What makes a DAC so expensive?

I tried one of the best measuring dacs in the world, the matrix X-Sabre Pro. Unfortunately it sounded dull and lifeless. I wish I could choose based on measurements because it sure would be a lot easier than actually having to listen to everything.

@listening99 I am not trying to shut anyone down, but it is also important to talk about how people on this forum are constantly taking the "I'm right, you're wrong" argument approach rather than just trying to help educate others by sharing their experiences and impressions. I hope the tone will turn around because this is the place I learned about all of my gear. Never would have found it without the contributions of many posters. And as @grannyring accurately points out, the aggressiveness that's so prevalent has driven away many of the voices who were here just to share, educate, and learn. It's a shame. 

@grannyring Sad but true. When I'm building I also spend time on diyaudio and the difference is so stark. People genuinely trying to help each other vs. the cock fights that always break out here. 

That said, if there's a better place to find out about new gear, I don't know it. I wish we could just fix the culture here.

Thanks for all your contributions. I've just about finished replacing all the signal wire and rca connectors throughout my system and thought about you when I gave it a new title:  "Nothing is Sacred."

Thanks for all your posts and for encouraging people to treat our equipment like the platform it is and not a piece of jewelry. And let me know if you ever find an alternative community...

I was going to get on and say exactly what Bill did.. @grannyring .  

Here's a link to the dac I suspect he was talking about. https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-210bb/images/stencil/2048x2048/products/156/1340/Mystique_EVO_Inside...

Good luck getting those parts for $200.

And in my experience, when a designer uses high quality parts like these, that means they’ve got a product where they really care about the sound and have carefully manicured it’s performance. I bought my audio Mirror dac because of this reason and have not been disappointed. I’m totally satisfied, but would also love to hear the mojo dac above because the design decisions you can see from the internal shot are things I’ve found to really matter in my own component builds (independent power supplies, solid core silver wire, electrical isolation, quality choke-based smoothing, etc.).

This has devolved into a fuse or power cable discussion. 

Obviously @djones51 is not going to change his mind no matter any one else's experience and there's no way he's changing the minds of people like me with the experience that different dacs matter and objective measurements do not predict subjective experience.

In the end we all have different ears and systems and everyone can be right.

At least discussions like these do help readers learn who's impressions they might trust. It's great when you find someone who hears like you and you know you'll like anything they recommend.