[sfactor23]

Will it be able to play .iso files?

 

[Vignelli]

bitch please.. you know why ak always have customers no matter how much they put the price for their player?
 
people folks.. people.. 
 
people nowadays have an opiinion like "more expensive thing more good they are".. more like "pride" problem to me..

 

[Chromako]

+1. Exactly. The scales of these products are massively different. With scale comes much lower part and manufacturing costs as well as the ability to recoup fixed costs and overhead much more easily. For example if you spend $1m developing a product and sell 10 million units that's just 10 cents a unit needed to cover the R&D. However if you only sell 10,000 units then that's $100 per unit. Apples and oranges IMO.

 
And it's not just engineering and software design. It's also marketing, administration/planning, distribution, etc. 
 
I remember looking through the bill of parts for a popular flagship Android phone (can't remember which one, but we're talking something equivalent in the market at that time to the HTC One or Google Nexus (the original) that retailed for about $600- that people were considering to be a reasonable price. The bill of parts added up to something like $187, and since it's assembled by Foxconn in China, $8 was spent in the final assembly. Yes, the manufacturer was making a nice profit, but it wasn't at all highway robbery and the manufacturer wasn't, in the end, making ridiculous profits (we're not talking about the iPhone).
 
This does not count marketing, overhead, R/D, customer support (much of the cost is developing training materials and software guides for the low-paid phone warriors), or software- which I remind you, is largely a fixed, sunk cost that doesn't change depending on how many devices you make, with small variability towards marketing and customer support. Then there's distribution, inventory, quality control, and retailer profits, which take a chunk out of that $600 pie. 
 
Let's just go over this again. Less than 1/3 of the cost of a very popular piece of electronics that sold millions of units is in the actual parts and assembly. The rest is largely fixed costs for simply developing a new device. 
 
Now, these high end kilobuck DAPs, they have no economies of scale. Those fixed costs need to be distributed to a much smaller number of devices, not to mention that they need to make some profit, which is also going to be shared over a much smaller number of sales. 

 

[Chromako]

New post, as this is a slightly different example from something I know better. Economics here!
 
Think about the manufacturing and sales of CPU's. The actual manufacturing costs of a 300mm wafer for, say, Intel or AMD/GlobalFoundries, or TSMC is between $3000 and $10000, depending on your source. Probably closer to $3000 in most cases, the $10000 seems to be when they are having production challenges and if you're counting the depreciation of the multibillion dollar fabs...  Anyway. ....
 
With a yield of 50% on a typical wafer (a bit on the low side unless we're talking about the horrible yields from TSMC lately, but it's a reasonable number), a middle-of-the-range desktop chip, say, Sandy Bridge-He-4, for this example which that gives a yield of about 100 good dies out of just fewer than 200 per wafer sells for $2-300 wholesale each. That's a  manufacturing cost, including multiplying for the 50% defective rate, of $30-$100/chip from the Intel fabs in the US and Israel. I'd assume similar numbers from Global Foundries' American, Singaporean, and German fabs. Packaging in Costa Rica is a negligible cost here. And Global foundries/AMD and Intel have massive economies of scale. 
 
Are we saying that the retail prices are ridiculous here, since manufacturing is only 10-30% of what they sell a consumer level chip for? Well, Intel's making an okay profit, but it's far from being Apple, and AMD is running in the red (there are other reasons that contribute to this, but that's not my point here). My conclusion: no. I wouldn't say that they are gouging us here. This is another situation where sunk costs due to R/D and other stuff is king. 
 
Just food for thought. 
 
(Don't get me started on the server stuff- there's a lot more engineering and QC, oh yes, and profit, that goes on there, and we're now looking at numbers where the manufacturing can be less than 5% of the wholesale cost for some models) And businesses, universities, and supercomputing centres are totally okay with paying that without complaining. 

 

[Dopaminer]

It is up to the retailer as to the cost they attribute to their product...
 

Actually, it is up to the consumer, whether we realize it or not.  My friend`s shop in Tokyo is selling around 100 AK380 per month.  AK sold thousands of 240s, even though everyone knows there is essentially no difference between it and the less expensive 120ii.  Some people will pay these high prices, if they believe it is worth it; other people won`t pay these high prices.  It is natural that companies respond to meet the needs of everyone - so AK sells a $4K DAP, iBasso and Fiio sell $0.5K DAPs.  $0.05K Sansa Clip+ still sell on Ebay.  None of it is junk, and none of them are criminals.  
 
As for this new Onkyo, one logical price point will be in direct competition to the SONY ZX2 here in Japan, so around 130-150K JPY or $1000usd. 

 

[Libertad]

I would sploosh my pants if i got either one of these DAPs i cant wait for impressions to roll in 

 

[subguy812]

I would sploosh my pants if i got either one of these DAPs i cant wait for impressions to roll in :tongue_smile:

ewww A bit too much info

 

[nakedtoes]

I feel HM901s still ok to cost more then 1k... The idea they can fit 2 x desktop sabre DAC and 4 x OPA627 (power hungry) opamps inside such a small package is really outstanding. All the chips use are expensive with a metal housing. I cant say that for AK series... i dun even bother to listen to them.

 

[Joe-Siow]

Interesting argument put forth by many here. Anyway, will be waiting with much anticipation for the DP-X1. Hope both the price and overall product will be close to perfect.

 

[sandy1010]

Nope, you can add two 200GB microSD cards to this machine. You get 432GB.

Which is less than the AK380/240's with one 200gb card.

The original point was there's no advantage of 2 slots compared to 1 on the 380/240. It's a wash.

 

[kawaivpc1]

Which is less than the AK380/240's with one 200gb card.

The original point was there's no advantage of 2 slots compared to 1 on the 380/240. It's a wash.

Not really, when a 256GB micro SD comes out, it will be equal...
actually you get extra 32GB on Onkyo and Pioneer DAC.
Sandisk will release a 256GB microSD sometime in early next year, I believe..

 

[sandy1010]

Not really, when a 256GB micro SD comes out, it will be equal...
actually you get extra 32GB on Onkyo and Pioneer DAC.
Sandisk will release a 256GB microSD sometime in early next year, I believe..

So it'll be a 32gb advantage to Onkyo instead of AK.

As I said , pretty much a wash.

 

[goodvibes]

It goes well beyond bought parts. Production setups, tooling amortizations etc are drastically different as are the marketing umbrellas. Kids bringing up the cost of processors and DACs is just unfamiliarity with manufacture and marketing. People are allowed to profit and pay employees and for their R&D. R&D is another aspect that is a much higher percentage of cost in a small volume item. Packaging and accessory costs can be significant as well and a quarter more per for lower quantity can become a dollar more at retail. It adds up.
 
There comes a point, especially for a larger company like Onkyo, that if not enough profit is made, those resources would be better spent elsewhere. Be happy we have options.

 

[Dopaminer]

  Not really, when a 256GB micro SD comes out, it will be equal...
actually you get extra 32GB on Onkyo and Pioneer DAC.
Sandisk will release a 256GB microSD sometime in early next year, I believe..

 
I just read a Japanese page that claims the Onkyo player is limited to 288GB maximum storage, including the 32gb internal.  So, two 128gb SDs or some other combo equalling 256gb removable storage.
 
With other players, users often exceed the stated limits, so hopefully this one will the same, or upgraded through fimrware.  (or the page I read is wrong). 

 

[beemarman]

   
I just read a Japanese page that claims the Onkyo player is limited to 288GB maximum storage, including the 32gb internal.  So, two 128gb SDs or some other combo equalling 256gb removable storage.
 
With other players, users often exceed the stated limits, so hopefully this one will the same, or upgraded through fimrware.  (or the page I read is wrong). 

 
I believe that because the current highest sd card when it was announced was 12GB. My Samsung Galaxy note 2 takes the new 200GB sd card, but when it was announced back in the days I believe the maximum advertised was 64SD sd card.