What makes a DAC so expensive?

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.

Rubbish! Brightness is first and foremost a function of the engineering of the recording.

Brightness and harshness are IMPRESSIONS.... They come from the recording yes sometimes....And this is what i wrote: " Files or cd VARY in relative brightness"...

Please try to read a post before trashing it....

Anyway bright recording are unlistenable on some BAD system, way less so on a good balanced one.....That was my point...But you can take a bad audio too warm system and listen with it too bright files for sure, but 2 bad dont do a good one....

And your "first and foremost" forget the way many bad audio systems, already bright and harsh by themselves, worsen the situation with a bright recording...There exist way more unbalanced bright audio system than too much bright files or cd in a collection....I own 10,000 files and cd by the way....

Then your suggestion is wrong because these IMPRESSIONS of brightness may come from one or another or the 2, the recording and the audio system....But a balanced audio system make anything more listenable and that was my point....



Rubbish yourself then....

:)

«Logic is a two way sword, dont cut yourself with the sword» -Groucho Marx