Odd DAC Pricing

@snookhaus Mean $8552.  Range $7000 (deal of the day) to $9980.  Did this quick.  Maybe some errors.  Buy probably 95% accurate. A few did sell below $8000 as you indicated.  If the Shark list is chronological, the trend you stated was not noticed by me in the last 24 sales.  Sales below $8000 seem randomly dispersed.  If I was not retired, and had access to Minitab, I would have done the trend analysis.  Note, if  go back further than the last 24 sales, the trend appears to be down from over $9000 to around the mean I calculated.  

I purchased a new, open box Mola Mola Tambaqui from an authorized dealer, owned it for about a month, and listed it for $9,500 at the end of 2023.  It sold quickly. I thought it sounded very good, almost perfect in a technical sense, but not as musically engaging or fun to listen to as my other DAC. I value musically engaging and fun over perfect, and so I sold it.

This is not odd.  The product is discounted new with some dealers selling it for 20-25% off new.  Secondarily, like anything, it’s a matter of taste.  This is not “the best” unless it meets your taste.  There is a lot of buzz about it and lots of people buy it thinking it is the greatest DAC ever and is going to be better than pricier units.  It is competitive at its price point but does not stand out in a meaningful way vs other similarly priced units.  The on-board Roon endpoint is not great and it has an annoying UI. 
 

I have had it in multiple times on trade.  It is a VERY good sounding DAC and It is fairly priced and quite competitive with Linn, Chord, Playback, Bricasti, Weiss but unless it is precisely to your taste it is not meaningfully better than these others.  I thin a lot of people buy it thinking it will be a giant killer.  It can’t compete with the EMM, Playback Dream, Linn Klimax, MSB, dCS, Wadax’s of the world.