I agree that the argument is silly but I think my price in the U.S. would be more like $1700 and I have been stung enough times on digital to be gun shy about that big of a figure.
I don't think your argument is silly at all -- it appears that the construction has been purposely made a joke for the sake of reducing sales volume while maintaining reasonable profit margin. Some may disagree, but I don't care how it sounds -- if it isn't built like a durable good, I don't think the cost is justified. "Good sound" alone won't convince me to spend $1700 for a board, attached to a piece of spruce, that must be powered by an externally-charged battery. If it is as good as it appears to be, it shouldn't be long before the technology makes it into a variety of "finished" products at varying price points. So, I'll also pass for now.
Like the BYOB amplifier, the complete electronic assembly of the Attraction DAC is vibrationally optimized, as the pcb is flat-press-mounted on a specially treated spruce-board. This construction is time-consuming during manufacture, but improves sound quality, as all components are mechanically coupled to a musical sound board.
(edit -- BTW, I won't edit what I wrote, but to clarify, I don't mean "joke" in a disparaging way at all. Simply that the "chassis" was designed with an obvious sense of humor. A subtle rebellion, but also a way to scare off the poor and lazy DAC bargain-seekers as myself, while simultaneously reducing parts/labor/overhead costs. If it sounds as good as many say it does, but was the shape/size of a Ack Dack and had a self-charging battery system, they'd have to make a lot more of them a lot more quickly.)
