Spent some time search for internal pics but came up empty, some pictures of their previous TimeLens which was Pi based but this is a complete redesign soup to nuts. Wanted to see what theyâd done to the clock side.
from @Christof
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Thatâs for sharing. That is bespoke stuff and a lot of clocks both pll for the ethernet and ocx for the reclocking. I would have loved it more if the power supply was separate as thatâs usually the go to place for scaling performance.
Good job @Christof for finding this! The prototype has been kicking around for quite a long time. There was talk about it all the way back in July of 22 and the date on the lid is Dec 22. Software development Iâd imagine.
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Looks for me very commodity⌠would take the 2k and build something around Ian Canada, which would play in a complete different league 
âŚsorry biased, about those poor streamer standard designs. Just building a fancy alu case aroundâŚnot enough.
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Thatâs not even a fancy aluminum case. The cost here is probably mostly going toward s/w development and support. Not a Pi solution with an off the shelf OS automatically add $$$ to the project.
Also reminding everyone that the Denafrips ass exists too.
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There seems to be price creep the last few years to the point many of these devices cost several thousand of dollars for entry level, such as the newly released Auralic Aries:
Come on, this is higher end DAC territory pricing!
Perhaps Iâm a lone wolf here, and/or completely ignorant on technology behind these streamers.
Their entry level is the G1.1 so they do have something much cheaper than what you shared (although still expensive obviously)
Itâs also not remotely close to the high end DAC market? although there are servers/streamers/transports in those price categories too.
Seemed like the G1.1 was being discontinued with the recent price slash when this model became available.
High end DAC market starts at what price point?
Hard to even tell from that image, I see 2 crystals, which Iâd consider necessary.
I see an off the shelf arm board, but everyone does that.
Looks to be optically isolated.
Doesnât have the shear insane number of voltage regulators on say a rendu design.
Iâd like to see the text on the big chip, hard to guess what it is, Iâd guess CPLD or very small FPGA, in which case there could be quite a lot going on.
PSU look like a PSU, would rather is was on a separate board with shielding between it and the rest of the device, but itâs hard to guess how much impact that would haveâŚ
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That sale is only temporary btw, at least thatâs what was said on the email.
Having owned the g1 and g2, I definitely wouldnât want to buy it new lol
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I remember they just added newer models but mightâve missed the discontinuing announcement. Would seem a bit weird to me unless they really didnât sell many of those.
Donât know how to answer that. Imo itâs very subjective. I know @M0N had some text written on what you can expect from DACs in different price categories in his shit list at the bottom section but I donât personally agree with what he considers the high end starting point 
Depends what you spent on the last DAC you bought.
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So you understand my point at spending $6k on a streamer could be creeping or overlapping towards the higher end DACs we here like to buy?
I should have worded my comment, question posed about price creep on a device which someone correct me if I am wrong is not as complex in operation compared to a DAC?
Oh only temporary? It seems from previous Aries models they typically discontinue when a newer version comes out. Of course the delineation in the Aries line confuses the hell out of me at times with 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, etc
Most accurate assessment ever!
So back to my original comment about price creep without getting stuck in the semantics of what is what. Is there some correlation to the increasing costs of streamers (besides inflation, component price increases, or other logical items) where they have become a bit too expensive when buying new?
No more than any other component. PSAudio really doesnât mark anything up excessively over COG, I think their model is literally some fixed percentage over cost. They might be factoring software development into that cost though.
Iâll buy new if the overall value proposition makes sense, Warranty, dealer experience included and for most things it doesnât.
I would for example potentially buy a turntable new even with very high end turntables being under 30c on the dollar used. For a whole host of reasons, I have no way to know if there is bearing damage on a used item, I want a professional to set up the arm and cartridge, Iâd want to listen to several combinations, so eat into a dealers time.
2K doesnât seem extreme or unreasonable to me on a streamer, but Iâve got a lot more than 10x into DACâs than that.
If your spending 2K or less on your DAC, itâs probably more that you should be spending on a streamer.
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My comment was not necessarily aimed at the PS Audio AirLens, the talk about it and streamers prompted my query. To me there seems to be a trend, a few weeks ago it was Antipodes releasing a new variant and increasing the cost of their K50 by $4k if I remember correctly?
Way too much can go wrong on a used turntable, this I can also personally attest to.
Well my Chord TT2+M-Scaler ainât $2k, and while I may also have DACs such as my Sonic Frontiers which cost around $2k in recent years they both retailed above $6k back in the day, so $$$ cost is not what I am getting at, it is the value.
Just think of ignoring whatever comes after the â.â 1 is entry, 2 is middle, and 3 is totl. Theyâre not supposed to overlap with each other, at least thatâs how I see it.
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So those numbers are not the generations of the model? Like right now on the product page is shows three variants:
G1.1
G2.1
G2.2
Then there is the G3 still to come at $10k
The Antipodes isnât just a streamer, itâs a Music server that can be used as a streamer.
Think of it as a high end PC with custom hardware and software.
Not that their arenât just streamers that are very expensive, but itâs like anything else small production runs with custom components have price tag where the skies the limit.
Streamers are fundamentally âsimpleâ devices conceptually, but so are DACâs or amplifiers, or for that matter turntables.
They arenât something that has to be expensive, but like anything else you can make them expensive, better power supplies, over designed power isolation, galvanic isolation potentially in multiple places, re-clocking etc.
Software costs arenât 0 to develop, even if you just maintain your own linux distro.
Supporting any device that costs $$ and connects to a home network is a potential nightmare, because of the variety of hardware and configurations.
etc. etc.
Value isnât a quantifiable thing, itâs very much about how an individual perceives something.
There was a point where I wouldnât spend $1K on a DAC, but wouldnât have even looked at turntables under $5K. Obviously I got over that, and it was an incremental process.
I did struggle with value when I first bought the NS1, and that changed my perception of value in the streamer space.
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No in that case they are just different models at different price points.
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Yes, what poly said. Whatever comes after the â.â are the different iterations/generations of that specific model
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