It all started with this:





Specs


This product was/is huge.  There are megathreads and uber mega-threads, reports of people dropping their whole rack of gear in droves for this all-in-one DAC/Pre/Power/wireless streamer, 15 Million in VC funding.  Lots of other reports say its good at everything it does but truly great at nothing.  Still, for convenience in the two channel world it is nonpareil, thus the popularity.  They also seem to be fighting quite tenaciously to have the "new class" they have developed, AD, be considered superior to D or AB.


13-16K New, 9-11K Used.

Of course, with the popularity the Devialet has enjoyed there are bound to be imitators, even if it took them a couple years to get out the gate.


Announced at CES:





Wadia Intuition 01.


Audiostream blurb:


The Intuition 01 (projected $7,500 - $8,000) rolls up a 350W/channel Class D+ amp, 32-bit AD/DA digital preamp with a 1.5MHz sampling frequency, 32/384 and DSD-capable USB DAC, 6 additional digital inputs (1 Toslink, 2 Wdialink/I2S, 2 Coax S/PDIF, 1 AES/EBU), Wadia's Delta-SigMaster 1.536MHz upsampling algorithm, and 2 analog RCA inputs for a nearly fully functional and sleek one-not-a-box solution.


Then:





Playback Designs IPS-3.


[/size]The new Integrated Playback System 3 (IPS-3) will start shipping sometime in the summer. It is really a fun product that I really did not expect would be ready in time to show at CES /T.H.E. Show. Andreas and Bert worked incredibly hard to have it ready and the day before I left for Vegas, I got the call that it was ready. Of course all the PR and pre-announcements could not be done because of the uncertainty of having it there. Sorry for there being no pre-warning.[/color][/size]The IPS-3 has a 3 Series DAC, Preamplifier and Stereo Amplifier built into one box. The preamplifier section has 7 inputs:
USB | AES/EBU | S/PDIF | XLR | 2 RCAs | Playlink (Playback Designs' proprietary link)
The amplifier outputs 130 wpc into 8 ohms and doubes into 4 ohms. It drove the hell out of the 87 db efficient Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOnes.


Looks like there is an emergence of a whole new industry here of swiss-army-knife components.  DAC/Pre/Power/Streamer is just about everything but transducer, server, and cable.  I guess it remains to be seen if the market supports it - high quality used separates can be purchased for less that do their individual jobs better, but they don't offer ease of use, setup, and simplicity that these all-in-ones do.  The question is do people want "good at everything but perhaps great at nothing + convenience" or "great (hopefully) everything minus convenience" - or wi ll the market somehow just continue to support everything.  I see this as the next logical step for amp companies looking to get into the DAC market and digital companies looking to break into the amp market.  Since the two (analog+digital) are now bundled as a whole system, the buyer will have a whole system that stays SOTA as long as the DAC/Digital amp market stays static - which isn't long.  It also prevents mixing/matching components to find something that works with your system - either the D Premier works in your system or it doesn't.[/color]