I'm in the market for a good DAC so this is a serious question, how much would one expect to pay for the latest version of a KD??
About $5800 willo hand made with love but a waiting period comes with it.
Mario hit it in one.
But generally speaking this DAC is way above commercial gear you can buy - even stuff that costs a lot more.
When you have a killerdac, you wont care about Hi Res, low Res, Any Res. It's the only component you will never change, never think of changing, One thing comes to mind when I listen to my Killer, glorious midrange splendour, I think HiRes has the potential to be good, but I have the feeling it will only happen, if we make one from the ground up. The people making them now are well .......useless. They just do not seem to understand, the Dacs they are making do not remotely sound like real music.
When I was down at Rawl's checking out my Killer we compared it to what many consider, technically, the state of the art you can get today. It was DSD through a DAC built from the ground up for DSD, an MPD-3, designed by the guru of DSD, Andreas Koch. Now Steve has heard this with Harry Belefonte - Sylvie. And it sounds good - make no mistake - very live real and present. But when we compared it to bog standard PCM via computer audio into the Killer (this was not the upgraded Wadia uber transport Steve and others have - but my upgraded Off-Ramp - that Wadia is, to my ears, clearly better) it was better than this supposed state of the art uber fantastic DSD everyone raves about. Its good - but the Killer was clearly and obviously better.
Now, add to this, what I have just been told by Rawl. The other DAC that has recently impressed me is the Phasure. Guys go ga ga over it saying its statement level etc etc:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/xxhighend/1.html'In combination with the Phasure NOS1 DAC the sound quality sits lonely at the very top. As our new reference, it will make future reviews both easier and rather more critical.'
It too was able to show DSD via the PD a clean pair of heels - the first DAC in my very long mucking around with DAC's that was able to do this.
So knowing this, two guys out my way - Rob - who has very good ears - better than mine - and Anthony - the owner of the Phasure - took it over to Rawl's to check out. I wasn't there, but I trust Rawls ears and he thought the Killer was easily better. I spoke to Anthony, and while he liked the Killer thought it was so different to the Phasure didn't really want to say one way or the other at this stage. Also Rawl has Mikes ML3 Reference and, like me, feels the ML2 Limited are way ahead. He went back to Rob's place to verify it - and the Phasure was way ahead on Rob's limited. So he doesn't really want to pass judgement until he gets both the Killer and Phasure on the Limited.
That undoubtedly will take place a bit later, and I can report then. We also have the big DAC shootout coming up that will have those and other DAC's.
But I know and trust Rawl's hearing well enough that if he thinks the Killer is better than the Phasure, then it may well be. I will post more later as some more comparisons happen, but I can assure you, and anyone, that the Killers lack of high res capability is a total non issue. Its up there with, and likely better, than any DAC out there, Hi res, or not.
Thanks
Bill