Dude was sitting there with a 18K amp, 25K DAC, 13K streamer and 6K headphones but he had to give me his personal smartphone when I wanted to select a track and sat there bored in the meantime lol someone get that (very friendly btw) guy an ipad or something
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Wait until you find out that the berkeley RS3 (30k), bricasti m1se/m21. (12k/20k), and others use AD1955 chips, 2 of them about 5 bucks each lol. And I could go on about high end dacs with normal off the shelf chips
Really it’s all down to implementation, there’s so so so much more to a dac than just it’s chip, and while there might be some smaller shared commonalities between these chips in sound across dacs, most of the time they can be wildly different sounding from each other with the same chip, or they can all sound similar like they do in the lower end, all depends on implementation and everything around them. You’ll see designers pull off the shelf chips (such as AKM4490 even over past akm flagships since they like working with those chips most), pull vintage chips (like vintage AD or TI/BB chips) and parallel them or something, make their own designs through FPGA, create custom discrete ladder dacs, etc.
And that’s only one piece of the puzzle, and really I’ve heard both amazing and shit implementations of all of the above, so when looking at dacs in the high end I really wouldn’t consider much about what chip or tech it uses because I think it largely doesn’t really define the sound of the dacs and it’s misleading to try and estimate sound and performance based off that. Designers in the high end basically pick whatever they think suits their design the best or what they think they can maximize in the high end. Sometimes that’s making their own dac from scratch, and sometimes that’s taking an off the shelf chip to it’s limits
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Is this with Shang sr or he60?
HE60 to be clear sorry. Never heard a shang off either the LL2 or A-10
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That explains why I preferred the erco over the cma 15 and bifrost 2/64, despite the erco having a worse dac chip than both.
How do high end dacs hold up in value? I’d probably keep a high end dac for like 2 years and I wouldn’t want it to lose half its value over that time lol
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Sounds good. Tbh still kinda kicking myself for not grabbing the LL2 that was for sale in Italy for absalute ages (at least up for 6 months)
Really depends on the dac at hand, some drop quick, some hold well, although I’d make the assumption that it will likely depreciate quicker than an amp. But really depends on the dac at hand for it’s value retention
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Buy it used.
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This is a hobby where it simply doesn’t make sense to buy new, unless you’re wealthy and or in need of being first.
Speakers if you want a special finish and since used speakers, the shipping can be so much a part of the expense, they’re easier IMO to justify buying new. There are also other products where they simply don’t depreciate too much. Things like the EtherREGEN, Schiit BF2, LTA amps or Morrow Audio cables… especially if the vendor has black Friday or holiday sales regularly. Just buy those new and get the benefits of that.
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There are times where it makes sense to buy new, but typically buying used is a better bet. All depends on the dac though, really in some cases buying new is worthwhile for warranty, ease of purchasing, lack of used availability or used prices are close enough to new reasons. Again all depends on the dac at hand, but doing research into what you can get things used first is what I would do considering anything, then look at what it would be new, and go from there to see which one makes more sense (it’s going to be used most of the time, but there are just enough cases where buying new makes more sense where it’s worthwhile looking)
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THIS.
you can own a Chord Dave for a year or so and lose nothing on it, they are highly desirable, and are frequently available, if you can buy at the right price, it’s an easy re-sell. I made $200 on mine FWIW.
The “secret” is understanding what the market looks like and to bail before that changes. The head-fi sheen on the Holo May’s has worn off more recently and don’t sell for what they did a year or two ago.
Just understand what you are buying, how easy they are to resell and what the market looks like and you’ll generally “rent” for a low cost.
Risk rises dramatically with unusual, and very expensive pieces.
If there is no used market, it can certainly make sense, I considered buying new for the totalDAC, I’d consider it for some amps that are otherwise unobtainable, but for stuff that is popular/comes up frequently, let someone else take the initial hit.
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I’d add, even if you lose a couple of hundred bucks over the course of owning and using something over the course of a year or so. Think of it as rental and a MORE than worthwhile investment in your hobby to gain the first hand experience of having a product long term in your home. Your own ears in your own house on your own system is worth 5,000 of some guy on the internet’s words. 
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Darn, I passed up on an excellent deal on head-fi last month. given how the market is looking i wouldn’t be surprised to find another for like 6k
I’ve been on the wrong end of that trend a couple of times lol. Speaking of the May, I was really surprised to see people’s impressions on it here.
I wouldn’t mind losing like $1000 for owning a high end piece of equipment for like 2 years. Given how much time I am spending on audio, it is starting to seem like a better use of my money than a gaming PC.
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I don’t think anyone here actively dislikes the Holo stuff, it was just heavily overhyped on head-if and related boards. Pretty much anything that hits FOTM status is overrated, the problem with forums generally is they tend to disproportionately reinforce support for a small number of items.
A lot of DAC’s in particular don’t get a lot of play in the headphone space (except it seems here).
We obviously have our favorites here as well, we probably post more positive comments on the MySphere here than all of head-fi, and we have probably <1% of it’s users, The difference being the MySphere is very much the real deal (honest)……
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This is going to be a generalization but the level of conversation here is higher and deeper than most other communities and that will almost always get you more thoughts and opinions and less consensus. Being a smaller group also minimizes the ability to create buzz, trends or push agendas so you get honest opinions with less noise. Holo can be great, for some use cases, for some people, for some chains, etc etc
Daves show up on almost a weekly basis. Be patient enough and you’ll get the deal you want with almost 100% certainty when it comes to the Dave.
From the 16 components I consider part of my hobby collection, 13 were bought used, 1 was bought new on sale for basically used pricing, and 2 were bought new. And everything together cost about 55% of MSRP (@dB_Cooper should be proud!) and loses will be quite minimal when selling. So many people miss opportunities because of being afraid to buy used. Be patient and vigilant about it and you’d rarely lose (too much).
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Tbf, I think people here can be a bit reactionary about it. Its not the second comming like HF says, but it’s a pretty damn solid deal for the rrp if you don’t mind the tradeoffs. Where it starts to be less conpetetuve is used where other stuff takes much larger hits to value whole the may just kinda doesn’t.
I actively hate their stuff 
Tbf though that’s just because I hate textural smoothness which seems to be a very common trait of holo stuff. I do recognize it’s not a hunk of junk, just not for me.
Edit: I also actively dislike kind of a lot of gear tbh
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Definitely agree the May is/was overhyped. Not bad at all but when people are claiming it’s a Dave killer or Dave and mscaler killer, I was shocked. A good dac but idk about that. Also haven’t heard the Dave.
I moved from the tt2 to the May and while I thought the May was good I felt it was definitely in the same tier as the tt2. Just preference. Without hearing the Dave I was confused at how this could be so close.
I ended up selling the May and downsizing some. I picked up a Wavelight. While I felt the Wavelight was in the same tier as the tt2 and May, I felt it was a little better and kinda gave me the best of both, in some ways.
What was also shocking to me was how the Wavelight lost more value on the used market vs the May. The May was/is staying around high 4s-5k. I picked up my used Wavelight for 3.5k.
Not sure where I’d go from here when I’m ready to upgrade… if that happens, I’m pretty happy with this atm. Maybe a wavedream or total dac, idk? I think I’d want to tie in speakers if I ever made that jump.
As far as holo amps, I’ve only owned one of theirs, the bliss and I enjoy it. I think it does well with the Susvara. I don’t feel anything is off. I guess more texture if I had to pick? But it’s not like it’s bad. The hd650 is another solid pairing imo. I enjoy it. The HM1 has me interested but that’s a lot of change and I think I’d rather have a Stellaris. Too bad the Stellaris isn’t a pre…
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Reranked some stuff, added some more clarification onto top/mid/low with + and - on some, and added unfinished estat section (amps are there, descriptions are not), might resort though depending on how I look at it tomorrow and see if I still agree with how it was changed lol
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Every time I go over your list I’m surprised how you don’t own any of what you consider the top amps and how highly you rank the Utopia
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Mainly since at this point it’s because I’ve moved to using all speaker replacing my top headphone amps (check my current profile). Before I had gotten to this point, I had most of the amps at the top for a decent bit, and if I wasn’t using the speaker amps I use now, I’d own a lot of the ones at the top lol
I’d say if I didn’t go speaker amps, the ones I’d end up considering again would be an aic 10 (I basically do have one since I have afm-50), ac genus int (which is basically a speaker amp) or viva egoista 845 in place if I couldn’t, angstrom stella mk2, and an eddie current studio t. And always keeping around a mass kobo (which I still do now)
Probably a bit high but I do really like them more than others, they scale incredibly well
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