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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
plato
1,543 posts
 
Buy a newer one... digital technology has always evolved quickly and some moderately priced more recent DACs should have an edge over older expensive DACs... not so much in power supply, but definitely in HF filtering and processor chips.

An old ANALOG amp like a vintage McIntosh is a different thing altogether.
stanwal's avatar
stanwal
3,147 posts
 
Contrary opinion shared by some reviewers with which I agree is that the general level of decoders has declined precipitously . Parts have better specifications but sound worse. Very few decoders today are as good as, let alone better than, the best ones from the early 90s. Todays chips are not better but significantly worse. Some of the best decoders are using leftover older chips.
djembeplay OP
169 posts
 
Hmm... interesting. Well those are about as polar opposite of opinions as could be :)
herman
1,974 posts
 
Stanwal's analysis is off base. The state of the art for digital playback continues to evolve and there is no way a SOTA player from the 90’s can compete with a SOTA player from today. The goal continues to be a moving target.
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,152 posts
 
I agree with Stanwal. As someone who has, over the last year, had at least a dozen different DACs, (both very new and very old) in house to listen to, I think I can make a quality statement here. The three I have kept are older DACs. They sound more like music and less like computers. Maybe that's the problem. Way too much "computer" sound and not enough real hifi. Have ipods and their ilk redefined what we conceive as good and/or bad?
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