Five DACs, Blind Test ($400 to $9,000)… Here’s What I Heard

This week we did something a little different in the shop. Four of us spent an entire afternoon listening to five different DACs in the same system, level-matched and mostly blind. We played the same tracks, took notes individually, took a guess at which DACs we were listening to and compared impressions at the end. The DACs ranged in price from $400 to $9,000, and as you’ll see, the results weren’t entirely what I expected. This wasn’t about declaring a universal “winner,” but about understanding how these DACs present music in a real system, under controlled conditions. DACs in this video: BorderPatrol Zola ($4,000) Schiit Audio DAC ($400) BorderPatrol SE (discontinued, originally $1,600) WiiM Ultra Streamer/DAC ($1,000) Mojo Audio Mystique Z ($9,000) Thanks for watching. Greg Volti Audio https://voltiaudio.com/