DAC in AVR vs Dedicated DAC

[sludgeogre]

My 2 cents:

I've heard a fair number of DACs. While do believe some sound different, it is all a matter of taste. I never thought one really sounded better than another.

I've never heard one change the soundstage or imaging. Those characteristics are how a speaker distributes sound, and a DAC doesn't/can't control that.

You should really look into Schiit Multibit technology. It is very different from the Delta Sigma DACs that compromises 99% of everything else out there. It's the only DAC that provides a closed form solution to the waveform, not an approximation. It also operates around 14 bits of dynamic range, whereas a DS DAC is somewhere around 4 I believe. It's quite a different experience to my ears.

I agree with you though on DS DACs, there aren't very huge differences between them, just different implementations and filters that can sound a bit different.

As for the imaging and soundstage comment, it's actually a lot more apparent on my LCD-2 headphones fed through my Asgard 2 amp. They don't have that wide of a soundstage normally, but the Bifrost really opens it up. On the Sierra Towers, I feel like the DS DAC in my Marantz is great for surround audio, but in stereo it doesn't feel like the towers are doing everything that I know they can sometimes. The Bifrost Multibit gives it that extra bit of clarity that allows the speakers to sound their fullest, to me. Googling around on reviews and Head-Fi it looks like a lot of people agree that it does have that effect for their systems.