What is the average life expectancy of a DAC?

Commended for asking a good question?
How do you know when it reaches its expiration? 
Does it get moldy like bread?

jasonbourne52

Nobody can tell a $100 DAC from a $1000 DAC if they listen blindfolded

That’s an interesting claim. Please tell us about your listening tests that have led you to this conclusion.

Here’s a 140 page read on the topic. Many more on the same site and around the web. The only folks who can ever tell the difference are doing sighted or otherwise biased “tests”.


https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/serious-question-how-can-dacs-have-a-soun...

larshepping

The only folks who can ever tell the difference are doing sighted or otherwise biased “tests” ...

And you claim this based on the work of ASR and its obvious agenda? You might want to see if you can participate in some actual blind testing yourself. You might be surprised what you learn!

Just curious how everyone thinks about FPGA systems like the PS Audio Direct Stream versus chip based D/A systems.  Does the ability to modify the system via a software update give FPGA systems a longer significant lifetime and therefore do they warrant a higher used price?

I disagree with the premise that one cannot hear the difference between dacs. Everything has a sound and sounds different through a top system. Obviously YMMV.

That said although I've done blind testing, I've not been able to level match, so my data is flawed. We didn't prefer the loudest unit, though, as usually hypothesized.

Having tried popular new dacs, I eventually ended up with an Audio Mirror R2R dac based on an obsolete Analog devices AD1865N-K. The nice thing about going with an old chip is that you don't have to chase the shiney new thing. And I preferred it to every shiney new dac I tried. I'm sure it'll still compare favourably to whatever is new in 10 years.