How much do a Dac really help with SQ

[Rexxar]

Hello

I just had to ask i am a little curious how much a Dac really help with Soundquality,

for example i use spotify for all my music, will it be much better sound its still mp3 quality.

and also is it a waste of money to buy for example the Musicalfidelity m1 or the cheaper Dacmagic if iam still just gonna stream music?

 

[MajorFubar]

I just had to ask i am a little curious how much a Dac really help with Soundquality,

Compared to what? The soundcard in an average Windows laptop? Absolutely loads. Yes, even with Spotify.

Can you find a dealer who will let you borrow one?

 

[Rexxar]

Compared to an Avr"Yamaha rx v663" streaming via Aiport express, and spotify is stream from ipad/phone its what i have right now

 

[JohnKK]

I have tried this with Marantz AVR and stand-alone DAC and my conclusion is - no, you will not hear any significant upgrade in SQ.

Reason for that is I think that AVR offers very limited amplification quality for music and DAC inside AVR is optimized to its amp quality and any big upgrade in source will not be shown.

Also there is a matter of spotify which is mp3 quality and this is also limiting factor.

For example, when I was playing with AVR and onboard and standalone DAC - everything sounded the same - mp3, flac, hi res files.

Music was much more important to me than surround so I replaced AVR for stereo amp and better speakers - and standalone DAC is really doing its job now perfectly. ;-)

 

[Rexxar]

Is system matching a thing with dacs like "warm or cold clinical"

someone that maybe heard those dacs that i listed with monitor audio rx1s?