Hacker News Reader

As far as DACs are concerned, you’d be surprised: A few hundred dollars (e.g. Topping D50) can get you drastically better performance than many multi-thousand dollar “audiophile DACs”:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/m...

Now as far as speakers are concerned, yes, you’ll need to spend at least a few thousand for a stereo pair capable of doing justice to this level of precision and dynamic range.

View on HN

Ah yes, ASR. The place where a DAC or amp having a -100db SINAD means it's a terrible piece of hardware despite it being well below the threshold of human listening and the noise floor of the best recording and tube amps, who have significantly higher distortion, are considered terrible because of it despite the vast majority of people who actually listen to them liking them far more than some of the most beloved hardware at ASR (I'm looking at you THX and Topping hardware).

I belived in their swansong and bought into it up until recently, then I tried "terrible" hardware and dear God it sounds so much better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com