ES9038/9039 & AK4493 boards and ICs from China and possible fakes?

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capslock

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Joined 2002
#1
I have been looking at building my own 8x I2S DAC or modding Chinese boards for this purpose.

Current pricing on mouser.de (+ 19% tax) and on Aliexpress (EU tax included) 1 IC and one board
ES9038Q2M 1+ € 17.86 3000+ 11.01 1 pc. $3.23 > $24
ES9039Q2M 1+ € 15.81 100+ 11.86 1 pc. $ 8.16 > $32 (> $55 only a few days ago)
AK4493SEQ 1+ € 8.69 2500+ 4.74 1 pc. $ 7.52 > $46

So the AK is the cheapest at at a reputable distributor. ICs from Ali are only a tad cheaper, which is reasonable considering dealers were buying them by the thousands. Boards are strangely expensive, starting at $46, but are typically more like $ 55-60.

The 9038 can be had for about a third of the highest bracket at Mouser, and boards have been cheap for a while starting at $24. Does ESS sell the chips at a tremendous discount in China or could these be fakes?

Interestingly, the 9039 is cheaper than its predecessor at Mouser in spite of being fairly new. Again, IC prices at Ali are lower than the highest bracket at Mouser. There seems to be only a single board design available on ebay and Ali, which was north of $ 50 only five days ago but now has dropped to the low 30s at several dealers. Strangely, this board uses only a single DIP8 op amp by JRC (presumably a dual, so one amp for each channel) whereas the datasheet recommends 2 or 3 amps per channel. Could these be rebadged voltage out DACs?
 
#2
ES9039Q2M is much better than ES9038Q2M and it supports TDM. AK4493 is cheaper but it lacks ASRC which may be important if SPDIF/optical is used as source.

I would shy away from Aliexpress chips and especially Chinese boards. All of those are garbage.
 
#4
Aliexpress boards mostly seem to use real dac chips, its usually all the other components and the PCB design that is bad garbage. Its how they get the prices so low and can still make some money.

Only reason for buying one IMHO is if you want to learn about bad dac design and experiment with trying to make it better (which can be a useful learning experience for some folks). Although without a complete redesign it will never be very good. What most people don't seem to realize is that most of the sound of a dac is in all the circuitry that surrounds the dac chip. The dac chip itself only sets some limit on the best results that can be obtained under near ideal conditions.
 
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#5
bohrok2610 said:
I would shy away from Aliexpress chips and especially Chinese boards. All of those are garbage
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As much as I enjoy the information from the pros on this forum...it annoys me...
There are some very good Chinese dacs!
I have several...And my friends are amazed by the sound....
All the AKM or Chinese SABER DACs that I own have authentic chips....
STOP generalizing...And continue to argue about cherry stems! 🙄
 
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#7
Contrary to the pros SMSL and the like at least offer affordable nice looking and good working devices one can choose to obtain. Devices often tested and measured on ASR.

Aliexpress and especially the boards offered there is a lottery. Often mediocre design, one never knows where the parts came from (recycled) and one has still the hardest task (well for many): casework, drilling etc.
 
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#10
Probably because ESS has the vast majority of the market and produces way more ICs!?!

Their way of doing things indicates that. It would not surprise me that they are the cheapest in very high volumes so any manufacturer chooses their products. It could be that previous generation ICs are dumped. Who knows? They seem to use all tricks in the book whereas AKM seems a very different company.

My semi DIY AK4493 and a AK4497 DAC both perform better than a few ES9038 products I compared them with. ES9038 seems to be a Lego stone since it appears in MANY devices. Maybe the 9039 is a better IC. The ES9033Q is a wonderful DAC chip, I like it over ES9038 (which really is nothing special TBH).
 
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#11
capslock said:
All of this still does not answer why AK4493s boards are more expensive than ES9038 and now 39 boards, and why only 9038 chips are sold far far below volume pricing.
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Same for prescription drugs too. In the US we pay the most for them. That's where the money is to be made after all. Flooding the market in other lower income places with excess production might allow at least some recoup on investment. Also IIUC, ESS doesn't have their own foundry. They may have to order production a year or two in advance. Who knows? OTOH, AKM production capability may be still recovering from the factory fire.

Only point here is that fake chips may not be the only possible explanation.
 
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#12
Off topic but still: maybe the health insurance systems elsewhere with low price guarantees and forced open market for medicinal products help keeping medical costs lower!?

I read about a young hedgefund guy buying drugs factories only to raise the products prices to the extremes. From 13.5 dollar to 750 dollar. Per pill. That is pure greed. If the system/people/government accept this as good entrepreneurship then all is good 🙂

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
 
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#14
Markw4 said:
Same for prescription drugs too. In the US we pay the most for them. That's where the money is to be made after all. Flooding the market in other lower income places with excess production might allow at least some recoup on investment. Also IIUC, ESS doesn't have their own foundry. They may have to order production a year or two in advance. Who knows? OTOH, AKM production capability may be still recovering from the factory fire.

Only point here is that fake chips may not be the only possible explanation.
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True, but if volume pricing at Mouser is any indication, 3000+ 9038 are about 62% of single price, 2500+ of 4493 are 55%. So essentially the same with a larger discount for the AKM part.

I wouldn't embark on a semi or full DIY project with the 9038 any longer now that the 4493 is back and that we have the 9039.
 
#15
The Chinese manufacturers don't buy anything at expensive western distributors where we as consumers can buy our parts. Why would they pay more for stuff produced locally? The chips in A brands and those in cheap stuff are one and the same. Since the Mousers, Digikeys and Farnells took over that market we pay more than ever as consumers. I know a guy that had an initially small company in large volume part distribution to a few industries. He was becoming too large and he was bought out then. Competition was not desired.

Those that like to cut out the middle man turn out to be the new middle man. Surprising.
 
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#16
My assumption is that many of these cheap Aliexpress/eBay ICs are not fakes as such but rejects. There have been foundry issues with ES9038Q2M (see e.g. here). Also during the height of the component shortage I received a batch of LT switching voltage regulators that did not come from official source but still from a large distributor (not Aliexpress or eBay). Out of 10 ICs 5 died either at first startup or at first load test on a datasheet circuit. The other half worked without issues. When I reported this to LT support they were helpful at first but closed the support request after hearing that they did not come from official source.
 
#19
So everyone jumped on the band wagon and dismissed competitors products that now turn out to have indeed been better? Also the most recent chip is finally one without flaws of the previous. Foundry issues, duds....

Good stuff, sorry good marketing 😀
 
#20
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