Are DAC's overpriced?

Oh, also don’t forget the wire and the power supply. They make a big difference. I use Audience cable, and it isn’t cheap, but their new budget cable Ohno is unbelievably good for the money. Battery power or upgraded switching power supplies for computer audio can make a big difference. 

I am really appreciative of the experiences shared here so I will hopefully throw out a DAC question that someone has a reference from which to share. I am considering inserting a PS Audio DSD in between my Oppo 205 and Hegel H300 to stream MQA Tidal through Roon. Worth it? Nordost Frey loom and Dynaudio 260’s. Thanks for any opinions.

If all your playing is Red Book CD's than look at some of the top of the line DAC's from the early 90's. They used R2R chips. Today a lot of the super expensive DAC's are going back to R2R topology but they have to do it the hard way because there are no more R2R chips made. Instead of precision laser trimmed resistor banks (Inside of the DAC Chip) now they have to use carefully matched SMD resistors and solder them to a circuit board.
Even one of the owners of Schitt lamented that these chips are no longer available and claims that the Burr Brown PCM63P DAC chip was the best ever made.Why? Because they sound so dam good!I have a Parasound D/AC1000 that uses the BB PMC63P chips, it has three analog PS, one for the digital section and two for the analog audio section. It sounds very musical and they can be purchased cheap. New in 1990 they cost 1000.00, not exactly chump change. 100.00 to 200.00 is what they sell for on Ebay.
So today the high end DAC's are moving back to the older technology to get better sound. The DS style DAC's just don't compete.

BillWojo

+1 Elizabeth