I’m amazed at the lengths people will go to, so as to avoid a point raised.
To be clear.
If an AV can be an AV amp (which presumably costs “some money”) then the cost of licensing HDMI for the item can only cost a portion of that.
To develop the point. You can buy an AV amp with HDMI for £300.
This DAC costs £600.
If absolutely everything on previous AV amps cost absolutely nothing (I’ll give you a clue, it didn’t), then the maximum cost of adding HDMI is £30. Which would make this £900.
I’m not sure, at the level we’re discussing, that this price difference is a deal breaker.
At a more realistic valuation, HDMI licensing on a £300 AV amp is £50-£100 (and I suspect less than that).
Selling an HDMI version of this at £650-£700 absolute maximum would appear to be a no-brainier.