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Okto dac8 stereo DAC Review

wineds

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why does there need to be a usb cable connected between the rpi and the usb input 2 on the DAC8stereo when the pi is already connected via GPIO and recognized? i dont get it.

It's not connected via GPIO AFAIK. It uses a USB connection analogous to having the RPI external.
 

DaaDaa

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It's not connected via GPIO AFAIK. It uses a USB connection analogous to having the RPI external.
I just installed one in my dac8 stereo and I can tell you that it is connected via gpio . You can see the connector in the pictures posted . Maybe the gpio provides the power but not the data ? I don't understand the necessity for this arrangement but I'm sure there is something that I don't know.
 

Veri

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What do you mean that you party less. I paid exactly what it said on the website.
Ahh, I expected VAT not to be charged for non-EU customers I guess I'm wrong about that?
 

DaaDaa

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I paid the 1
Ahh, I expected VAT not to be charged for non-EU customers I guess I'm wrong about that?
I paid exactly what it says there which is 1089 euros and they also added shipping.
 
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ShiZo

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Does anyone know it's dimensions?
 

wineds

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I just installed one in my dac8 stereo and I can tell you that it is connected via gpio . You can see the connector in the pictures posted . Maybe the gpio provides the power but not the data ? I don't understand the necessity for this arrangement but I'm sure there is something that I don't know.

Yes power is provided via the GPIO header. Data connectivity via the USB to USB connector.
 

Neddy

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It's all relative.
Back when I was in electronics manufacturing, I came up with a rough 'pricing' guide - 'retail price ~= 5-6x parts cost' (includes labor/overhead) which I still think applies to many of the most competitive e-mfgring, tho the amount of hand assembly is a lot less today.
So, I use that to assess whether I think a mfr is making 'excess' profit on their retail pricing (depends on how 'fancy' certain parts are, of course), and so, if I assume it applies in this case, I can't see that Pavel is making all that much on each sale.
I'd guess he has a very small team of folks (friends, family, long time helpers?) doing the purchasing & assembly - the best way to keep build costs down, but severely limits production capacity.
Increasing capacity/build times from there requires huge investments - and since those are 'leading' costs, most often that means bank financing, etc.
Adding customer service, technical support, and 'dealer's sales channels only makes things worse. Web sales channels and payment up front helps, though.
So. Given the design, build quality and stunning performance of these DACs, I think they are a STEAL.
Just my opinion, tho somewhat informed by experience.
 

Vasr

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It's all relative.
Back when I was in electronics manufacturing, I came up with a rough 'pricing' guide - 'retail price ~= 5-6x parts cost' (includes labor/overhead) which I still think applies to many of the most competitive e-mfgring, tho the amount of hand assembly is a lot less today.
So, I use that to assess whether I think a mfr is making 'excess' profit on their retail pricing (depends on how 'fancy' certain parts are, of course), and so, if I assume it applies in this case, I can't see that Pavel is making all that much on each sale.
I'd guess he has a very small team of folks (friends, family, long time helpers?) doing the purchasing & assembly - the best way to keep build costs down, but severely limits production capacity.
Increasing capacity/build times from there requires huge investments - and since those are 'leading' costs, most often that means bank financing, etc.
Adding customer service, technical support, and 'dealer's sales channels only makes things worse. Web sales channels and payment up front helps, though.
So. Given the design, build quality and stunning performance of these DACs, I think they are a STEAL.
Just my opinion, tho somewhat informed by experience.

Typically hardware margins are small (why it is difficult to raise venture capital for hardware startups). You will be lucky if you get 20% margins. It is in single digits for most commoditized products based on quality and features alone (compared to 60%+ for software).

The multiple over BoM costs is more indicative of using marketing channels and advertising to sell as well as reasonable customer support and expected warranty claims handling, etc. It gets better than that with direct marketing/sales and minimal support. I would say Okto has no support staff like most startups and it is done by himself or his engineers. But there are no economies scale for such low numbers especially if done locally instead of cheap supply chains in Asia.

Nevertheless, Okto should be doing fine at this price as a lean startup. A lot of the costs that go into this are one-time or fixed costs which will be amortized over time. Cash flow would be a bigger problem for startups but with what seems to be a healthy lot of pre-paid orders so far, that might not be an issue for Okto.

Is it a fair price from a consumer point of view? For anyone that buys NAD equipment, for example, at their prices where it is a combination of aesthetics and features, I would say so. For people used to buying desktop DACs in the $300-$600, not so much except for bragging rights. So many of those are already in this ball-park of performance and trade-off some features for others.

But the pricing already seems to be at the top-end of what the market may be willing to pay (the miniDSP SHD, for example, gives a lot more for the buck over the Okto Stereo). So, I can't see how the prices can go up except for keeping pace with inflation and not lose enough customers (after the initial adopters are saturated). The stereo version is not that unique or a must have.

The 8 channel version is much more unique with the dearth of multi-channel DACs in the market with not many competitors or very high-priced competitors. But there is likely a very small market for a multi-channel DAC, most of the audiences using AVRs and Pre-pros for those use cases with only a niche market for multi-speaker, multi-amp like use cases.

I hope they have more things in the pipeline to diversify and build on their initial success.
 

Harmonie

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It's all relative.
Back when I was in electronics manufacturing, I came up with a rough 'pricing' guide - 'retail price ~= 5-6x parts cost' (includes labor/overhead) which I still think applies to many of the most competitive e-mfgring, tho the amount of hand assembly is a lot less today.
So, I use that to assess whether I think a mfr is making 'excess' profit on their retail pricing (depends on how 'fancy' certain parts are, of course), and so, if I assume it applies in this case, I can't see that Pavel is making all that much on each sale.
I'd guess he has a very small team of folks (friends, family, long time helpers?) doing the purchasing & assembly - the best way to keep build costs down, but severely limits production capacity.
Increasing capacity/build times from there requires huge investments - and since those are 'leading' costs, most often that means bank financing, etc.
Adding customer service, technical support, and 'dealer's sales channels only makes things worse. Web sales channels and payment up front helps, though.
So. Given the design, build quality and stunning performance of these DACs, I think they are a STEAL.
Just my opinion, tho somewhat informed by experience.

I agree with you about the price.
Honestly, my intended budget was 1500€, as that what I had paid around 25 years ago for my previous (small) Wadia dac.
It's the lead time ( 4 months ?) that turned me away. Who know what other dac will come out in the coming 4 months ?
 

Skookum

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Hi All,

I'm new here so apologies if this is a silly question. :facepalm:
Is there any reason why it isn't yet listed on the main DAC review chart / listing?
 

DaaDaa

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why does there need to be a usb cable connected between the rpi and the usb input 2 on the DAC8stereo when the pi is already connected via GPIO and recognized? i dont get it.
This is the fantastic reply that I received from Pavel:
there are 3 key reasons why we opted for the USB instead of I2S (through RPi GPIO) at the expense of requirement for an external cable or the custom USB interconnect:

1) it is asynchronous, so free of jitter by nature
2) it supports native DSD
3) an I2S mode of operation would require a driver on the Raspberry Pi, which would prevent us from allowing users to install a software of their choice onto the RPi or at least make it more difficult
 

Qwin

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Got my Okto Stereo (15 weeks) but it wont play anything.
Tried my CD Transport via coax SPDIF and there is a II (pause) mark to the left of the source name Coax2.
I loaded the windows driver that Pavel sent a link to (DIYINHK), but neither Qobuz or Groove music want to play on my laptop via USB. Qobuz App says-"The selected device has not been recognised by the application" Same II mark next to USB2 source on Okto.
When trying an external RPi/MoOde I get this MPD alsa fail message.
alsa_error-Message.jpg


What's particularly worrying is the CD Transport not playing.
Drop my Topping D90 back in and all of these sources work. Even the DIYINHK ASIO Driver works with Qobuz and the D90.
Any clues where I might start?
 
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