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New vs. old DACs - opinions?

I'm on the market for a new DAC. I've noticed that you can find used DACs from, say, 8 years ago that are heavily marked down from their original price. I just saw one sell for $400 that was originally $1500, for example.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the progression of DACs seems very different from that of amps... an old amp, like McIntosh, is still highly competitive today... but it seems that newer DACs are more evolved, refined, and use higher quality parts for less money, right?

Another thought is - before DACs were as widely used as they are today, perhaps the mark-up was much greater in the past...? Where-as now, with the influx of foreign manufactured DACs, there is a healthy bit of competition that keeps prices down by limiting the manufacturer mark-up. Correct me if I'm off here as well.

So, overall I'm wondering if I would be better off buying something new like a Keces or MHDT DAC or finding something older that is heavily marked down.
djembeplay

Showing 2 responses by jmcgrogan2

jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
This question has been asked before, it comes up from time to time. You may find more information by searching the archives.

IMHO, I'd say go older dac. For one reason, yes, the newer dacs have newer digital chips, but these are relatively inexpense. What made, say for example the Classe DAC-1 so great was that it had a fabulous analog output stage. This was a $4K DAC back in the day, with more money going into analog than the DAC chips. That great analog stage will still beat any analog output stage on a $1K new DAC.

The second reason would be re-sale. Say you buy a used Classe DAC-1 (again, just using this as an example), you get a $4K DAC for $1K. In two years should decide to re-sell and move on, you'll still get about $1K for the unit. Spend $1K on a new unit, in 2 years you'll be lucky to get $300 for it.

Cheers,
John
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
I didn't mean to insinuate that new DAC's have not improved over older DAC's, Many replies here are simply stating that current DAC's are better than older DAC's, technology has improved, I think there is no argument there. I was under the impression that we were talking costs vs. performance here.

Certainly a $1500 DAC today will sound better than a $1500 DAC from 6 years ago, however, in the marketplace their street prices will be very different. So let's say we compare apples to apples from a street price point of view. Since digital gear seems to depreciate fairly rapidly, let's assume that after 6 years the DAC is now selling for 25% of it's MSRP. So is a $1500 new DAC as good as a 6 year old $6000 DAC? Obviously, as in all things audio, there is no one right answer, only opinions.

A similar comparison might be would you prefer to buy a brand new Ford or a older used Mercedes. Each side will have it's advocates and detractors.

Cheers,
John
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