built my 4-way speakers. Built the phono preamp. Built the amps. Built the shelves. Built the turntable stand. Built the speaker cables and interconnects.
Working on my first turntable. Built several styli for several of my cartridges.
No plans to build a DAC.
Dacs are not a big deal. You can use existing models as a template.
Doing such complex involved beasts from scratch makes you a prototyper(ist)(ish) for manufacturing, so it’s bit far down the rabbit hole, there. If indeed you went that way. These days it would involve using software for circuit layouts and then a whole bunch of ancillary skills and lore, so yes, a real pain.
The vast majority of all executions of modern complex chips, in a given circuit, involve a perfect copy of the orignal chip utilization tech manual’s suggestions. No one wants to take risks these days via any variances in the proffered employment/utilization of given chips. None of them ever did, actually.
In this specific case..this turns most engineers and engineering the world of modern complex electronic (audio) circuitry (when working for large firms)... into elevated technicians or technologists, not engineers. Glorified rubber stamp board swappers. No one steps out of their lane of expected competence any more. Pity.
Re mods, using selected models for modification, where most of it is in place as a starting point, is useful. It invariably makes a (hands on modifier) person far more adventurous than most any main manufacturer these days.
What I means is... you can open up any Denon, Yamaha, Sony, JVC, NAD, Marantz, etc etc..and you will se the exact same utilization and layout and parts count and parts type, around any ESS, AKM, TI, etc..digital chip and so on, in all of them.
That is a large part of why they can sound so similar. Within the scope of chip utilization, they are similar. Exceedingly so. None of them will take any form of a risk in the build and execution of the given gear that is built out of so many complex ICs.
The same thing, for the most part, happens around the idea of Class D amplifiers, to an extreme. The entire amplifier board comes in, fully assembled/finished, and then they stuff it into a box, with some power supply and some speaker jacks, maybe a relay. That is now called ’amplifier manufacturing’, in the world of Class D. I think it is a bit of a joke.
Designing a functional and good sounding Class D amplifier circuit, and executing it well is no small task, mind you. so we end up where things in class D models and companies..is more a case of box stuffing than anything else.
This consideration makes such manufacturers more of a ’Dynaco kit assembler’ kinda manufacturer, akin to taking dynaco kits and swapping faceplates and boxes out and somehow calling it ’manufacturing’ of audio gear. Even then, with the older less complex analog based circuits, more builders would be closer to true manufacturing as they would take chances and make modifications and parts changes involving the given circuit.
