@cooperdude6
I find this hilarious since so many US products have their manufacture in China and then they steal the technology and sell it as their own, ignoring all copyrights and US patents.
I had Denafrips on my short list to check out for DACs but have now eliminated all Chi Fi from consideration, especially from a customer support standpoint.
Of course, you are right in that China steals intellectual property. But, I think you misunderstood my remark.
Denafrips uses proprietary, custom-coded FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips for digital signal processing and decoding, not off-the-shelf solutions. So, while the FPGA hardware itself may be sourced globally, the specialized firmware code is proprietary to Denafrips. The chips, and hard-coded software deployed inside those chips, is completely dark. No one has any idea as to what code they contain. Of course, it can be nefarious in nature.
The above paragraph is exactly the same reason America does not allow BYD and other car mfg’s to sell in America. Same goes for the Chinese telecom Huawei, which America blocked from doing business in the USA - they are national security risks. Proprietary in America is generally accepted as a product that only that company can produce or provide, but when a proprietary product comes from China, it can mean an entire slew of offensive, criminal intent - aimed at taking something from you.
To be blunt, for all those that use Denafrips DDC units and DACs, those devices can be devised (proprietary; remember?) to steal your network information. Any device that operates in a data chain connected to a network can do this. Hence, the American distrust of Chinese devices.
While I have a Denafrips DDC in my chain, it is not connected to a network. My music comes from my computer, but I do not connect it to the Internet as it serves as a jukebox only.
Generally speaking, however, most Denafrips users allow open access of their equipment to the Internet to download music. There is no on/off switch for my Gaia, so I keep it tuned on 24/7, which I assume everyone else does.
I agree that with all the great American made DAC’s, I doubt a Denafrips is the best choice nowadays. Not from just a security standpoint - because I know no one here cares about that - but the support mechanisms have dwindled to one guy.
I only bought the Denafrips DDC because it was the best one on the market and I got a great used deal. Schiit finally came out with a DDC recently and I would have bought that had it been a viable option at the time.
