[EVOLVIST]

I couldn't agree more, I never could understand the love of vinyl or tape or the hiss and extreme care it comes with. For myself vinyl sounds nothing like live music, it has no edge or life. But my father loves vinyl, I guess it's what he grew up with.

"All the magic happens in the tape hiss." ~ Neil Young.

 

[pkcpga]

"All the magic happens in the tape hiss." ~ Neil Young.

Very old quote and not what he's peddling these days with the release of his pono hf player.

 

[EVOLVIST]

Very old quote and not what he's peddling these days with the release of his pono hf player.

 
Well, short of ol' Neil sending out reel-to-reel dubs of his album, it sort of is what he's harking with the Pono player, i.e. digital remasters of his own recordings, first and foremost (being that most of them were recorded well to start with), in the purest manner that's available to us these days in a digital world. It might be digital, yet that "analogue" feel is tied to format, where the music lives.
 
My point is, much like @Rob Watts stated earlier that "Sound Quality does not matter," is that even the perception of tape saturation, if that's your thing, still thrives with the DAVE. Now, if you just can't stand tape hiss, which is a natural byproduct of that medium, I'm not saying that you're missing out; I'm only saying that the hiss, itself, can add a certain quaintness to the music if it hasn't been overtly sterilized by digital means. It's a trick of the brain, really, for those of us who grew up with tape hiss, that even if it's debatable that the digitized hiss doesn't impart some magical "analog" vibe, I content that your brain still associates the hiss with "analogue," thus you hear "analogue." And it is the Chord DAVE that is able to work best with the subtle cues within your brain  to bring out the best in your listening experience.
 
Does that make sense, or am I rambling?

 

[Ampus]

Hifi is supposed to be fun. Since the forum mode seems a little gloomy lately, hopefully this will loosen most people up.
Disclaimer: This post is based on John Frank's most recent post.

A bartender rushed into a local tavern and yelled at the bartender "Vincent, what time is it? Give me a liter of Kronenbough 1664 and make it snappy since I have to catch a plane in 30 minutes. By the way, what did you do to your Juke Box? I have never heard one sounding that good in my life!"

The bartender replied "My name is not Vincent mate. I am John and damn if I know what time it is! Don't you see the Chord DAVE on top of my Juke Box! We at Chord don't believe in clocks."

 

[ecwl]

Hifi is supposed to be fun. Since the forum mode seems a little gloomy lately, hopefully this will loosen most people up.
Disclaimer: This post is based on John Frank's most recent post.

A bartender rushed into a local tavern and yelled at the bartender "Vincent, what time is it? Give me a liter of Kronenbough 1664 and make it snappy since I have to catch a plane in 30 minutes. By the way, what did you do to your Juke Box? I have never heard one sounding that good in my life!"

The bartender replied "My name is not Vincent mate. I am John and damn if I know what time it is! Don't you see the Chord DAVE on top of my Juke Box! We at Chord don't believe in clocks."

This just really cracks me up after a long work day. Even though it seems to miss the point. Still super hilarious to me. Not sure why.
 
My simplistic interpretation of what Rob Watts and John Franks have been saying is this. If you build a DAC (Pulse Array + other design aspects) that is innately significantly more immune to jitter than any other DAC designs, a great clock that's good enough would be perfect. If you build a DAC that is innately more susceptible to jitter, you may try to get some sort of super clock to minimize the jitter. However, since you're not sure what you're doing, at some point, your super duper clock is not really helping with jitter and is just injecting noise into the system and altering the sound that you may think is better.
 
With all that said, still a hilarious joke.

 

[Beolab]

This just really cracks me up after a long work day. Even though it seems to miss the point. Still super hilarious to me. Not sure why.

My simplistic interpretation of what Rob Watts and John Franks have been saying is this. If you build a DAC (Pulse Array + other design aspects) that is innately significantly more immune to jitter than any other DAC designs, a great clock that's good enough would be perfect. If you build a DAC that is innately more susceptible to jitter, you may try to get some sort of super clock to minimize the jitter. However, since you're not sure what you're doing, at some point, your super duper clock is not really helping with jitter and is just injecting noise into the system and altering the sound that you may think is better.

With all that said, still a hilarious joke.

I buy all of this, but why aren't the DAVE then miles better than the dcs Vivaldi / Nagra HD or even the Select II who are using jittery super clocks then, it is just a subtle difference and down to a matter of taste is what Roy concluded for example?

Is it because of the weak recordings that cant show of DAVEs full potential maybe, or how can the "poor-knowledge-ultra-expensive heavy-jittery-dac's" sound so close to DAVE then? In my book they should have sounded much worse, or does DAVE also got a small hidden secret bottleneck in the design that you struggle with to make it fully bloom out properly Rob?

 

[Crgreen]

Nothing sounds like live unamplified music. The gap can never be closed. In which case, in the spirit of genuine enquiry: what should we be listening for? It's a question I've asked myself many times to which I've never found a satisfactory answer, other than that the music connects with me to an extent that I don't mind the gap.

 

[Beolab]

Here is one of the coolest 3D tracks with depth perspective i have heard that is playing very nice on my Abyss headphones + DAVE combo

https://tidal.com/album/58755893

 

[EVOLVIST]

Nothing sounds like live unamplified music. The gap can never be closed. In which case, in the spirit of genuine enquiry: what should we be listening for? It's a question I've asked myself many times to which I've never found a satisfactory answer, other than that the music connects with me to an extent that I don't mind the gap.

You don't consciously listen for anything. You just let it come.

Like the other day I was listening to, of all things, Metallica's "Battery" off of Master of Puppets. I knew that the rhythm guitars were layered several times over, but I wasn't listening for anything in particular. All of a sudden I start noticing this depth to the guitars, as if one or a few guitars has a different mic'ing which gave depth to the image that I think I would have only gotten with DAVE.

Or, there's a couple of Mozart pieces that he wrote for this odd mechanical organ. I just wanted to hear the piece, because I had not heard it in so long. But what immediately jumped out to me was the apparent distance the mics were away from the organ. I have no idea why they didn't record this organ closer; nevertheless, the sound just hung there, through headphones, like somebody holding an image 5ft in front of your face, but you don't have your glasses on. It was pretty ghostly, and that's totally without searching for ghosts.

 

[esimms86]

Hifi is supposed to be fun. Since the forum mode seems a little gloomy lately, hopefully this will loosen most people up.
Disclaimer: This post is based on John Frank's most recent post.

A bartender rushed into a local tavern and yelled at the bartender "Vincent, what time is it? Give me a liter of Kronenbough 1664 and make it snappy since I have to catch a plane in 30 minutes. By the way, what did you do to your Juke Box? I have never heard one sounding that good in my life!"

The bartender replied "My name is not Vincent mate. I am John and damn if I know what time it is! Don't you see the Chord DAVE on top of my Juke Box! We at Chord don't believe in clocks."

A pint lover's dream: a tavern with 164,000 taps.

 

[jlbrach]

Well,tomorrow my Dave should arrive.I have both the LCD-4 and the Utopia's.....the big question as far as i am concerned is whether or not i will be able to drive my LCD-4's with the Dave or will i need to use my Moon neo 430?......I am currently using the TT and i have absolutely no problem direct to the TT with the Utopia but the LCD-4 is a bit of a struggle....I do hope the Dave is a step up in terms of driving the LCD-4

 

[bigfatpaulie]

  Well,tomorrow my Dave should arrive.I have both the LCD-4 and the Utopia's.....the big question as far as i am concerned is whether or not i will be able to drive my LCD-4's with the Dave or will i need to use my Moon neo 430?......I am currently using the TT and i have absolutely no problem direct to the TT with the Utopia but the LCD-4 is a bit of a struggle....I do hope the Dave is a step up in terms of driving the LCD-4

 
From my experience the DAVE handles them extremely well - an additional amp isn't needed.  It will, however, add it's own signature (ie distortion) which may be what you want.

 

[jlbrach]

given my best case would rather listen direct from the Dave without the Moon 430..that is assuming it can drive the LCD-4...i know it will drive the Utopia without issue....are there any LCD-4 owners out there using it with the Dave?

 

[jelt2359]

From my experience the DAVE handles them extremely well - an additional amp isn't needed.  It will, however, add it's own signature (ie distortion) which may be what you want.

When that distortion is on the level of the Stellaris... yes! I want!

 

[Beolab]

Well,tomorrow my Dave should arrive.I have both the LCD-4 and the Utopia's.....the big question as far as i am concerned is whether or not i will be able to drive my LCD-4's with the Dave or will i need to use my Moon neo 430?......I am currently using the TT and i have absolutely no problem direct to the TT with the Utopia but the LCD-4 is a bit of a struggle....I do hope the Dave is a step up in terms of driving the LCD-4

No problem at all, you can drive the
LCD-4 200Ω version to immense levels, and the headphones and your eardrums will collapse before DAVE starting to break a sweat @ +3db vol.

(The DAVE got almost twice the power over your TT)