Like Dave and Troy said, this guy’s video only looks at the cost of some chips. You can buy those from Digikey for about $5 to $15 depending on which ones you are wanting to use.
But this is like saying, most all cars use gasoline, so there’s no difference between cars. Well, not exactly.
Jason Bourne seems to think a $200 SMSL DAC is going to sound the same as a $4000 Holo Audio DAC. In his system it might. LOL. (Just kidding). But others with better systems and better ears, and especially if using good headphones, you will likely hear a nice difference. We all just have to decide where on the price to performance ratio we want to land - and the synergy between the DAC and the rest of our systems.
The good thing is that yeah, the $200 SMSL DAC isn’t "bad". The days of "bad DACs" are long in the past now and we are lucky for that.
We all have different ears (hearing) and sonic priorities. Some may say natural tone or body of sounds and the attack and decay are most important, others will say soundstage and imaging. Some want it all, if they can get it at a price they are willing to pay. We choose our priorities.
The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype
Over many decades I have owned my share of multi-thousand dollar dacs.My current is my Audio Alchemy DDP-1 + PS 5, which I have owned for ~ 4 years. I have made many changes to my system, including cables and it has shined a light on every one, so I tend to agree with the YTV . Your thoughts?
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Dac & wire upgrades will mostly be meaningless until you sink some cash into treatments that actually work. If you room doesn't start to look like some of these examples ...just forget it, i.e. if you are sitting in the living room and subject to divorce if the room starts to look like a high end studio, save your dac, wire, etc pennies and move on. https://youtu.be/T-ydC9IB0G8?si=LztuIx3nWU-xoQAg https://youtu.be/tKWAI21G0bc?si=lCtZXcw40hN0KAqU https://youtu.be/btLXMzAq1_A?si=V0MenTkfVoetKEC0
If you are a DIY/handy guy with construction & lumber, it will be cheaper. Even the bow wow bow wow moron in the OP's video is bound to have his pants blown off in one of my rooms... But, in whatever crap room he's sitting in with speakers stacked on pizza boxes, the realtek dac in his computer and an Aavik dac shall all sound the same, that would be his unfortunate reality, whatever... |
The guy in the YT video is a clown. I use a fpga dac that is highly rated and doesn’t have his so called common dac chips. |
YouTube guy’s voice grates a bit like a low-pitched chainsaw. But I stuck with it. He is not talking complete complete BS. He is not very good at math though, unless he is assuming millions of units sold to drive fixed cost per unit down to null when he extrapolates that a top-end AKM DAC should run no more than a few hundred quid despite having an excellent power supply and analog section that engineers sweated over to make sure it sounded right. Throw in a machined case and I’d put that at 1000 clams. Still a far cry from 30K though. So, like I said, not complete complete BS from him. But it is totally uncool to show any FPGA DACs in the original flurry of images if the rant is all about chip DACs. |
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