Sorry, I may have been exposing myself too much to a certain type of Apple Dongle Suprematist/Sufficientist on ASR, a type who goes around advising every newcomer to buy whatever the latest $10-30 dongle Amir measured and placed at a good spot in his SINAD ranking, almost reflexively calling such a DAC/amp “audibly transparent” as if there was nada, none, zero difference to be heard by anyone anywhere if comparing against a higher performing DAC/amp (which they almost never admit are really combination DAC/amps, and will always just call “DACs”, to help support their narrative of perfect fidelity).
Against these people’s position, it’s damning evidence. Additional DAC/amp quality beyond the levels of the Apple Dongle, quality that can be heard by a sizeable percent of the audiophile population (over 80% in this experiment) is demonstrably a real thing. (And in fact to 57% of them it was the kind of difference that “may be worth” or is definitely worth spending money on.)
Does everyone need to go precisely to the next price tier in this exact test ($3000) to achieve summit-fi? Of course not, I’d bet that level of performance is already available sub-$500-ish. But not in the Apple Dongle price tier. Not yet anyway.