I'm not saying that value isn't there because we don't know this at this point really. All I'm saying is that 2000$ is not affordable because you can buy not one but two dx220's for the price.
From the point of my own, who have modified the DX220 and witness it transformations in unleashing it chains. If the DX220Max is what I suspecting it to be, then $2,000 is cheap.
You can ask about anyone who has performed the EX modifications on the DX220 or listened to it and the Amp8 like
@icefalkon @edwardsean @panasonicst60 @EggofSound etc...
The price of modifying the DX220 even with DIY and your own labor is already putting it into $1100, then an Amp8 and component to upgrade is around $400. You are looking at $1400-1500 give or take for an EX modified DX220 + Amp8 EX by your own work.
The ideas is that Ibasso engineering is ridiculously geniuses, and with extremely high quality components, it transforms. These extremely high quality component isn’t cheap, it is about $8 a pop for a capacitor.
I don’t expect anyone to see the values of Ibasso as I do, beside those who have witnessed the EX modifications, and the people mentioned above who have worked on modifying their own. But my works is published and shared with every one, so you can easily look up what needed to be done for it.
Hell, what I want now is to have a bigger form factor than the DX220, to apply components that is so thick and large into the DX220 and Amp8, the upgraded power supplies and better cooling capability with the amp architect that is similar to Amp 8, a discrete Solid State with the most high quality and music dedicated into it,
and in no way I would be able to do it with another $500. This is why I am so glad that Ibasso is releasing DX220Max
Ibasso is the only company that has a Discrete amp module in such a little portable DAP I have seen by far.