Wow- paired with the PS server this should Truly be edge of the art. it will be quite interesting to see which will give the greater sonic upgrade - adding the server or upgrading to the new dac.
Pretty spendy Paul! I say that while looking at my current rig which would run $64,000 at MSRP all in.
Good luck with the new series! There is an āassā for every seat as we like to say in the auto business, pardon the pun or donāt. The real question is how many seats can you fill at this higher price point!?
I have a different take. the Chord Dave, which is the DAC I originally considered is around $10,500 US ( Iām Canadian) The Dave is a hands down benchmark for DACās. My issues were the ghastly look of the Dave and the price. Iāve heard Daveās on a friends system and I thought that my DSD sounded same or better. If itās priced more than a Dave it may not have a great market.
Bootzilla,
100 % agreement. The main reason I purchased a DS dac almost three years ago was the FPGA feature.
It has allowed me to experience several different levels of performance with each software release. Thats a great feature thats really hard to pass up if your looking for a new DAC.
Randy
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Iām sure they could work with Ted to make a $10, 000 or even $20,00 DAC, each of which would be amazing. The narrower target audience would probably adjust sales projections to drive up the price further. Will be sad to watch from the sidelines.
In the meantime I think maybe one like Ted would like to make a statement product (as heās probably able to make the best DAC in the market). And itās better for PSA he does it for them than for someone else, even if it doesnāt fit even into their high class price range anymore, as then they would have to make a really no compromise preamp etc., too. I think i.e. a one box preamp did have a price limit.
The other option of a DS Mk II at this time would just be a reaction to higher sampling rate demand/support imo.
Well. Iād buy it, if Ted said it was the best product he could do. And if it was $20k, Iād be saving myself $20k on buying an Esoteric, or $70k saving on an MSB, and there are DACs out there that are further north of that. Not that Iād ever contemplate spending anywhere near that much on a DAC. But I do see sufficient market uptake for it to make the project worthwhile.
Yes I do as well. Iām not yet, probably never will be in that market unless I inherit a lot of money and can use it for that purpose. I know it will be an amazing component.
Iāll probably have to sign off this forum and not read about it. . . to save myself a lot of frustration. 
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It would be kind of depressing for those of us who canāt afford that much for a DAC. Especially when weāre saving for Octave servers, P20ās, PSA speakers, etc. Not that I would deny the pleasure of owning one to those who can afford it.
The upside for those people is youāll see the benefit of trickle down of the technology over time into other products lower down the food chain. For example, look at the new Magico A3 speaker priced at $10k. Thatās loaded with technology that came out of R&D done for its older siblings that were $100K+.
The difficulty I see with a SOTA DAC is the ecosystem within which it might live, because there is an expectation in the market for other components in a set of similar pedigree. The high-end crowd just donāt buy a hi-end DAC. They buy the whole stack, and you need to be able to offer them the whole stack. Like an Esoteric Grandioso stack, or a dCS Vivaldi stack, or Soulution 7-series stack. A SOTA DAC all on its lonesome in a product lineup is probably going to face a lack of traction if you donāt also build the other parts of the stack.
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Good points, although trickle down can take time to occur. PSA is not starting at the top and then letting that technology trickle down, at least not until the DS and DS Jr are also replaced. I suspect PSA probably thinks the BHK series and their upcoming speaker fits the SOTA bill for the rest of the system.
Paul,
On this (purported) new uber-DAC, please accept my wishlist:
- spec the digital side to support speaker correction EQ calculated at the internal resolution of the DAC and noise shaped to the nineās.
- spec the analog side with a small ultra-low-noise amp with sufficient power to drive your new speakers sufficiently for nearfield listening (or heck, even a pair of headphones).
- spec the noise immunity from AC Mains, USB, Parasitic, Vibration etc. to not require after-market tweaks and such to extract more sound quality.
- let Ted keep upgrading existing DirectStream users with any improvements/features from the uber-DAC as is possible.
Thanks,
Dan
Dot point 3, for sure. Build it so it sounds the same whether plugged directly into the wall or a P20. 5mm solid steel chassis weighing in at 30 kg+ all-up, no plastic/rubber feet, CNC machining of aluminum billets for the case, hard anodized finish, and the rest of it. The visual appeal of the externals are just as critical as the pedigree of the internals in a SOTA piece.
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I agree. The benefit of the Chord Electronics DACās is their integrated headphone amp as part of the final analog stage. In fact, the most recently announced ~$4000 Hugo TT2 DAC is about 50% of the DAVEās sound quality and comes with an ultra high quality amp to drive 8ohm speakers with 9watts of power (and an output impedance of 0.042 ohms!!). Certainly enough for even PSAudioās new ~95dB efficient speakers. With no pre-amp, amp or interconnects in the path ā¦the transparency is stunning ā¦as is the cost savings.
Brodric, whatās your basis for believing there would be sufficient market uptake for a premium PS Audio DAC? Feedback on this thread isnāt really indicating it.
I am opposed to the internal amplifier. Part of the elegance and simplicity of the DS design is the passive output state. Adding an amplification stage would make it an entirely different product.
If you want to spend more money, just add a P20 and think of the new product as a three chassis dac: analog box, digital box and P20.
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Simple. Hong Kong. Theyāll sell truck loads of them there.
err, boatloads. 
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Err, you better get a bigger boat