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Telstar wrote:

Out of curiosity, how much does a Bidat costs nowadays and the Wright mods?

This is very interesting question and I had a conversation with John Wright about it a few days ago. He asked me the same question: what the Bidat worth nowadays. As I understand he has no control over it – he services the units of his users and has no inventory of Bidats.

When Musatex released Bidat if I am not mistaken they commented the capital crime for this stupid industry – they sold Bidat direct without bribing reviewers, soliciting good review and kissing in ass the dealers. I think they had some dealers but then they roll them back of something like this. As the result the vindictive industry kept Bidat in the closet, avoiding even mention the existence of it, not to mention to recommend it as 16bit DAC. The only industry allowed mentioning Bidat when Methner have moved already to SACD…

So, at the time of the “silence” the list price for Bidat Direct was $900. At that time used Bidat were 500-400. I got my first used Bidat for $550 and then a few others units between $400 and $1000. In begin of the 2000s the used Bidat was around $1K. The John Wright’s modifications were not relevant as you never knew what you were baying anyhow. (Also, John’s mode never were expansive)

In 2004 when I put my site up I listed one of my Bidats for $7.700. It was not because I intended to sell it but… juts to have fun with audio people.  I did not buy or sold any Bidats since 2002. What I read as some site that the fact that I listed my Bidat for $7.700 singlehandedly have risen the price for Bidats and nowadays they reportedly go for $3K-$4K, if they are available. I do not know certainly the market praise for Bidats nowadays as the last I dealt with was 6 years ago.

What I do know is the value of Bidat in my playback. There was the SACD craze and the EMM lab converters were flying for $12K, Zenden for $26K, AN 5.1 for $30K, DCS for $8K, MBL for $9K, Spectral for $11K.  I believe Bidat at 16Bit with hard-reading CD transport was more interesting, so how much should Bidat cost? 

I have to note that personally feel that DACs should not cost too much. It is basically a computer and costs nothing nowadays. You can buy today for 28$ a 1 sq inch processor with 48 Multibits, so what is the big deal to have 16bit converter to make? Well, perhaps the price in DA should derive not from the processor itself but from the sound it produces? If so, then the price should be not how much it cost but how much it saves to buy/try the competitors. It looks like Bidat at my 16-bit setup (paired with CEC TL0) might survive Lavry Gold, Weiss and Pacific Microsystems (though it did not give up to Pacific).

How much does it costs to me? Well, I think I would go for another round of making fun of the audio folks and would increase the price of my “ever selling Bidat” from $7.700 to I would say $18.75K. Let see how it will work out… :-)

To be more serious I do not know the answer about the Baidat price but I know that in my case there are sertane audio components that are more expensive to let go then to buy them. BTW, I have no personal stake in that entire “Bidat enthusiasm” as I do not sell Bidats. The only unit that I have available for sale is the one depicted above with the custom-built extensive output stage. The people who know me personally knows that it is absolutely does not matter to me if I sell it or not.

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