[jelt2359]

I have been following the recent thread from the sideline and now feel obligated to voice my opinions.

I find it to be so strange that two seasoned Hifi veterans like Paul and Roy having such vast difference in opinions about the DAVE and TotalDac. DAC technology has advanced so much over the last few years to the current state of the art that for most people it would be difficult to hear night and day difference in SQ, as wisely and eloquently demonstrated in Paul's posts. After all, there is only so much that can be squeezed out of a digital file. Granted DAVE has better specifications than most other DAC's; however, it has been shown that better specifications do not always translate into better sound. Don't get me wrong, I now own a DAVE and like it a lot but still cannot hear a night and day difference in the SQ compared to my other high end DAC's, not just Mojo.

I find this forum to be somewhat biased, favoring DAVE over any other DAC. Just review the posts for yourselves and you will see what I mean. When I posted my observation about Mojo vs DAVE, even the people who never did an A/B comparison between Mojo and DAVE came out to DAVE's defense. If DAVE doesn't sound supremely good in one's system, there must be something wrong in that person's system! I realize that this is the DAVE forum but isn't forum there to help people share unbiased opinions and learn from one another?

I think that Roy means well and is really trying to help forum members but sometimes his posts come across as authoritarian. One gets the perception that any deviation from his ideas / observations is simply not acceptable. I am sure that Roy is an accomplished and successful person; however, one does not have to brag about himself to get the points across the audience. Reading some of Roy's posts reminds me of Trump bragging about himself in the debates!

In medical field, one simply cannot publish a peer-reviewed article without having done due diligent research and having validated data to back up his or her conclusion. Being a physician, Roy should know this. It is a bad practice and legally irresponsible to post disparaging opinion about a manufacturer's product based on the opinion of a single disgruntled business partner. For us the consumers, it is easy to walk away from one product to find another product; however, for the affected manufacturer, this can potentially hurt the company's livelihood and reputation in a major way! Slandering your competition to get more business to yourself unfortunately is a common practice, even in medical field. I admire straightforward and honest people like Rob Watts.

Now a day, all speakers / writers, not just the ones in medical field, are required to disclose any financial interest / kick back that they have with any organization. I suggest that HiFi.org has similar requirements for the posters to hopefully avoid any biased posting. For the record, I receive NO financial interest or kick back from any company.

Those are my 2 cents. This is a great, informative forum; however, improvements and transparency are sorely needed. I am aware that I can get flamed or even banned from this forum for posting this; however, if that happened, so be it!

Perhaps Paul and Romaz disagreeing; is not any stranger than others disagreeing with you re: Mojo and Dave? I own the Dave, Hugo and Mojo. Huge fan of Chord products. If the Mojo sounded anywhere close to the Dave I would have saved a tonne of money- that being the most recent dac I bought. Alas! Consider yourself fortunate that you have a difference experience than I.

Two other points:

I personally read all posts on an anonymous online forum with a pinch of salt. Heck, review sites too. I don't consider anyone's posts authoritative. I've never read Romaz nor anyone else in this thread writing anything to this effect either, "if you disagree you are wrong". What I enjoy about this thread (admittedly I don't follow many other high end threads) is that it's clear the owners here can easily buy a Dave (or three) and so agendas are less around these parts. This is not a medical journal, which btw is a strange comparison- do all published doctors really have no agendas? Then big pharma, and any other company with a "medical" point to prove (NFL with concussions for eg) are not doing their jobs.

But as my illustrious stats prof once said, a single data point is better than zero. Some data, no matter how small, is always good. Whether that translates to authority, however is in the eye of the beholder Personally I do think Romaz is somewhat of an authority because of his well-thought, unbiased posts. Can others who are similarly well-thought and unbiased have different opinions? Why the world not!

 

[hieukm]

Although i do own the Dave , i feel it is essential to have criticism towards it.

Here is an example of someone who thought old combo Dcs purcell/delious and Playback Design Merlot DAC are better than Dave.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?21633-Chord-DAVE-Aune-S16-etc-more-comparative-listening-(rambling-amp-tedious)

On anothet website, there are other opinions that Dave is equally good with Berkeyley Ref 2.

http://www.audioshark.org/computer-digital-audio-11/berkeley-audio-reference-2-dac-10471.html


Then another opinion from another extreme high-end community that Trinity DAC should trump all including Total Twelve, Dcs Vivaldi stacks and MSB stacks where as in here i have seen two posts disqualitfy the Trinity DAC.

My opinion is when we comparing Top of the line DAC onwards you need top of line speakers setup to fully comprehend the difference. Headphone setup cant present all of the characteristic of DAC. Paul's systems are more capacable to make thea assessment in my humble opinion. I also think it is logical that DAC cost 30k is better than Dave.

 

[zare]

If we take, at face value, your and your friend's criticism of DAVE as being much less transparent then there's only two aspects of DAVE that can be meaningfully questioned: the entire algorithm of DAVE (WTA over-sampling, noise-shaping, 104MHz 5-bit 20-element digital to analogue conversion); 

 
You can actually use this DAC for FM brocading 

 
Kidding aside, I like when people write how they perceive music and what they feel when listening to music. What I dont like is statement describing ex. position of instruments, vocals e.t.c. Were you there when recording was made? Do you understand the process of recording? Maybe you was doing the mixing of the master. When was last time you were on live performance where you can hear not amplified music. Piano is one of the instruments that is not easy to reproduce correctly, so having baseline great starting point. Yet again, you have different piano manufacturers which can have tonal signatures.
 
Never ending story.
 
Since of psychoacoustic is extensive and peoples interpretation of reproduced music will always be different. 

 

[x RELIC x]

Although i do own the Dave , i feel it is essential to have criticism towards it.

Here is an example of someone who thought old combo Dcs purcell/delious and Playback Design Merlot DAC are better than Dave.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?21633-Chord-DAVE-Aune-S16-etc-more-comparative-listening-(rambling-amp-tedious)

On anothet website, there are other opinions that Dave is equally good with Berkeyley Ref 2.

http://www.audioshark.org/computer-digital-audio-11/berkeley-audio-reference-2-dac-10471.html


Then another opinion from another extreme high-end community that Trinity DAC should trump all including Total Twelve, Dcs Vivaldi stacks and MSB stacks where as in here i have seen two posts disqualitfy the Trinity DAC.

My opinion is when we comparing Top of the line DAC onwards you need top of line speakers setup to fully comprehend the difference. Headphone setup cant present all of the characteristic of DAC. Paul's systems are more capacable to make thea assessment in my humble opinion. I also think it is logical that DAC cost 30k is better than Dave.

One question I always have when reading comparisons is, who is to say what a neutral reference is when listening to recordings? Reading the first link you provided this is quite apparent (IMO). Perhaps a user is conditioned to think a certain piece of gear, or a combination of gear, is their neutral, which may not be true for others. I've made those kind of comments before. The only reliable reference to me is a recorded live session that the listener was present at. All other comments of neutral, again, to me, are taken with a grain of salt.

I also think it is logical that DAC cost 30k is better than Dave.

This I've learned is not a standard to always go by when talking about audio quality. I try not to listen with my wallet. Not that more expensive gear is not worthy, just that equating cost directly to sound quality doesn't always work out.

Of course, this is just my humble opinion, YMMV.

 

[lovethatsound]

Although i do own the Dave , i feel it is essential to have criticism towards it.

Here is an example of someone who thought old combo Dcs purcell/delious and Playback Design Merlot DAC are better than Dave.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?21633-Chord-DAVE-Aune-S16-etc-more-comparative-listening-(rambling-amp-tedious)

On anothet website, there are other opinions that Dave is equally good with Berkeyley Ref 2.

http://www.audioshark.org/computer-digital-audio-11/berkeley-audio-reference-2-dac-10471.html


Then another opinion from another extreme high-end community that Trinity DAC should trump all including Total Twelve, Dcs Vivaldi stacks and MSB stacks where as in here i have seen two posts disqualitfy the Trinity DAC.

My opinion is when we comparing Top of the line DAC onwards you need top of line speakers setup to fully comprehend the difference. Headphone setup cant present all of the characteristic of DAC. Paul's systems are more capacable to make thea assessment in my humble opinion. I also think it is logical that DAC cost 30k is better than Dave.

Just because something cost's more doesn't mean it's better.One of the ways to go forward here is to get all these other dacs measured,just like the Dave is,if they cost more they should have better measurements shouldn't they?Vincent(totaldac)you up for that?Head-fi it's self could do the test,so all would be fair.

 

[analogmusic]

Ho Hum.
 
Many people look for different things in music and in a DAC.
 
https://www.amazon.com/VIVA-Hysteria-DVD-Combo-Deluxe/dp/B00E5N8E2O
 
For me this live CD shows what a Chord DAC is capable of especially Disc 2, track 1, "Good Morning Freedom"
 
When a live Rock show starts, there is no place for a DACs weaknesses to hide, it has to cope with the speed of the musicians and the energy.
 
The Hugo has no problems. I haven't heard the other DACs, but then can you bring them to the office, and also they cost a lot more than Dave.

 

[EVOLVIST]

My opinion is when we comparing Top of the line DAC onwards you need top of line speakers setup to fully comprehend the difference. Headphone setup cant present all of the characteristic of DAC.

See, I don't agree with this at all, but who cares, right? I know that I don't.

Headphones peer into the recording more, that you're able to tell how resolving a DAC is. The trade off, of course, is that with headphones lack an overall aura attached to the physical sensations of of speaker listening. With both, however, you're getting a "colored" sound, it's just how much coloration is the question, and are you willing to pay the price for both headphones and/or speakers (depending on preference) to match your TOTL DAC? Sometimes there's a hefty price tag attached to this pairing and sometimes not.

I'm becoming to see, though, that all of these cables and ancillary things I'm spending my time with is mostly a bunch of crap if I don't have the right cans for my DAC. I would assume the same for the person who prefers speakers.

 

[hieukm]

In my opinion, there are many things that headphones will not do compare to a speaker setup. For example, the ambienc, the image, the focus, the hologgraphic and 3d soundstage, the dynamic, instrument separation and especially the air around notes. When come to the territory of high end audio, it is often no longer the accuracy of frequency( treble/mid/bass) that separates the gears but the abovementioned qualities and musicality which makes the difference. Hence if you using headphones, its unlikely that you are able to distint. Not to mention the fact that headphone community is not so much into power conditioning which i believe is a huge part in achieving high end sound.

To bluntly put it, it is my opinion that for head phones, the ultimate goal is to listen to the recordings in the most accurate way possibile without taken into account room enviroment. For speaker, the ultimate goal is to recreate the pefformance in your room.

Relating to the cost objective, i do think that giants slayer do exist but they are very few, especially at 1-3 ratio at 15k price point and DAC related.

 

[ubs28]

In my opinion, there are many things that headphones will not do compare to a speaker setup. For example, the ambienc, the image, the focus, the hologgraphic and 3d soundstage, the dynamic, instrument separation and especially the air around notes. When come to the territory of high end audio, it is often no longer the accuracy of frequency( treble/mid/bass) that separates the gears but the abovementioned qualities and musicality which makes the difference. Hence if you using headphones, its unlikely that you are able to distint. Not to mention the fact that headphone community is not so much into power conditioning which i believe is a huge part in achieving high end sound.

Relating to the cost objective, i do think that giants slayer do exist but they are very few, especially at 1-3 ratio at 15k price point and DAC related.

In my opinion, what you hear is the room rather the actual recording. According to my ears, headphones are better at detail retrieval and the loss of "ambience" and air is because there is no interaction with the room (which is a good thing if you want to hear the actual recording and the equipment). 
 
I do agree with the dynamics part, especially with respect to bass.

 

[Beolab]

  To heck with it... I can't avoid this thread it seems      I have a second opinion from a friend that knows my system very well also, so I have to share this for the people that don't mind the competition.
 
I thought this was a High End Audio Head Fi Thread? I didn't realize it was a Chord only thread. There are only a couple of you guys who don't like what I did, and that is fine with me. As for the rest, who wouldn't want to know how the DAVE compared to the Twelve? The DAVE was compared to the Monobloc, so I compared the DAVE to the Twelve, and posted it right here on the DAVE thread.
 
I posted the review because I wanted to, nobody told me to. I made it honest, and with regards to my system, my findings, IMO. I didn't treat one DAC differently than another, just swapped out the DAC's only, and listened. Who wouldn't want to replace a 30K DAC with one less than half the price? Boy I sure would, but unfortunately, I cannot. One DAC is very clearly more transparent than the other in my system.  One DAC also has an overall lower perceived noise floor in my system. Resistors piled to the ceiling or not.
 
I made very clear the value the DAVE presents. The fact that one can use any source, and not have any reclockers, USB tweaks, etc. and get world class sound, well that is really something!!
 
However, the Twelve, with the best possible source components in front of it, is better. It just is, so maybe the USB input of the DAVE is the one part of the DAC that is not actually transparent?? I do know the digital sources sound extremely similar using the USB input of the DAVE, and in effect masking transparency? I don't know, but it could be....
 
My friend came by Thursday, because I wanted a second set of ears and a second opinion. Both the Twelve and the DAVE were set up to quickly A/B the two of them running through my preamp. Only a USB Cable swap was required from the Server to either DAC, and a selector switch on the preamp, so maybe 10 seconds between comparisons.
 
Using the preamp, we listened to the Twelve for a couple tracks that he always likes to listen to here. "Made In The Shade" Lynyrd Skynyrd, and "Tobacco Road" Eric Burdon and WAR. Made in the Shade has a tuba in it that is very hard to recreate without sounding mechanical. Tobacco Road is so focused and clear, displaying holographic images supremely well. These are both PCM, with Skynyrd being 176/24, and Burdon and WAR being 16/44 CD rip.
 
After listening to the Twelve with these tracks, I asked what he thought. He said "sounds like it always does, amazing".
 
We then proceeded to A/B. I played Made in the Shade through the DAVE, then again through the Twelve, then again through the DAVE. Then he looked at me and said, "The Totaldac is more magic". I asked what he meant by that and he said "it sounds freakishly real, and the Tuba don't sound right with the DAVE". I asked what was wrong with it? He said "I can't tell where it is, and if I didn't know what it was, I don't think I could tell you it was a tuba".
 
Then we tried Tobacco Road with the Twelve, then the DAVE, then back to the Twelve. I asked what he thought. He said "Totaldac, I can see Eric, like even touch the guy he sounds so real. With the DAVE, he is gone. Not gone, but not here". His words, I took notes.
 
After this, I hooked the DAVE directly to the amps. I played the same tracks, and he asked "what did you do there?" Hooked the DAC to the amps directly. He said "well, it sounds pretty good actually, but I like it better the other way". I then put the preamp back in the loop. We listened to allot of music, and some vinyl. Had a great time talking about his system of which I am helping him build currently. Before he left, I asked him what he thought of the DAVE, and he said "oh it is very good, and better than I thought knowing your other DAC". I also asked him what he thought about the Vinyl in comparison to the DAC's. He said "The Totaldac sounds allot like your turntable, I'll say that". He is a therapist, so he then proceeded to tell me my problems and how stupid my system was, all while he was falling into his Porsche 911 with all the trimmings....  
 
The Twelve is different, and in fact, revelatory with regards to transparency in a DAC . It is far better than any other Totaldac, and better than anything else I have tried. It is the only DAC that gets close to my vinyl. I can't say this about any other DAC, and yes, I mean on a resolute and transparent basis.

 
 
Thanks for the impressions you have made, very nice write up!
 
i have just one problem and that is the choice of music / style for reviewing, and i am very interested in what other type of music you where listening to besides the two you where referring to?
 
I know this is going to sound very odd, but i listened to your listed tracks and they got fairly low DMR, and they are not using the full register bandwidth, or push out the best of either the Twelve or the DAVE.
You could have dune a blind test with a cheapo DAC in the middle with this kind of music, and most likely you have guessed it was either DAVE or the Twelve because of the easiness of render it.
It did not show of any fine nuances or inner detail or any layering at all.
The recordings is very 2D and flat.
I think both DAVE and TotalDac can sound very similar to a cheapo DAC in some kind of music, but the high end DAC's often excels when you give them the right fuel, and this was Diesel for my ears=)   
 
Then your  power amp and pre amp set the synergi with each of the DAC's, so it is up to your own taste of how it should sound. The only way to hear the DAVE's potential is to let it drive a high sensitive speakers like Roy's solution, or through sensitive high end headphones.
 
 
 
/ Fredrik

 

[Articnoise]

One question I always have when reading comparisons is, who is to say what a neutral reference is when listening to recordings? Reading the first link you provided this is quite apparent (IMO). Perhaps a user is conditioned to think a certain piece of gear, or a combination of gear, is their neutral, which may not be true for others. I've made those kind of comments before. The only reliable reference to me is a recorded live session that the listener was present at. All other comments of neutral, again, to me, are taken with a grain of salt.
This I've learned is not a standard to always go by when talking about audio quality. I try not to listen with my wallet. Not that more expensive gear is not worthy, just that equating cost directly to sound quality doesn't always work out.

Of course, this is just my humble opinion, YMMV.

 

Relic I have another way of describing if the sound is neutral. My is maybe not better, but is how I have understand it to be used. For me neutral means that the sound from the recording is exactly as in the recording. To test this we use measurements, test loops and things like that. Natural is the term I would use to describe the sound from a live session. The goal is a bit different as it is tuned to compensate from “general” artifacts that all mic and mixer board etc adds to the final sound.

 

I totally agree on the main point you made about “who is to say what a neutral reference is when listening to recordings?” Especially if talking about a single piece of gear in a whole audio system. To say with absolute certainty that one piece of gear is neutral we need to know that all the other gear in the system that we use are absolute neutral as well. We need reference gear to do that, in other word measurement. To say with absolute certainty that one piece of gear is natural we need to know how all the gear and how the recording system sounds like, including placement of mics, cable brand and length etc. Not all mics, mixer board, ADC and cables sound the same. That’s the problem, so many uncertain variable in audio.

 

The good thing is then the gear and recordings are all properly done and matched the sound can be so real that the artists literally sounds to be in the room with you.  

 

[Articnoise]

I think that it is great to read reviews from people like Roy and Paul that have test a lot of good gear. If they have come to different conclusions on which gear they like the best, I consider those opinion to be more informative than total agreement. I know it may sound like nonsense, but still for me it sorts out the “real” strength of the gear in a way that I don’t really get a feel for with only posts that are in full agreement on all sound aspects. 

 

[rkt31]

imho headphones can't match the imaging produced by speakers that's why binaural recordings were invented. no doubt headphones can be more transparent specially with the dac's like Dave and hugo which allow direct sound from the dac to headphone, without using a headphone amp. but due to human hearing which involves sounds coming from a distance ( like in speakers ) rather than right over the ear ( headphones) , the exact recreation of live event with headphones is not possible , even binaural recordings have its own limitations. after buying hugo for my speaker set up, I bought a decent flat sounding headphones ( beyerdynamic dt880 , 600ohm ) , while these headphones definitely produce more finer details but when it comes to dynamics , punch, depth, realism , musicality ( yes speakers are more musical imho) ambience etc , headphones simply can't match the speakers at least for me. room interaction can be controlled but even if these are present , these are the part of natural hearing process of humans.

 

[x RELIC x]

 



Relic I have another way of describing if the sound is neutral. My is maybe not better, but is how I have understand it to be used. For me neutral means that the sound from the recording is exactly as in the recording. To test this we use measurements, test loops and things like that. Natural is the term I would use to describe the sound from a live session. The goal is a bit different as it is tuned to compensate from “general” artifacts that all mic and mixer board etc adds to the final sound.



I totally agree on the main point you made about “who is to say what a neutral reference is when listening to recordings?” Especially if talking about a single piece of gear in a whole audio system. To say with absolute certainty that one piece of gear is neutral we need to know that all the other gear in the system that we use are absolute neutral as well. We need reference gear to do that, in other word measurement. To say with absolute certainty that one piece of gear is natural we need to know how all the gear and how the recording system sounds like, including placement of mics, cable brand and length etc. Not all mics, mixer board, ADC and cables sound the same. That’s the problem, so many uncertain variable in audio.



The good thing is then the gear and recordings are all properly done and matched the sound can be so real that the artists literally sounds to be in the room with you.  

Thank you for expanding on my thoughts. Yes, I agree, if one is privileged to be at the recording session or in the studio during the mix, and to knows well the gear involved, then and only then can one truly call the system neutral relative to what is involved in the original recording/mix and what it;s being played back on. The trouble is reading so many different perspectives about 'neutral' it becomes obvious that a lot of these statements are personal preference for neutral (not pointing to anyone in particular here at all).

Measurements, to a degree, are exceedingly helpful to determine the performance of our gear, but I also am of the mindset that our brains aural ability is more capable than any measurement system we currently have at our disposal. Of course measurements give us a fantastic idea of how a piece of gear does perform relative to others but I don't think we can truly rely only on measurements over our ability to hear a better sound. Of course there is a very fine line to walk here and placebo and bias are huge factors. Indeed, until Rob talked about noise floor modulation in the system I couldn't fully understand why some gear simply sounded harsh and brittle, even though it measured good and comparable to other gear. Fascinating how the small things can have an effect that's quite noticeable, and yet we simply don't measure them, or can't yet. Same with small signal resolution. Who knew that it would affect the perception of depth. Cool.

Edit: Just to add, my main initial point was that the simplest test would be to have a quality mic and ADC recording a live performance would be the best and most direct way to reference how neutral the DAVE is compared to what the listener is hearing. Testing mainstream recordings is a bag of unknowns.

 

[x RELIC x]

imho headphones can't match the imaging produced by speakers that's why binaural recordings were invented. no doubt headphones can be more transparent specially with the dac's like Dave and hugo which allow direct sound from the dac to headphone, without using a headphone amp. but due to human hearing which involves sounds coming from a distance ( like in speakers ) rather than right over the ear ( headphones) , the exact recreation of live event with headphones is not possible , even binaural recordings have its own limitations. after buying hugo for my speaker set up, I bought a decent flat sounding headphones ( beyerdynamic dt880 , 600ohm ) , while these headphones definitely produce more finer details but when it comes to dynamics , punch, depth, realism , musicality ( yes speakers are more musical imho) ambience etc , headphones simply can't match the speakers at least for me. room interaction can be controlled but even if these are present , these are the part of natural hearing process of humans.

A huge part of our ability to image is from the minisicule time delay difference the sound waves arrive at each ear, which is why binaural recordings work so much better for headphones, because each ear is getting a better representation of the actual time delay in the recording. This is also a huge reason why speaker placement and room treatment are so important to image properly (reflections and interference waves not withstanding).