What makes a DAC so expensive?

One DAC is $139 the other $10,500 in a sighted test which one will win consistently?

I think i am with djones about that, not because some technicalities about measures numbers prove that improved technological advances are inaudible.... I am not sure ears are so well understood in their astonishing capacity to retrieve information from sound ....

But i sense no limitations in upgrading my sonic s.q. for the last 2 years to another level completely and my modestly price dac was never a limitation and never reveal any of his own limitations to me if there is some...(I am sure my dac has limitations for sure but whose dac has none ?)

I think really that, except if my dac was a miracle at low cost, and i think it is one anyway, perhaps also limitations  seeming to come from dacs are coming sometimes from a too much sophisticated technology in relation to the rest of the gear or rather reveal limitations in relation to the 3 embeddings of the audio system more than from the dac itself, or comes from really too digital sound harsh  bad dac....All the dacs i owned before the last one were bad, even the best one, in spite of glowing reviews.... They all were low cost one for sure....

My best purchase in Audio was this dac.....Starting Point Systems NOS dac....There exist no negative reviews of this dac and some talk about his limitations being a lack of details....I was thinking  the same the first month i listen to it, perhaps a bit lackimg in details....

But with my upgrading embeddings many controls improvement that put my system on another level totally, i realized that the seeming lack of details was coming rather from a wrongly or defective mechanical, electrical, and acoustical embeddings of my audio system, not from the dac at all...

Then what is the value of reviews by reviewers that listen to compare many dacs in a not so well embedded audio system and room?

Zero....

Because the best dac in the world, if there is one, must theoretically have no sound of his own, it is a translator, the defects are then coming from the audio system embeddings....For bad dac, all people know what is their sound: harsh,digital, cold, analytical etc....Or too warm, lacking details etc

A good dac does not exist, it is his best quality....

My dac do not exist indeed....

:)

Listening, you’re trying to use one measurement to decide. I also do that, but 8n this case that instrument is my ears. 

I tried one of the best measuring dacs in the world, the matrix X-Sabre Pro. Unfortunately it sounded dull and lifeless. I wish I could choose based on measurements because it sure would be a lot easier than actually having to listen to everything.

Dull and lifeless?

Try  Starting point systems at his price nothing to loose and it is not dull nor lifeless, it sound very natural....

You really think the output stage has no effect on sound, maybe you should just stick to an avr with good measurements.