analog output and how that filter works is part of its sound, the other part being its analog output (either opamp or discrete components) stage.

srkbearAmplifiers and headphones can’t be fully assessed by measurements in any way, nor does ASR proclaim that they do.

Actually amplifers and speakers (Klippel) are much more apt to be measured objectively than DACs. Headphones though are harder.

srkbearI know with absolute confidence what to expect from a DAC because I’ve gone through the trouble of learning about the intricacies of digital audio—in other words, how a DAC works.

I would reassess what you think you know. Start researching how these filters work in relation to the Nyquist Theorem and you'll see there is no perfect way to perform these functions and only when you distill everything down a small set of measurements and draw conclusions on them do DACs all look the same beyond a certain threshold.

srkbearThe magic qualities you’re attributing to them make absolutely no logical sense based on what is going on under the hood.

Did I ever attribute magical qualities? Pretty sure I didn't and simply said ASR testing methodology sucks for getting anyone anywhere near the answer as to how a DAC is going to sound.

srkbearUntil you can explain what you think is going on that makes one DAC sound different than another, the burden of proof is on you, and Russell’s Teapot arguments never end well.

See above for reasons why. As to "proof" what kind of proof do you require? ASR's Audio Precision tests don't really tell you anything useful aside from pointing out glaring flaws or defective units. Blind listening tests to the scale that would constitute a reasonable definition of proof are hard because you have to control for so many different variables and the difficulties of how people process and recall auditory memory.

srkbearTime after time the folks who throw rocks at ASR’s sun end up comparing the sound of a DAC to a DAC/amp, which SHOULD sound different, or they’ve parted ways with a felonious $14,000 in cash for the eight year old DAVE and aren’t about to accept that they’ve been duped. They defend their captor in Rob Watts like they have some form of Stockholm Syndrome.

Cognitive dissonance and personal bias works both ways and based on your comments I could draw the conclusion that you have some sort of personal vendetta against engineers like Rob Watts and use ASRs incomplete measurements to reinforce your view that their products have no technical merit and only there to dupe audiophiles out of their money. Point being everyone carries a bias and if you are hoping to learn anything you have to be aware of that bias and its influence on your interpretation of the present information available. Second point what percentage of people looking at the output of the AP's measurements really know what they are looking at and what it means? Its a best a small subset of performance which is fine for what it is at face value but using that incomplete picture form a conclusive opinion and ranking it on a chart is highly misleading.

srkbearYou may have found other purveyors of these magical aspects of DACs to make you feel better about your purchase, but that’s just the magic of marketing.

Seems like an awful lot of engineering and development for marketing to me but whatever.

If you are curious though I'm not really into high-end boutique stuff, right now my electronics are a Pioneer Elite A9 integrated (USB based Burr-brown DAC) that I picked up used when it was what I could afford on my budget and recently a Schiit Modi 3 (ESS I think) to compare the older Burr-brown in the Pioneer to a modern delta-sigma DAC. Most recently though I picked up used Freya +, and Modius as well as parts to build a IcePower Class D amp. I was going to get a Saga but realized after the fact that the IcePower amp had balanced inputs. Schiit because they are a high value brand building gear in the US and their stuff is really well made and their stuff looks dope.

Mostly though I'm into the DIY aspect and building my own speakers and the electronics are sort of a means to an end. I do find the technical aspects of DAC and amps interesting though so I plan on getting a Bifrost to see what multbit is about and just a higher-end DAC in general as well as build a Class A ACA amp because I've never had anything Class A and unlike Amir's test my current speakers efficient enough to pair with it.

srkbearThe differences between a Chord or Yggdrasil and an ES9039-based DAC are likely inaudible, but if you want to pay the DIY brands more cash for that excess of noise and distortion, detectable or not, it would be best not to get officious or haughty about it. It’s nothing to be proud of.

This is an odd distinction to make. Schiit make the Modi 3 which by ASR objective measurements is a great entry level DAC on par with anything else using the same chipset but Schiit is "DIY" and unreputable because they make things like the Yggdrasil with their own architecture and DAC chips typically used in other applications. Yet SMSL is ok and reputable even though they use chipsets like the ES9039 which by ASR's methodology is performing well beyond any metric that could be contributing anything remotely useful to audio quality? Maybe there isn't anything wrong with the SU-9 Pro or the Yggdrasil and the problem is with over simplified measurements?

OperandiThis is the problem with distilling down a DAC (or anything really) to a small subset of measurements and presenting it to people without the proper knowledge to understand the context of those measurements. A DAC is not computational device, like a CPU, or network adapter, this is 100% incorrect understanding of how this works. While it does work with binary data its performing transfer functions (the DACs filter) to create analog output and how that filter works is part of its sound, the other part being its analog output (either opamp or discrete components) stage.

Actually amplifers and speakers (Klippel) are much more apt to be measured objectively than DACs. Headphones though are harder.

I would reassess what you think you know. Start researching how these filters work in relation to the Nyquist Theorem and you'll see there is no perfect way to perform these functions and only when you distill everything down a small set of measurements and draw conclusions on them do DACs all look the same beyond a certain threshold.

Did I ever attribute magical qualities? Pretty sure I didn't and simply said ASR testing methodology sucks for getting anyone anywhere near the answer as to how a DAC is going to sound.

See above for reasons why. As to "proof" what kind of proof do you require? ASR's Audio Precision tests don't really tell you anything useful aside from pointing out glaring flaws or defective units. Blind listening tests to the scale that would constitute a reasonable definition of proof are hard because you have to control for so many different variables and the difficulties of how people process and recall auditory memory.

Cognitive dissonance and personal bias works both ways and based on your comments I could draw the conclusion that you have some sort of personal vendetta against engineers like Rob Watts and use ASRs incomplete measurements to reinforce your view that their products have no technical merit and only there to dupe audiophiles out of their money. Point being everyone carries a bias and if you are hoping to learn anything you have to be aware of that bias and its influence on your interpretation of the present information available. Second point what percentage of people looking at the output of the AP's measurements really know what they are looking at and what it means? Its a best a small subset of performance which is fine for what it is at face value but using that incomplete picture form a conclusive opinion and ranking it on a chart is highly misleading.

Seems like an awful lot of engineering and development for marketing to me but whatever.

If you are curious though I'm not really into high-end boutique stuff, right now my electronics are a Pioneer Elite A9 integrated (USB based Burr-brown DAC) that I picked up used when it was what I could afford on my budget and recently a Schiit Modi 3 (ESS I think) to compare the older Burr-brown in the Pioneer to a modern delta-sigma DAC. Most recently though I picked up used Freya +, and Modius as well as parts to build a IcePower Class D amp. I was going to get a Saga but realized after the fact that the IcePower amp had balanced inputs. Schiit because they are a high value brand building gear in the US and their stuff is really well made and their stuff looks dope.

Mostly though I'm into the DIY aspect and building my own speakers and the electronics are sort of a means to an end. I do find the technical aspects of DAC and amps interesting though so I plan on getting a Bifrost to see what multbit is about and just a higher-end DAC in general as well as build a Class A ACA amp because I've never had anything Class A and unlike Amir's test my current speakers efficient enough to pair with it.

This is an odd distinction to make. Schiit make the Modi 3 which by ASR objective measurements is a great entry level DAC on par with anything else using the same chipset but Schiit is "DIY" and unreputable because they make things like the Yggdrasil with their own architecture and DAC chips typically used in other applications. Yet SMSL is ok and reputable even though they use chipsets like the ES9039 which by ASR's methodology is performing well beyond any metric that could be contributing anything remotely useful to audio quality? Maybe there isn't anything wrong with the SU-9 Pro or the Yggdrasil and the problem is with over simplified measurements?

This is a cyclical argument and there is no new data being passed along either direction. I know perfectly well I’m not going to budge you from your position, and all you’re doing with my efforts is to attack my credibility without offering any concrete evidence that my claims are flawed or any reasoning for why yours are valid.

A DAC is indeed a computational device. You still haven’t made any salient argument for why we shouldn’t expect a DAC to “sound” like anything other than the original master. If a DAC is adding anything else to the end result, it’s flawed. It’s supposed to be unpacking the recording that is contained in digital format back to the best possible reproduction of the original as possible—with the most accuracy, least errors, least noise and distortion.

There is no other data contained in that file—no soundstage, no warmth, no “musicality”, no imaging. There’s a little play surrounding pre- and post-ringing that can be tweaked with filtering, but that’s that. All the other details are primarily generated by the type of headphone you’re using, with a lesser contribution from your amp. The Gustard x26pro lacks any op-amps whatsoever, so that argument is moot.

Any efforts on the the part of DAC manufacturers to claim that their offerings provide any more of an end result than the reproduction of the master are selling snake oil. The limitations of human hearing, our audible dynamic range and frequency range constraints, all dictate that there‘a only a limited spectrum of noise and distortion we can detect among different DACs—this is the very basis for the generally correct assertion that all DACs, other than the most abysmal, sound the same.

If you can hear anything special that cannot be achieved by this SMSL unit, which achieves a level of SINAD and linearity that is well beyond the limits of our human ear, I say more power to you. Just don’t make similar promises that others will, especially if the DAC you’re endorsing costs more. That’s the most I want to say about this, I only care that folks are happy with the gear that brings them the joy of music. Peace.

srkbearThis is a cyclical argument and there is no new data being passed along either direction. I know perfectly well I’m not going to budge you from your position, and all you’re doing with my efforts is to attack my credibility without offering any concrete evidence that my claims are flawed or any reasoning for why yours are valid.

What credibility? You have your opinion that the handful of measurements being taken ASR are the be all and end all of what is happening in DAC, and seem equally umovable from that point. That view point is at odds with how human hearing works, how DACs are designed and what the Audio Precision is designed for.

What evidence are you looking for? It's 100% true that the measurements being done are at a resolution and scale beyond human hearing in terms of S/N and distortion so when view as a aggregate everything looks the same but thats not how human hearing works so the broad sweeping measurements being done are pretty much meaningless aside from looking for glaring design flaws or broken units.

srkbearA DAC is indeed a computational device. You still haven’t made any salient argument for why we shouldn’t expect a DAC to “sound” like anything other than the original master. If a DAC is adding anything else to the end result, it’s flawed. It’s supposed to be unpacking the recording that is contained in digital format back to the best possible reproduction of the original as possible—with the most accuracy, least errors, least noise and distortion.

How is it a computational device? It converts digital data to an analog output. There is no correct way to do this, you can't check the work for errors, they all do it differently.

srkbearThere is no other data contained in that file—no soundstage, no warmth, no “musicality”, no imaging. There’s a little play surrounding pre- and post-ringing that can be tweaked with filtering, but that’s that. All the other details are primarily generated by the type of headphone you’re using, with a lesser contribution from your amp. The Gustard x26pro lacks any op-amps whatsoever, so that argument is moot.

Soundstage, imaging, musicality, warmth or whatever subjective terms you want to use are all part of the original recording so yeah thats all in the file. The DAC, amplifier, speakers / headphones all have to be capable of revealing it. Certain components can emphasize different attributes (warmth, soundstage, ect.) but you can't add something that wasn't there to be begin with and its certainly not being generated by headphones or speakers.

If the Gustard dosn't use op-amps then it uses discrete components, otherwise you don't have sound.

srkbearAny efforts on the the part of DAC manufacturers to claim that their offerings provide any more of an end result than the reproduction of the master are selling snake oil. The limitations of human hearing, our audible dynamic range and frequency range constraints, all dictate that there‘a only a limited spectrum of noise and distortion we can detect among different DACs—this is the very basis for the generally correct assertion that all DACs, other than the most abysmal, sound the same.

Again thats not how human hearing works at all. It only looks correct because you keep looking at the same type of meaningless results.

srkbearIf you can hear anything special that cannot be achieved by this SMSL unit, which achieves a level of SINAD and linearity that is well beyond the limits of our human ear, I say more power to you. Just don’t make similar promises that others will, especially if the DAC you’re endorsing costs more. That’s the most I want to say about this, I only care that folks are happy with the gear that brings them the joy of music. Peace.

I never said I could, endorsed expensive DACs, or made promises. What I'm saying is that ASRs DAC reviews don't show anything useful and are largely irrelevant when it comes to answering why different high-end DACs sound the way they do for all the reasons above. If you believe otherwise thats fine but know that just because you can reliably repeat tests and plot the data on a graph dosn't automatically lend credibility to those tests if that data isn't showing you isn't anything useful.