People get pretty defensive about their products, whether owners or (even more so) manufacturers.
I have dealt with Bill before, and I believe he is one of the nicer folks in the industry. I was sorry to see the sarcasm in his post; he must not have read the intro message
Ultimately, yes, this will be built towards a price point. I don't expect it to sound as good as the TPA-DIY unit I have, which cost me $1250. But at about 1/2 that price, this should be a great DAC to get MANY people a very good taste of what can be done with this chip.
And FWIW I have owned or heard 3 different EE products before (CD, pre, and phono pre), and they all seemed to do more than their price suggests. So I am looking forward to this.
Ultimately, I'd like to see a no-holds-barred unit built around this, too, though!