I would really appreciate some help now that I understand better to explain what I am looking for. I am looking for advice from people who themselves listen to Ambient and electronic music.
I am putting those genres as a reference because of the sound characteristics the DAP should handle well.
Here is a comparison to acoustic music & why:
Acoustic music: Has limited width and depth determined by room and instrument acoustic possibilities. Pretty good reference point for highs though (think violins).
But I don't want to compare to Acoustic music because what I am looking for is:
Ambient: Has unlimited possibilites of creating synthetic depth and width. Can create sounds that sound infinitely wide. I guess you could also say high demand on the stereo imaging that goes beyond what is required of simulating a live acoustic concert with front seat & back seat terminology.
Budget: $200. Maybe higher but I would like to stick to up to $200.
My headphones can represent higher end sound:
FLC8n
Sensitivity: 107dB/mW @1Khz Impedance: 11Ω
Here is a list of gear I have tried so far with FLC8n:
My reference point for mobile DAC is my smarthphone LG G5 with music apps LG Music & Neutron Music Player. It's quite unknown Qualcomm WSA8815 Audio Codec surprisingly still beats anything I have thrown at is so far in terms of width and depth & resolving highs. LG customized the music player app in this phone to the DAC and achieved an impressive enhanced width and depth that sounds natural rather than a synthetic effect (glued on top sounding shit from Windows 10 , Creative room profiles bla bla bla). Neutron player has better quality overall but I keep coming back to the original LG music player for the phone. That extra width is so nice for vocals and ambient music.
Hardware tried that does not match the same quality:
Cyrus Soundkey DAC
bad dirty/muddies highs. Too much gain for my sensetive IEMs.
Hifime Sabre 9018 DAC
Same here but much worse. Health risk even, high on 3% volume already (on PC)
Hidizs dh1000 DAC also known as Tempotec sonata
Soundstage is too narrow and far away sounding. Does not surround you.
Fiio M3K DAP
The crystal clear fidelity in the highs is not there and can not handle the wide stereo imaging required for above tracks.
My Scarlett 2i2 beats all of the above, but that's a USB powered desktop DAC.