At what point do we call this out?

[Ra1zel]

One thing I see is people seeing a 600$ topping headphone amp and say that it is "incredible value", like nah, it's an amp. Great value is something like an apple dongle but even that is actually bad value, best value is the amp in my phone/pc motherboard since I had them already for non audio purposes.

How much do you guys wanna bet that you can hear the difference between D90SE and modern high end pc motherboard built in audio chip? Cuz I'm quite confident that you can't.

 

[tvih]

My new 250€ motherboard's integrated analog outputs still have occasional buzzes, pops, crackles and such. But outside of those it does sound great, sure. And yes, there are far more expensive motherboards out there, but being such multi-purpose hardware they always have some risk of interference.

Value? Subjective, but certainly already having something doesn't automatically make an upgrade pointless or bad value (even though certainly a lot of times people do "upgrades" for questionable gain because they want new and shiny things - objectivists and subjectivists alike). Otherwise by taking that notion to the extreme something you got for free even if it barely works would always be the best value and thus paying for an upgrade would always be questionable value.