MD x Airist x Sosolar: RDAC design mysteries

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by bimmer100, Jun 5, 2018.

  1. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    The brainwashed do not know they are brainwashed. Dude is going to have a psychotic episode if anyone manages to bust that bubble.
     
  2. frenchbat

    frenchbat Almost "Made"

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    After the armchair lawyer/ip advisor hour, I see we have now migrated to the armchair marketing team hour.

    Vote with your wallets, boys. If the product is worth it, lay down the money. If it's not, move on.
     
  3. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    @Elnrik, I thought of prices in Philippine pesos and then just converted to USD. $300 to $600 is ~15,700-31,000 PHP, which is what I'd consider mid-fi. Note that my idea of what mid-fi is may be different for a variety of reasons.

    Here's something I don't feel embarrassed admitting: my last full-time job before entering grad school was as a marketing research dude that did odd jobs around the office such as copy writing, graphic design (calligraphy hobby FTW), event coverage, community moderation, and a fuckton of other things. Twelve-hour days four days a week, but with frequent overtime. I had to sleep overnight at my desk in a swivel chair one sneeze from collapsing many times, and one time, it actually did collapse when I sneezed.

    I earned $380 a month before taxes by the end of my tenure there.

    That was the salary of someone responsible for keeping a team of people in check, my salary after multiple raises over the two and a half years I spent at that company, consistent overtime on Christmas Eves and New Year's Days included. I know many people who have to support families on what amounts in some countries to the cost of an unremarkable meal. I know poor, even though I'm fortunate to have food on my table every day. It helps that I still live with my parents and siblings (all of us are legally adults). As an aside: perhaps there's a reason other than culture why Asians live with their parents well into adulthood.

    I actually consider that $380 a halfway decent income because I know of many people who started earning far less and have striven to be better. But I'm over-generalizing. There are Filipinos who can buy expensive things at full SRP, and I'm being a bitch for selling the whole country short.

    I'm rambling again. f**k.

    Anyway, the above is why I was irritated when @sosolar proclaimed that they would not be releasing a model for less than $1500. I admit I felt embittered and thought, irrationally, that it was as if anything nice just had to be expensive for no reason other than whim. @Torq raises an excellent point though, R&D costs really are no joke, and I'm a true fool for having missed that. Still, it may be worth using what was learned in the development of those nicer DACs to make an economy line. Food for thought.

    P.S.
    I trust @Vtory's evaluation of the components and compromises in the unit, and admit ignorance in that. $600 seems like a reasonable price for something superior to the mid-tier Schiit stuff!
     
  4. maverickronin

    maverickronin Friend

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    Yep, but size of that difference depends on what the actual product is. This is all established theory, off the shelf parts, and a bit of custom code gluing it together.
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    In @sosolar's defense, not everyone wants to make a lot of money via high volume or deal with 1000 customers. Most DIYers do it because of passion and curiosity, and only offer their full turnkey products to the few who are truly interested. Keep in mind that the Hibiki boards are available via taobao and that @sosolar also mentioned he might put some later DIY boards on eBay.

    Taking boards and putting them in chassis along with all the final little touches is a serious pain in the ass and not worth it for small volumes unless one charges a lot.

    -

    As for Jimster? Who is Jimster? Did I hear a murmur? Was that an ant trying to say something?
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2018
  6. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    At the end of the day, I am honestly and brutally think that new DAC market challengers must seriously consider Gungnir Multibit (nick-named as Gungnir Multibit) as a reference pricing point. Because it is de-facto the price-performance frontier (at least in sbaf).

    $1,250 is a huge investment for an average sbaf audiophile (particularly so if newly entered). But at least I greatly prefer very special "eye-popping" experience even at significant cost to just decent experience at cheaper cost. Gungnir Multibit really widened my perspective.. easily convinced its asking price when sounded right. I hope Gungnir Multibit performance at $350 some day ... will be amazing .. but probably not doable in the short run. Anyway think this is a kind of experience that every developer must try to deliver to customers. I am asking this level of performance/experience at the best available price (hopefully lower than Schiit offers lol).

    IMHO lower dac tier (in US) is nearly red-ocean. At a glance, that market segments have a lot of consumers.. but too many factors to consider.... very complicated consumer mix. Too many competitors. Very marketing dependent. Blah blah..

    @Lyer25 : Now I better understand your point.. Different GDP situations at different countries are really tricky.. My pricing arguments are highly based on US situation ($57,000 GDP per capita)
     
  7. soekris

    soekris MOT - Soekris Engineering

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    (shameless plug) I'm still offering the dac1321 at USD 555, and the dac1421 at USD 900, including shipping to US. Both I'm considering better than the MD RDAC, both sound quality, features and build quality.... And they're made in Denmark.

    What I'm lacking is a US online store and maybe some marketing muscle, I'm impressed what MD is managing to pull off....
     
  8. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    Absolutely the kind of comment I'd expect from someone that's never actually done any of it.
     
  9. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    I think you may be mistaken on a few things.

    1. What is this "cost of huge consumers' risk"? Is it waiting time or anything else? Because it's obviously not monetary risk here. If MD fails to deliver something, they refund you, unlike the wasteland that is crowd funding. I think you are confusing MD with crowdfunding. I have received refunds from Massdrop before on things that I can't afford to wait on. It's not as painful as asking for refunds from kickstarter or indiegogo.

    2. Precision of parts is always a problem and not specifically a MD's problem. Even when you DIY stuffs, the best bet is to buy like 1000 units of something with high precision and then measure them yourselves. Otherwise even 0.01% parts have wide variations as high as 0.05%. This is just reality. Manufacturing parts with exact specifications is hard. If you open up your expensive audio equipment and measure the parts yourself, you'll find that there are huge variations here and there. This is actually kinda normal. When a part is like... let's say, 10K ohm, then it matters very little whether it's accurate down to 1% or 0.01%. It's the design that matters. The only way you can make sure something is completely even left to right is to DIY. It doesn't make sense to try and sell a product with high precision parts to the mass market.

    3. Schiit did not begin from Modi Multibit but they did begin with AKM chips, and Ragnarok + Yggdrasil never came about until much later, when Schiit has established themselves in the market. I think sosolar and many other manufacturers are forgetting the fact that they have to start somewhere on the bottom and climb up the ladder. Audiophilia is NO LONGER a market where you are taken seriously based on how high you are pricing your stuffs. It might have been the case at some point, but people have become wiser. Cost-cutting (up to a point) is necessary for a FIRST product because if you price something too high up, you risk the following: alienating first-time buyers, cost induced from purchasing parts that are far too expensive to fulfill your orders, making everything by hand so the hidden cost of labor goes up, after-sale support costs go sky high because parts cost a fuk ton to purchase. The last two end up being what kill startups because they never expected their products to fail, and they never expected it would cost that much to fix them. I have seen this far too often.
     
  10. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Thanks for pointing out many things. Mostly agree with what you said, but it seems that I was not successful to deliver what I intended.
    1. I am comparing MD with more regular market activities (Amazon or direct-buy like Schiit). Suppose I buy a new dac. I can expect 15-30 days of return with or without return shipping and/or 10% of restocking fee. With MD, there is no way but going to used market to sell if I don't like what I get. This, combined with long lead time and very little pre-information, was a kind of huge risk. I am not blaming MD. Just argue this is one kind of transforming part of price to another form of risk to satisfy various risk/price preference (just like insurance markets). With the condition of 3-7 days of shipping and 15-30 days of return policy, I do not think $350 is feasible for rdac or equivalents.
    2. 95% agree. Resister accuracy is just one example of compromises. Like you said, design and architecture robust against variance might matter more. But I can't think $350 is enough to make very good (i.e., Gungnir Multibit-level technicality) resolving r2r discrete ladder product. Both amazing designs and excellent parts may be needed (and presumably estimated cost will soar). All such potential gaps are "compromise" that I intended
    3. Again, I am not fully disagreeing with cost cutting. Very good r2r discrete ladder product at $350 might be too much. In my understanding R2R dac is difficult to be done right. R2R discrete ladder is even way more challenging with the same cost restriction.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2018
  11. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    1. Amazon and Schiit have great return policies but I don't think they set the standard for the industry. Say, purchase something from Sennheiser directly then phone them up within 2 weeks telling them "hey, uh, I don't actually like your $50,000 HE1, can I return it?" and you'll see the other side of the equation. This isn't really a "risk" for the buyers per se. It's like you're saying you want to buy things and be able to return them on a whim when you don't like them. That's the American culture way. Ask Sosolar if he wants to offer that and I think you'll get a big fat no.

    2. We wouldn't really know for sure $350 is unable to reach the performance of Gungnir Multibit until we pit them together directly. This is speaking in general for everything and not just RDAC. But even then, you gotta remember that Gungnir Multibit is not made in China. It's at least assembled in the USA so a huge part of the cost came from labor. The real parts cost should be lower. I can say this with certainty because I have worked internally with one audio manufacturer before, and their BOMs (Bill of Materials, or cost of all of the parts + chassis) are... let's say significantly less than the products' actual cost. You're basically basing the whole cost of a product on just the parts, but that's not really the case unless we are talking about the very boutique things like Eddie Current amplifiers. Even then, you gotta pay labor. People gotta live, too.

    3. Well, if MD can pull it off, regardless of how they do it, that's something to consider. Of course it may not be up to Gungnir Multibit's quality but Gungnir Multibit isn't really R2R either. It's just multibit. Apples to oranges. Also you're comparing a $350 DAC against a $1000 DAC. If the $350 DAC can beat Gungnir Multibit, then that's just because it's a good value. And I think good values are better for the consumer regardless.

    4. But all of the above should not:

    a) Preclude @sosolar from ever making a $2000 DAC. I'd love to see that happen. Quality-first should be the mindset when designing everything. Then we'll examine later whether it's competitive against some other $2000 DACs in the market. That's just to see the value in the design, and it's not to say something is good/bad.

    b) Excuse manufacturers like Schiit from pricing Yggdrasil at like, say... $2500. I'm quite certain Schiit has to cut their own corners because they are still a business and they still need to earn money somehow to survive. I don't know why we are using them as a yardstick whereas in my mind, they are just another business/manufacturer in the market. They make a killer $1000 DAC, cool, but that doesn't mean some other folks can't make a $350 DAC that can kill Schiit's.
     
  12. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    It's refreshing to get reminded of different points of view like this. Thank you.
     
  13. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    @Bill-P
    For #1: That's probably because of my limited experience. I had no issue in returning product with Amazon, MrSpeakers, HiFiman, a couple of online audio stores, several ebay sellers, and non-audio direct buys (Dell Apple and so forth). And noticed written return policy nearly at every my transaction.. but I might rush to the generalization.

    Largely agreed with your #2 and #3. Indeed quite so with your #4-a.

    While I didn't change my original thought (or bias, misunderstanding, whatever) much, Could learn a lot from what you explained. Enjoyed a lot. Thanks man!.

    Looking forward to that @sosolar 's $2000 dac would both perform and measure better than what I ask for that price..
     
  14. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    I think this is probably the most significant part of the equation: in the audiophile market it's much harder to start by making something that meets a lower price point unless you have a large amount of money to invest initially. The lower the price, the less profit each unit makes, the more units you have to make, the more material you have to buy and at larger quantities in order to get the discounts necessary to reach the lower price you're aiming for. Add to this the inevitable money loss that will come when establishing relationships with fabricators and prototyping for a first product, since nothing ever goes perfectly.

    It is easier to make something that costs more and is priced to allow for smaller production quantities and can be profitable with fewer sales.

    This is also only considering a direct sale model. If a product is being designed to be sold through dealers and/or distributors, there is another layer of considerations to be made.

    While Schiit is one of my favorite companies, as far as I know about the way they have developed and function, their founders were in an advantageous position of being two audio industry veterans who had both (as far as I can tell) a good amount of money to invest initially and familiarity with the manufacturers an audio company needs to work with to make a commercial product. Not to mention that one of them runs (ran?) a marketing agency that dealt primarily in online accounts, certainly a good place to be when you're doing direct sales on the internet. And it was still hard to make cheap things.

    From what I've seen in my few years hanging around here is that headphone users are very reluctant to pay more than $2500 (aka Yggdrasil Money) on a DAC, considering that the tipping point for diminishing returns. Speaker guys who value DACs (there are plenty of "bits are bits" dudes around) seem to view $5000 as a similar point. It's all down to marketing anyway. Getting good co-signs.
     
  15. Dzerh

    Dzerh Friend

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    What about $599 1421-based MD-produced China-made DAC ?
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Schiit came in at the right place and right time. A lot of people think we are Schiit shills, but I am pretty sure that the Asgard 1 and Lyr 1 were or would have been disliked by SBAF denizens. The fact is, Schiit were the one of the first to bring our a product line that was affordable. The only stuff available back then was DIY (PPA, B22, KG Dyna*), overpriced horrible sounding crap from HeadRoom, overpriced decent sounding stuff from RSA, ChiFi portable crap with a lot buzzwords, and super expensive boutique stuff (Apex, Leben, etc.)

    I totally ignored Schiit until Jason whispered to me after a meet (and I still don't know why me, considering than I was one of Changstar dudes that pretty much shit on every other piece of gear) and gave me a sneak listen to the Vali 1.
     
  17. pavi

    pavi Almost "Made"

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    I cannot imagine anyone who’s been on SBAF for a while seriously entertaining the possibility that y’all are shills for anyone.
     
  18. soekris

    soekris MOT - Soekris Engineering

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    If MD tossed enough money at me I would listen :) But in principle I'm trying to avoid manufacturing in China, although I'm looking for a lower cost manufacturer of the aluminum case, those are kinda expensive to make in Denmark, while the boards are not a problem, especially as the most expensive parts, the Vishay precision thin film resistors, are manufactured in EU.

    I am playing a little with my spreadsheet to see if / how I can reach $349.....
     
  19. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I know why. Because you shit on every other piece of gear he knows you are brutally honest. He also knew you knew your shit.

    And by the way, KG Dyna still holds up after all these years.

    Anyway, I think putting stuff out there in the DIY community is kind of taking a risk. Access is 90% of copyright law.
     
  20. sosolar

    sosolar Hibiki DAC Designer

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    Truly sorry about my careless words. Lets talk it later. Here are our concerns:
    1. Expensive precision resistors is the key keeping out low price, for the DAC module.
    2. Product we are ready to release is within customed VCXO that allow much more accurate and clean souding, I promise. Also we heve developed a instrumental grade PLL circuit that purify jitter from 100ps to sub-10ps(based on datasheet, we cant afford 5052B testing).
    3. We are using really well designed triggering circuit without losing any detail. Jitter is the thing we want to avoid that is why we spend so much time on the triggering module. Based on out experiment, using common trigger like 7404, phase noise floor will never get better than 120dbc/hz, while trigger we developed is well below -140dbc/hz.
    4. Powering is crucial indeed. We have done so much experiment and testing on that such as using best parts available and filtering topology, achieving -150db noise floor(tested, can still find on my taobao page).
    That is all we have done. I wont say we are going to be the top on market, but we have done our best on this market zone.
    5. Module integration. Do you still think it is a simple task to get above working together? We must design our own clock tree making all part work without any interruptions, especially PLL and signal switching part.
    6. Product integration. That is another long long story, case design avoiding any plagiarism even similarity. We will try our best to figure out a case that can represent ourselves.

    Anyhow, the price zone should be discussed again later on. Another proval that we are all geek without any businness sense lol. Thanks for all your messages.
     

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