In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

In my search I found DACs ranging in price fro about $5(!) to $26,000.
I finished up paying about $500.

any of which can be used with a digital headphone jack and whatever
headphones/speakers you want.

not that there is an audible difference, except perhaps the $5 one.

Lots of people think you are wrong. I certainly do.

even more do not.

some might *think* they can hear a difference, but they can't.

objective double-blind tests consistently show that people do no better
than chance. in other words, they're guessing.

I already had a DAC in my Roland Duo Capture EX which I bought for use
as an ADC for transcribing vinyl discs. Its DAC was acceptable but in
the end I finished up buying an Arcam irDAC-II which is a middle of
the road DAC. It made an audibly better job of converting digital to
analog than did the Roland. Mind you, I was listening through good
gear.

confirmation bias.

When I unwittingly leave the wrong one turned on I can immediately
hear the difference. It's not imagination.

then it's defective or it's intentionally adding something to the
sound, neither of which is desirable.

regardless, with a digital headphone jack, you can use whatever dac you
want. with an analog headphone jack, you're stuck with whatever is in
the device.