DAC Hat vs. Other DAC?

[Jandu]

Thanks for most helpful info.

Since I don’t stream and mainly listen to same music ripped from my CD’s to Flac. Is it pointliness to have higher priced DAC’s? Since it will always be CD quality 44KHz.

I did buy an album off of qobuz at higher rate, honestly did not hear a dramatic difference either.
Maybe aging ears it the issue, then save a ton of money going back to mp3’s and cheap gear. :-)

CD quality is a good quality, provided the source was recorded well. You don't have to go higher resolution, unless the system can tell the difference.

Most DACs with decent equipment to produce sound can show the difference between CD FLAC file and MP3 files easily. To show a noisy USB from a quiet one is harder, but the differences are there if you are willing to look and have the right setup to try.