As a Computer head (or digital head), I had also fallen to the same trap of thinking about things in the same way (e.g. chipset etc) and bits are bits.
What happens in a basic DAC is:
1) A input of digital signal
2) A processing of that digital signal
3) That digital signal is fed into a DAC to get a Analog output
4) Since the Analog output will be square wave, some filter is applied
5) That Analog signal is slightly amplified to line level so it gets transmitted to the preamp at the right level
Actually, the chips you list out are used for 1) input handling, 2) digital processing and 3) conversion to Analog
Those chips are all off the shelf and you will see even the medium end or high end one will use the same chips, does that make them sound the same? Hell no.
Audio is not like computer, it is very sensitive to a lot of things.
A few points greatly differentiate the sound:
1) Any input signal, albeit digital, introduce timing differences, which affects the sound output. The more expensive solutions has something to reclock the data, or to sync its clock with the source of digital signal. This will lead to more accurate sound playback
2) Digital processing differs from simply using off the shelf oversampling to significant DSP algorithms. In addition, digital filter is also applied before sending them to the DAC.
3) After the Analog signal is output from the DAC, it gets amplified. As the output is at really really low level, any slight distortion is highly significant. There are the basic op am to class A circuit or even tubes to amplify this sound to line level which can significantly affect the sound.
4) The circuit design, which may include, channel separation, minimize cross talk, separate digital stage and analog stage, and good power supply to ensure good amplification of signal.
These are the general points and I am sure there are others including the selection of circuit material, caps and capacitors, symmetry and minimization of signal path.
Mostly, digital circuits and computing only need to ensure it sends a as loud signal as possible as a 1 and no signal as 0. In addition, there is also numerous things in error corrections to ensure that 1s are 1s and 0s are 0s in our computing device. When we save and open word files always retrieving the same data, it is hard to believe bits aren't bits, and believe audio products should be as cheap as computing devices.
Not so, Analog processing requires not only high and low, it is everything in between that must be kept intact by the circuit. Also, Audio playback is the ultimate real time application, your amplifier is continuously outputting signal to the speaker/headphone to your ears, involving no discrete stage like your CPUs getting data. Your CPU can be notified about error correction and wait for the next clock, your ears does not have that capacity to wait. Any timing difference is directly amplified and goes to your ear, no error correction and no waiting.
It is unfortunate that these circuit design stuff are trade secrets to the manufacturers and they are likely to only outline the technology they use in vague marketing terms (e.g. upsampling algorithm, DAC chip (seems emphasized by only the very low end markets), some basic circuit design) but they cannot tell you all the details, nor are they meaningful. Ultimately, it is your ears they are trying to please and so you should trust your ears and forget all about those.
In the end, I think buying audio equipment is not buying computer, you cannot select the chipset on an internet website and get more or less what you wanted. You must audition it and see how your ears and heart respond to it before buying.