charleski
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2014
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Let me certainly state that I do indeed have a dog in this fight; Schiit Audio and the DACs that it makes. We make DACs from $100 to $2300. Whatever your value judgements are with respect to what others should buy, I point out that the least expensive DACs sport DS AK4490 chips, which are an AKM "Carriage Trade" super taco DAC chip by their own chip positioning. The $1250 DAC contains 4 (one per phase-stereo) AD5781BRUZ chips and the 4 AD5791BRUZ are reserved for our $2300 DAC. It policy at Schiit that we make no sonic claims on any of our DACs nor on any of our amplifiers. Any subjective judgements cannot be proven, period.
That said, I am extremely proud of our parts cost to price value, particularly in light of our competitors, who really build $10,000 (and up!) converters. I am an engineer - I am not an opinion leader who tells anyone what to buy. I have no opinion on my competitor's products. I am only a designer and maker of 7 current Schiit D/A converters. Whatever a user buys, whether by Schiit or others, is only my business statistically to tell whether the product I build is of interest to our customer base. My viewpoint, given the starting price range of our converters is both populist and libertarian. I mind my own business about what to buy; the world would be more harmonious if everyone else would as well.
Closing my mind to narrative constructs of how things sound differently, particularly from those with no vested interests in the outcome, and particularly when there emerge certain patterns I will never do. I am sure of nothing (not restricted to the DBT) other than there is still much to be learned and verified. The conversion of para-audio to audio science fascinates me.
I'd still be interested to know why you distrust the domain transformation that lies at the heart of the ΔΣ strategy.
Schiit actually does a fairly decent job in terms of reining in the expansion of material cost that comes with using a multibit chip. But obviously if people want to spend more money on your products, you're happy to accomodate them, that's business.