Cost of Dac’s rising

[buckaboo49]

What is causing the cost of Dac’s to rise? I ordered a SMSL Sanskrit 10th edition back in 2019 for $94 from Amazon. Now that same dac is $140.00. The same goes for Topping. I see their prices going up as well.

 

[ahofer]

What is causing the cost of Dac’s to rise? I ordered a SMSL Sanskrit 10th edition back in 2019 for $94 from Amazon. Now that same dac is $140.00. The same goes for Topping. I see their prices going up as well.

While I have no company-specific info on this, there have been shortages of Chinese parts/fab in a lot of electronics, and lingering damage from the Trump trade wars with China. Also, many countries are onshoring supply chains after the pandemic, which is inflationary.

One or more of those, I’d guess

 

[gvl]

Higher demand thanks to this forum.

 

[AnalogSteph]

General silicon shortage due to drought in China may be a factor, but I suspect the AKM factory fire in November would be more relevant. AKM converters basically sold out across the board shortly after this.

 

[gvl]

General silicon shortage due to drought in China may be a factor, but I suspect the AKM factory fire in November would be more relevant. AKM converters basically sold out across the board shortly after this.

AK4490 based Schiit Modi 3+ is still $99 despite all that. I don't like the price creep.

 

[Matias]

AKM on fire, Covid, steel and freight prices increasing a lot, ASR exposing and increasing demand. All of these combined.

 

[Dannemand]

Since this is AudioScienceReview, I would also point to the following chart of the US Dollar Index. The greenback has fallen 13-14% since the spike last year just after COVID hit (when the world briefly fled to USD as a safe haven). When the dollar drops, everything priced in dollars goes up.

Add to this the trillions of dollars in stimulus in USA, a lot of which has gone into discretionary items such as more pickup trucks, more flatscreen TVs and... more DACs. Note that I am NOT saying that stimulus wasn't needed. Money spent on such items DO stimulate the economy.

 

[Vini darko]

Its not just dacs. Lots of audio gear on amazon has shot up in price. However some has stayed at constant prices. It's fairly normal for amazon prices to fluctuate significantly during the course of a year. Give it a month or two and suddenly everything drops in price again. Retail stores do the same stuff.

 

[mkawa]

what does the usd vs rmb look like now? wondering if ess dacs will go down in price by the summer, or whether i should just spend at the 500$ level now