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Most definitely it does! Interestingly enough, one of the DACs I am looking at is the SMSL SU-9 MQA from a price and performance perspective, along with the SMSL DO400 ES9039MSPRO Full Balanced Headphone Amplifier Audio Decoder DAC. My only headphone access point is on my CD player, so it checks another box for me. Just in case, the SQ change is minimal or not perceptible to me, I still have a win. MarkWell, I've been a 2 channel junkie since 1979. I've had at least a dozen dac's. Probably 7 of them was under $300. You know, you can hear the difference between a $100 dac and a $300 dac, but the differences were minor.
In brand names, I've had a Schiit, Modi 2... it was in line with my $200 dacs and only $100. I had a Chord MOJO, Slightly better than the Schitt, but not a different world. I had a Chinese balanced dac that was close to $400 (no name), I liked it, just a tad richer or more organic presentation. I got an SMSL SU-9 MQA. Never turned it off, it was the best so far. Smooth, detailed, good sound stage, good imaging and minimal digital glare that seemed to pop up its ugly head in all of the lower priced dacs. Recently, I purchased a Denafrips Enyo. This dac actually needed a fair amount of break in time, after that I found that It is a bit less detailed than the SMSL, but just a bit, what it does does do different is the way it presents music. A warm rich presentation without any glare that just feels more like music than the others. To be fair, this dac does retail at just about double of any of the other dacs and I do run it balanced in a fully balanced system. Overall, I have been enjoying this Dac more than any other that I have owned. I hope this helps in some way. Tim