One DAC To Rule Them All.... - Introducing the Kassandra from Aries Cerat

es347

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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It's not a steal. Poor choice of words, but even for 85k it is remarkable. That you can quote me on.

Whether the sonic improvements merit that much money spent is relative

..no more clever/cynical posts from your's truly, MSRP be damned
 
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DaveyF

Well-Known Member
Jul 31, 2010
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La Jolla, Calif USA
I agree. Until we get in the upper half of six figure pricing we can't expect a truly high quality listening experience to emerge. If someone were to be able to do that for $85 k it would be big news. I however being the skeptical type just find it a bridge too far. $85k just doesn't provide enough resources for a top end result even with extremely clever engineering.

You know what, it even amazes me that the cable manufacturer's or the cartridge manufacturer's can even bring a product to market for less than $100K. The fact that this DAC manufacturer can bring any DAC to the market below $85K, never mind this $35K model, is truly remarkable!
 

Keith_W

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Mar 31, 2012
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What a nasty lot we have become. Some of you should really hang your heads in shame. We should at least give the guy a chance to explain why it costs so much, and suspend judgement until one of us gets to listen to it. I have seen the same thing happen, over and over again, in many threads in WBF. It's either the objectivists sneering at the cost of high end equipment, or the subjectivists sneering at equipment that relies on measurements. You guys should really pull your heads in and not give new visitors to this forum such a bad impression.
 

wisnon

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Dec 12, 2011
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We are all just having too much fun now. LoL

I recall reading of a system being "loomed" by over $100K in cables and my eyes popped out!
 

wisnon

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Dec 12, 2011
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What a nasty lot we have become. Some of you should really hang your heads in shame. We should at least give the guy a chance to explain why it costs so much, and suspend judgement until one of us gets to listen to it. I have seen the same thing happen, over and over again, in many threads in WBF. It's either the objectivists sneering at the cost of high end equipment, or the subjectivists sneering at equipment that relies on measurements. You guys should really pull your heads in and not give new visitors to this forum such a bad impression.

People are just having fun. Chillax.
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
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What a nasty lot we have become. Some of you should really hang your heads in shame. We should at least give the guy a chance to explain why it costs so much, and suspend judgement until one of us gets to listen to it. I have seen the same thing happen, over and over again, in many threads in WBF. It's either the objectivists sneering at the cost of high end equipment, or the subjectivists sneering at equipment that relies on measurements. You guys should really pull your heads in and not give new visitors to this forum such a bad impression.

This is typical behavior around here usually by the same lot. There are still more hiding in the woodwork.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
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i'll throw down and say i am intrigued. There are (in my mind) 2 basic reasons for this: a complete hoax, full of nonsense and a flash-in-the-pan attempt at bilking people for money. Could be.

...or uber high end audio has finally allowed certain designers to truly throw all sense of compromise or economic constraint away...and truly spare no expense, nor effort, nor design feature to throw everything at a no-holds-barred piece of equipment in order to satisfy the most affluent audiophiles who care only about the absolute and for whom the 'premium' is not a leap.

massive super-amp sized power supplies for a DAC? heck if i know why...but i can say my bit of reading and personal experience is that quality power affects (positively) most everything in the audio chain. With presumably insane levels of capacitance (did i read 1 Farad somewhere?! which is akin to a set of Gryphon Mephisto monos!), does this effectively become like a battery for the DAC so that there is very little interference from the wall? I recall that the guys at Living Voice essentially trucked in loads of super-batteries to power the whole system and keep it largely off the grid during the audio show.

anyway, enuf speculation since i am no techie...i am however intrigued.

I am particularly intrigued by their Reference speaker
 

microstrip

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May 30, 2010
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What a nasty lot we have become. Some of you should really hang your heads in shame. We should at least give the guy a chance to explain why it costs so much, and suspend judgement until one of us gets to listen to it. I have seen the same thing happen, over and over again, in many threads in WBF. It's either the objectivists sneering at the cost of high end equipment, or the subjectivists sneering at equipment that relies on measurements. You guys should really pull your heads in and not give new visitors to this forum such a bad impression.

Good point.

One of the reasons there is sometimes such a large difference in cost between the basic and the signature version is due to the very small numbers that can be expected to be manufactured and sold. Manufacturing in small quantities becomes very expensive, specially if you do not a lot of backup money to optimize the orders.

It up to the buyer who considers such expensive units to decide if for such price he prefers a top DCS (or similar) or the Kassandra.

MHO - I have never listened to a DAC costing usd 5000.00 sounding as good as DCS Vivaldi or a Metronome Kalista Reference +C8. But I would not buy a DCS Scarlatti at one third the 2009 price. I would love to hear all this expensive stuff in my system, but I know it is not possible. :( I have the feeling that top digital players are really improving.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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..I must resurrect my fully loaded M4 analogy. Remarkable?...yes that would describe this

production automobiles are not relatable to small scale luxury items in terms of perceived market value. economies of scale render it meaningless.

a great example is another car made in very small qualities. the original Honda Insight retailed at $20k. hand made, all aluminum, 1800 pounds, with lots of cutting edge technology. they cost Honda $75k each to build, since they only made 5000 or so over a few model years. it was a halo car built to highlight technology.

what if Honda tried to sell them for $75k, or $200k? how would the marketplace have reacted?

Honda could afford this extravagance. but most small scale audio companies cannot.

if you are building a product with a very small expected marketplace, yet you build it the very best you can, and the reasonable multiples say $35k, or $85k.....do we as audiophiles still want it to be built?

I think so.

what does it cost us to celebrate it? to be interested?

nothing.

and understand that audio dealers will need lots of margin to take trades and put deals together. no one pays retail for this type stuff.

but being clever and cynical is so tempting we just cannot help ourselves. isn't the world wide web a wonderful place?
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
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I'm the first (well maybe not the first, the queue is always long) to criticise high end/boutique pricing, but why is this unit/company getting such derision.
Let's add Light Harmonic, Msb, Audio Note to the parade of "shame".
It seems like there is some really interesting stuff going on, and it's never going to sell more than a few units, so let's judge it's marketplace as thus.
Whether I'd want to buy from a company w/such limited provenance, that's another matter.
It's taken Ypsilon and Audio Analysis to be around for over a decade before track record is not questioned.
 
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FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I do believe that the Title attracted the derision: One DAC to Rule them ALL...

YG took a beating too when they anointed themselves the "Best speaker in the World" or something of that nature. If you are willing to boast .. You must be ready to have people questioning and deriding your ponderous claims ..

Manufacturers and dealers of even more expensive items have open threads here... For the most part most (to say none) have not come out saying their products would rule anyone or thing.

I can understand the desire to defend any and all High End companies however preposterous the claims or products might be but the most successful High End Audio companies are IME more subtle in their approach.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I do believe that the Title attracted the derision: One DAC to Rule them ALL...

YG took a beating too when they anointed themselves the "Best speaker in the World" or something of that nature. If you are willing to boast .. You must be ready to have people questioning and deriding your ponderous claims ..

Manufacturers and dealers of even more expensive items have open threads here... For the most part most (to say none) have not come out saying their products would rule anyone or thing.

I can understand the desire to defend any and all High End companies however preposterous the claims or products might be but the most successful High End Audio companies are IME more subtle in their approach.

It's sad when we have to develop political correctness in how we post or entitle a thread. IMO it was one man's exuberance to discuss his new DAC. Why is it that every time a new product is released that has a high MSRP the same people come out of the woodwork with the same proclamations about it won't be long before we see a $100K this or a $100K that. Perhaps a comment such as that could be cited as the thread derision. Why do we go through the same thing every thread that the same people continue to decry the cost of product. I say , take a relax pill as it is what it is, and, as Mike Lavigne points out it is MSRP and rarely reflects the sales price. I for one am interested in learning about this DAC without the same people making the same silly jokes. Typically it is these new innovations that trickle down to offshoot products at affordable prices that we can all use. And yes how interesting that no one making similar products are the result of such similar comments.

Like other posters I am ashamed on behalf of all of you people who have taken the liberty to crap all over a new member rather than asking information about his product.

Really guys your comments are way out of line and I needed to express my disappointment here as well

Joshua, I for one am interested in knowing some more about your DAC
 
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dallasjustice

Member Sponsor
Apr 12, 2011
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Steve,
To be sure, we are all posting comments about a DAC in which the manufacturer claims it does hi-Res when we know it DOES NOT. This is an $82,000 DAC wherein the user would be better off to convert all 24 bit files to 16 bit and apply dither rather than allow the AD1865 chip to remove 36db of the datastream's dynamic range. There's a good reason you don't see other hi-end DAC manufacrurers designing boards like this. It simply makes zero sense if one is interested in hi-Res music.
Michael.

It's sad when we have to develop political correctness in how we post or entitle a thread. IMO it was one man's exuberance to discuss his new DAC. Why is it that every time a new product is released that has a high MSRP the same people come out of the woodwork with the same proclamations about it won't be long before we see a $100K this or a $100K that. Perhaps a comment such as that could be cited as the thread derision. Why do we go through the same thing every thread that the same people continue to decry the cost of product. I say , take a relax pill as it is what it is, and, as Mike Lavigne points out it is MSRP and rarely reflects the sales price. I for one am interested in learning about this DAC without the same people making the same silly jokes. Typically it is these new innovations that trickle down to offshoot products at affordable prices that we can all use. And yes how interesting that no one making similar products are the result of such similar comments.

Like other posters I am ashamed on behalf of all of you people who have taken the liberty to crap all over a new member rather than asking information about his product.

Really guys your comments are way out of line and I needed to express my disappointment here as well

Joshua, I for one am interested in knowing some more about your DAC
 
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JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
It's sad when we have to develop political correctness in how we post or entitle a thread. IMO it was one man's exuberance to discuss his new DAC. Why is it that every time a new product is released that has a high MSRP the same people come out of the woodwork with the same proclamations about it won't be long before we see a $100K this or a $100K that. Perhaps a comment such as that could be cited as the thread derision. Why do we go through the same thing every thread that the same people continue to decry the cost of product. I say , take a relax pill as it is what it is, and, as Mike Lavigne points out it is MSRP and rarely reflects the sales price. I for one am interested in learning about this DAC without the same people making the same silly jokes. Typically it is these new innovations that trickle down to offshoot products at affordable prices that we can all use. And yes how interesting that no one making similar products are the result of such similar comments.

Like other posters I am ashamed on behalf of all of you people who have taken the liberty to crap all over a new member rather than asking information about his product.

Really guys your comments are way out of line and I needed to express my disappointment here as well

Joshua, I for one am interested in knowing some more about your DAC

People wonder why I hardly post here anymore.

Newsflash. For every one of you that throws bombs at a DAC that costs more than what you would spend there are many elsewhere throwing bombs at DACs the prices of which you have spent on.
 
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Audiocrack

Well-Known Member
Aug 10, 2012
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What a nasty lot we have become. Some of you should really hang your heads in shame. We should at least give the guy a chance to explain why it costs so much, and suspend judgement until one of us gets to listen to it. I have seen the same thing happen, over and over again, in many threads in WBF. It's either the objectivists sneering at the cost of high end equipment, or the subjectivists sneering at equipment that relies on measurements. You guys should really pull your heads in and not give new visitors to this forum such a bad impression.

Totally agree with you. Indeed this happens again and again by the same people that are part of the 'high/low price brigade' and it is really getting boring and annoying: people having a strong opinion about equipment they have actually never heard themselves. And as I have mentioned several times in various threads before: look at the name of this forum and respect the quest of other people to audio nirvana. We all do it in our own way and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
 

LarsS

New Member
Nov 11, 2014
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Stockholm
AD1865 is multi-bit (chip), but not resistor ladder AFAIK. Not Delta-sigma but not resistor ladder either.

...

From the AD1865 datasheet: "... The DACs on the AD1865 chip employ a partially segmented architecture. The first four MSBs of each DAC are segmented into 15 elements. The 14 LSBs are produced using standard R-2R techniques. Segment and R-2R resistors are laser trimmed to provide extremely low total harmonic distortion. ..."

What would be the difference between a multibit DAC & a R2R DAC?
 

wisnon

Well-Known Member
Dec 12, 2011
3,525
635
1,200
I'm the first (well maybe not the first, the queue is always long) to criticise high end/boutique pricing, but why is this unit/company getting such derision.
Let's add Light Harmonic, Msb, Audio Note to the parade of "shame".
It seems like there is some really interesting stuff going on, and it's never going to sell more than a few units, so let's judge it's marketplace as thus.
Whether I'd want to buy from a company w/such limited provenance, that's another matter.
It's taken Ypsilon and Audio Analysis to be around for over a decade before track record is not questioned.

I am sorry...I dont see the derision.

I see some poking fun and saying the obvious, that its outrageously priced. However, no one is forced to buy and its an interesting build. Bully for those who can afford it and plunk down the cash. We get another marker to compare to and the market place gets another unit to choose from.

We will all vote with our wallets anyway.
 

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