AKM makes the best DACs

The problem with ESS is that for some reason it is the brand of DAC chip that's been latched on to by any DAC maker who can afford the $95 or so for the best of their chips.  Also, they make lesser lines of chips, some others of which carry the 9038 number.  They also make less expensive chips that carry the ESS name and they continue to sell 9028 chips.  Less expensive ESS chips are used in AudioQuest Dragonflys, for example.

So a whole bunch of relatively inexpensive, and some poorly made, DACs can advertise that they have the same chip as the $10,000 Weiss DAC.  The unsuspecting, believing it is all in the chip are incented to buy.  So there are a lot of poor examples of DACs out there using ESS chips.  Could be that the "average" DAC using an ESS chip is not a very good performer. 

I'd venture to say, though, that given three generations and three decades of development there has likely been more R & D into ESS chips than any other.

Don't get upset I didn't say ESS.

Oh come on @erik_squires , the DAC he has been pushing has the ESS 😄

There are many great-ladder dac chips -R2R out there to even consider any AKM chips 

not 1 upper dac maker use them ,buy a Topping if that’s your thing.

I know very little about DAC chips - ask me how to make one, or explain the design  differnces between them, and you will get a blank stare from me. And likely the same response from most others.

OP said he noticed his DAC purchases unintentionally favored AKM. Similarly, I have not based purchases on which chip is used. I have/had gear with BurrBrown (like that very much), AKM (like that very much too), ESS (didnt like), and Cirrus (didn't like). Did these chips effect the sound of any particular piece of gear... how could I possibly know, because DACs are built around the chip, so there is no A-B testing with multiple chips in the same unit - except maybe DIY. Haven't had the pleasure of trying ladder or FPGA DACs.

I have a question about DACs that use multiple stereo-capable (2-independent channels) DAC chips = 4-channels of DAC (sometimes more). How are the 4+ ch used in a 2-ch device? Are they running parallel, then averaged? Or are they run parallel then errors eliminated? Does each handle a specific frequency range? Are they double-processing in series? How are 4+ ch best used to decode 2-ch of audio?