What makes a DAC so expensive?

@jjss49 Thanks for the short course! Your information is helpful!

A) Clocking and jitter have been teased out fairly frequently, in my looking about. I know you can buy external re-clockers and spend thousands doing so. 

B) Schiit claims in their rendition of Multibit, or True Multibit, a "time-and frequency-domain optimized digital filter," but I couldn't begin to make sense of it...

C) This notion of output being "ported" out of the DAC chip is fascinating. Perhaps there are a variety of ways of achieving this, perhaps with some Mundorf opulence? I jest, but it also intrigues. . . 

D) The Allo DAC I mentioned made it clear that management of power is a big thing. I wonder how they pull it off with smaller DACs, like the Schiit Modi. 

I have the Modi, presently, and I'm curious about a higher end piece, but I'm struck by how well it fits into my system, not infrequently producing 3-D images from good recordings, and accurate tones in most places, perhaps a bit bright here and there, perhaps a lil under-developed here and there, but perchance this is also partly the fault of the recordings...

Whether it's a DAC or speakers, when comparing two good alternatives, I doubt most of a big price difference is in the parts.
Many high-end products are built more or less to order in small numbers, for affluent customers willing to pay a big premium even for relatively small differences in SQ. The company may not be over-charging for its product.  It really does cost more to make, deliver, and support it. But not (primarily) because they use vastly more expensive parts.

Recently I looked at Devore speakers. $8400 for the O/93, $12K for the O/96.   Plenty of decent, 2 way bass reflex boxes are available for far less. Devore uses veneered plywood baffles, not MDF.  Sure, veneered plywood is more expensive, but not THAT much more.

If you’re using a Schiit multibit modi try the Modius you might notice a difference depending on your other components. 

Brightness on any cd or files is not a files or cd defect so much than the sign of an imperfect dac....Lacking completely sometimes of 3-d holography soundstage is another sign...

Files or cd VARY in relative brightness, and in their capacity to deliver holographic soundstage, but this variation is NEVER an absence or a complete lacking with a good dac, nevermind the files or cd...

I know i own one...

Wit a good dac music exist first all time, not the dac or the files first....

Rubbish!  Brightness is first and foremost a function of the engineering of the recording.  To some extent the venue and other "external" factors, but primarily the ADC used by the recording engineer, plus any post-recording processing.  The early DDD recordings made by Deutsche Grammophon (DGG) were often excruciatingly bright.