Pretty sure from your fixation on analog to digital conversion...

Pretty sure from your fixation on analog to digital conversion that you have missed the point of Dante. Sure, digital audio is nothing new; PCM was invented around 1940. There are loads of commercially available digital audio formats; FLAC, MP3, Minidisc, DAT, Compact Disc, etc etc.

But so what? Its still the case that most Pro AV installations are point to point, regardless of whether the signals they're sending are digital or analog. The benefit of Dante is that it allows 100s of audio channels to be sent over a standard IT network. I'm not an AV tech so I don't know for sure how useful this is, but the adoption rate of Dante suggests there's some significant value there. And regarding the Berlin Philharmonic link, there's a big difference between audio & video recording/broadcasting, and audio networking. The latter is Dante's target market.

AD8 may or may not be a success in the long run, for sure the current valuation is premium and bakes in high expectations. But it helps to be clear about what their proposition is, and what it isn't.