[adrianm]

I'm having some trouble streaming from the Naim to Dave, it only has bnc out but i'm not getting signal in any of Dave's Bnc's, does anyone have any idea?
Edit : nvm, found it.

 

[adrianm]

Does anyone know why streamers shy away from Optical ? Is it just the bandwidth limitation or the fact that most dac are more sensitive to jitter?
This Naim sounds almost as good as optical out of pc, it would be hard to pick in a blind test, but i'd still give the slight edge to optical out of pc, which is pretty impressive tbh. It's a lot better than the Macbook pro with usb and jitterbug.

 

[ecwl]

Does anyone know why streamers shy away from Optical ? Is it just the bandwidth limitation or the fact that most dac are more sensitive to jitter?

It’s because most DACs are more sensitive to jitter by their very design, be they R2R or DSD or multi-element DAC chips. The pulse array DAC design in Chord DACs is particularly jitter immune and has no measureable noise floor modulation. Interestingly, I noticed recently the Mola Mola DAC design uses a very similar DAC architecture (although the upsampling is very different).

 

[edwardsean]

It’s because most DACs are more sensitive to jitter by their very design, be they R2R or DSD or multi-element DAC chips. The pulse array DAC design in Chord DACs is particularly jitter immune and has no measureable noise floor modulation. Interestingly, I noticed recently the Mola Mola DAC design uses a very similar DAC architecture (although the upsampling is very different).

You would really need someone from the industry to speak knowledgeably to that. However, I'm willing to hazard a guess from a different standpoint. This is purely from conversations with industry folk, and looking out at the field. It looks like USB is winning the connectivity war.

This might be due to what ecwl wrote. This might also be due to its bandwidth capability as users experiment with hi-res. For me, this is a non-negotiable. However, I think the bigger reason may move in the opposite direction. There is a small, but growing, clutch of audiophiles pushing past 96KHz/192KHz, but I think it has more to do with the ubiquity of USB.

USB, originally designed for printers and peripherals, is a horrible audio interface. I wish I2S would overtake the audio world, but that's not going to happen. USB has market dominance and so it keeps getting better, and as it gets better it keeps solidifying its place. For instance, Macs don't have the larger market share, but they are incredibly market savvy. They used to have optical audio in/out, along with other ports, but went all in on USB-C. (Just an aside, anyone even remember firewire. It used to be all the rage in the recording world.)

Both, optical and USB have their relative technical merits and challenges. Builders have to decide where to invest their design dollars and people just seem to be thinking USB these days. But, I don't know, this is just fun spectator speculation on my part.

 

[adrianm]

It’s because most DACs are more sensitive to jitter by their very design, be they R2R or DSD or multi-element DAC chips. The pulse array DAC design in Chord DACs is particularly jitter immune and has no measureable noise floor modulation. Interestingly, I noticed recently the Mola Mola DAC design uses a very similar DAC architecture (although the upsampling is very different).

Thanks, thought so. Looks like Dave is just a gem that keeps on giving. I have like 15k worth of gear on my desk (borrowed ofc) and i could just just take away 75% of that and it would sound 85-90% as good on most of my tracks.
That said i'm still seriously considering the m-scaler, i just hope that rf issue can be solved by ferrites. It's not the added brightness that bothers me, it sounds fine, i just find it slightly more fatiguing than solo Dave over long periods. With Optical that is, usb would honestly be kind of a deal breaker for me.

 

[musickid]

A few snapshots of my new dave, oppo pm1 headphone with silver artisan cable and ipod touch 7th generation roon endpoint battery powered by an energizer powerbank.

 

[musickid]

Dave continues to impress and surprise me in the most positive way 3 days into ownership. Elegant and sophisticated and oozing a sweet and naturally organic sound leaving one no longer searching for any more highs. Mojo is warm and organic but a bit thin and rather 2D sounding by comparison. Hugo 2 is beautifully detailed but a touch cold. TT2 is so smooth and natural and effortlessly powerful but a touch heavy in tone for me. The negatives described here are not really negatives as i feel these dacs have been carefully tuned for the environment they will find themselves operating in whether that be mobile a mix of mobile and desktop or purely at home for the TT2. Dave seems to extract all of these positives with no negative traits that i can feel or detect. Perfection and absolutely spot on. It feels right in every regard and it is how this audio gear makes you feel at the end of the day which is ultimately more important than any technical jargon or the like. As it has been stated it is the emotional bond or attachment to the music which separates Chord from the competition and keeps us coming back for more and paying a premium to capture that magic. Dave is the embodiment of that magic enclosed within an aluminium case that weighs 5kg and costs the best part of a new fiesta.

The mscaler doesn't change the nature of any of the chord dacs and their fine tuning but rather adds a number of very important musical qualities that no dac on its own has the capability to reproduce. These include adding immense definition to the decay and leading edge of musical notes which is not to be confused with instrument separation which a solo dave excels in and cannot be matched i feel. There is some very slight blurring which i can detect even with dave surrounding certain vocal representations on albums i know well. The mscaler eliminates this due to the way it handles transients with a one million tap interpolation filter reproducing the analogue signal to a greater than 16 bit accuracy. I expect the mscaler will also clear this up when added to dave. The mscaler is very fast and brings with it greater accuracy than what a solo dave can do. Thinking back to the mTT2 this is easily discernible with electronic dance music. Even though i strongly feel the dave leads the way with instrument separation and this is evident relaxing with piano mscaler or no mscaler. I also found the mscaler had a greater effect on hugo 2 than with TT2. With hugo2 it was a complete transformation displaying the qualities just described here with the TT2 it was slightly more subtle.

However if i had to explain why i am more than willing to add a new mscaler to my dave when finances allow it comes down to one main factor: The mscaler adds a certain musical energy or musical "sparkle" to the music which is ineffable i.e. it is hard to describe in words. This was immediately apparent when i tested the TT2 solo unattached to the mscaler vs mTT2. Passthrough on mscaler is a bit deceiving as even passthrough added its own flavour. I also found TT2 and mTT2 to occasionally sound a bit "heavy" or heavy in tone. With dave this heaviness has disappeared. I continue to enjoy adjusting to the sound of dave as i leave mTT2 behind.

I hope my honest and from the heart evaluation here helps put things into a clearer perspective and adds a bit of colour to this dull and overcast Sunday morning. Time for some Al Jarreau i think as i conclude my 2020 dave report which i promised to everyone......time to enjoy the music now i think....Cheers MK. Certainly headphone listeners paradise here with me now.



(These tracks were used to help me decide whether to go optical direct from my imac or use a 7th generation ipod touch (usb source) battery powered roon endpoint). The ipod touch usb source just won on sound quality and can also do 192khz files from Qobuz. The imac optical is capped at 96khz.

1) Al Jarreau: We're in this love together from the album Breakin' Away.
2) Alissa Weilerstein: Dvorak the album: cello concerto in B minor finale.
3) Gregory Porter: Everything you touch is Gold from the album All Rise (Deluxe).
4) Sonny Rollins: Way out West: There is no greater love.

 

[adrianm]

The mscaler doesn't change the nature of any of the chord dacs and their fine tuning but rather adds a number of very important musical qualities that no dac on its own has the capability to reproduce. These include adding immense definition to the decay and leading edge of musical notes which is not to be confused with instrument separation which a solo dave excels in and cannot be matched i feel. There is some very slight blurring which i can detect even with dave surrounding certain vocal representations on albums i know well. The mscaler eliminates this due to the way it handles transients with a one million tap interpolation filter reproducing the analogue signal to a greater than 16 bit accuracy. I expect the mscaler will also clear this up when added to dave. The mscaler is very fast and brings with it greater accuracy than what a solo dave can do. Thinking back to the mTT2 this is easily discernible with electronic dance music. Even though i strongly feel the dave leads the way with instrument separation and this is evident relaxing with piano mscaler or no mscaler. I also found the mscaler had a greater effect on hugo 2 than with TT2. With hugo2 it was a complete transformation displaying the qualities just described here with the TT2 it was slightly more subtle.

I am curious as to what you will think when you do experience the m-scaler with Dave. It does indeed improve decay a bit on some tracks but i don't find it to be quite the revelation when added to Dave as it was to the TT2 from my short experience. I think the higher up you go in Chord's range the less impact it has, as it should, because Dave already has a lot more taps than either of them.
That slight blurring you're hearing, i've heard too via usb +jitterbug out of a macbook pro. Even now via the Naim ND5 XS2 via a 1k bnc it's still there, though less. Going optical (with a decent fitting cable) out of my "Noisy" gaming pc has greater clarity and depth.
I suggest you a cheap solution like a Hifiberry with an optical out to compare and a mains filter (this is #1 on the Dave improvement list for me) and then reassessing .I find my Isotek Sirius greatly improves Dave's bass definition and highs. And it's relatively affordable.
To me, if Dave was an Iphone X, the m-scaler would make it a Xs, not an 11. Since there is already such a diminishing return i'm not sure more taps would improve it further considerably.
I do think that it might make more of a difference in speaker systems, because what i heard with my headphones was consistent across Utopias and He1000se as well.

 

[musickid]

The mscaler with one million taps can be thought of as being 10 times more accurate than dave with its 164K taps. I expect improvements across the whole spectrum of musical qualities with hms. I'm using TT2 vs mTT2 as a reference here as this is all i have to go on.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Dave continues to impress and surprise me in the most positive way 3 days into ownership. Elegant and sophisticated and oozing a sweet and naturally organic sound leaving one no longer searching for any more highs. Mojo is warm and organic but a bit thin and rather 2D sounding by comparison. Hugo 2 is beautifully detailed but a touch cold. TT2 is so smooth and natural and effortlessly powerful but a touch heavy in tone for me. The negatives described here are not really negatives as i feel these dacs have been carefully tuned for the environment they will find themselves operating in whether that be mobile a mix of mobile and desktop or purely at home for the TT2. Dave seems to extract all of these positives with no negative traits that i can feel or detect. Perfection and absolutely spot on. It feels right in every regard and it is how this audio gear makes you feel at the end of the day which is ultimately more important than any technical jargon or the like. As it has been stated it is the emotional bond or attachment to the music which separates Chord from the competition and keeps us coming back for more and paying a premium to capture that magic. Dave is the embodiment of that magic enclosed within an aluminium case that weighs 5kg and costs the best part of a new fiesta.

The mscaler doesn't change the nature of any of the chord dacs and their fine tuning but rather adds a number of very important musical qualities that no dac on its own has the capability to reproduce. These include adding immense definition to the decay and leading edge of musical notes which is not to be confused with instrument separation which a solo dave excels in and cannot be matched i feel. There is some very slight blurring which i can detect even with dave surrounding certain vocal representations on albums i know well. The mscaler eliminates this due to the way it handles transients with a one million tap interpolation filter reproducing the analogue signal to a greater than 16 bit accuracy. I expect the mscaler will also clear this up when added to dave. The mscaler is very fast and brings with it greater accuracy than what a solo dave can do. Thinking back to the mTT2 this is easily discernible with electronic dance music. Even though i strongly feel the dave leads the way with instrument separation and this is evident relaxing with piano mscaler or no mscaler. I also found the mscaler had a greater effect on hugo 2 than with TT2. With hugo2 it was a complete transformation displaying the qualities just described here with the TT2 it was slightly more subtle.

However if i had to explain why i am more than willing to add a new mscaler to my dave when finances allow it comes down to one main factor: The mscaler adds a certain musical energy or musical "sparkle" to the music which is ineffable i.e. it is hard to describe in words. This was immediately apparent when i tested the TT2 solo unattached to the mscaler vs mTT2. Passthrough on mscaler is a bit deceiving as even passthrough added its own flavour. I also found TT2 and mTT2 to occasionally sound a bit "heavy" or heavy in tone. With dave this heaviness has disappeared. I continue to enjoy adjusting to the sound of dave as i leave mTT2 behind.

I hope my honest and from the heart evaluation here helps put things into a clearer perspective and adds a bit of colour to this dull and overcast Sunday morning. Time for some Al Jarreau i think as i conclude my 2020 dave report which i promised to everyone......time to enjoy the music now i think....Cheers MK. Certainly headphone listeners paradise here with me now.



(These tracks were used to help me decide whether to go optical direct from my imac or use a 7th generation ipod touch (usb source) battery powered roon endpoint). The ipod touch usb source just won on sound quality and can also do 192khz files from Qobuz. The imac optical is capped at 96khz.

1) Al Jarreau: We're in this love together from the album Breakin' Away.
2) Alissa Weilerstein: Dvorak the album: cello concerto in B minor finale.
3) Gregory Porter: Everything you touch is Gold from the album All Rise (Deluxe).
4) Sonny Rollins: Way out West: There is no greater love.

Yes, the musicality of Chord Electronic equipment came to my ears back in 2012 with the Chordette system. Since then my hifi systems have grown to two Chord Choral speaker systems (UK system has headphone capability with the DAVE) in two different countries. That's how much I love Chord Electronics.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

I am curious as to what you will think when you do experience the m-scaler with Dave. It does indeed improve decay a bit on some tracks but i don't find it to be quite the revelation when added to Dave as it was to the TT2 from my short experience. I think the higher up you go in Chord's range the less impact it has, as it should, because Dave already has a lot more taps than either of them.
That slight blurring you're hearing, i've heard too via usb +jitterbug out of a macbook pro. Even now via the Naim ND5 XS2 via a 1k bnc it's still there, though less. Going optical (with a decent fitting cable) out of my "Noisy" gaming pc has greater clarity and depth.
I suggest you a cheap solution like a Hifiberry with an optical out to compare and a mains filter (this is #1 on the Dave improvement list for me) and then reassessing .I find my Isotek Sirius greatly improves Dave's bass definition and highs. And it's relatively affordable.
To me, if Dave was an Iphone X, the m-scaler would make it a Xs, not an 11. Since there is already such a diminishing return i'm not sure more taps would improve it further considerably.
I do think that it might make more of a difference in speaker systems, because what i heard with my headphones was consistent across Utopias and He1000se as well.

For my ears, the M Scaler with the Hugo 2 and DAVE has a bigger impact with my UK speaker system than with my Grado GS3000e's plugged direct into the Hugo 2 and DAVE (even though the GS3000e's are quite revealing). That's possibly the reason why some folk that only use the M Scaler and DAVE may not feel the full benefit from just using these components for headphone listening ! The higher up the chain you go with higher revealing systems the more the M Scaler will shine !

 

[musickid]

I feel the effect of the mscaler should be noticeable with ease even with standard headphones. The picture with the full chord rack is awesome though. The soundstage on my pm1's is noticeably wider, deeper and more atmospheric with dave. I assume that is down to the 20 vs 10 pulse arrays. Grado's are excellent i just wish the earpads were soft leather and not that friction inducing material.

 

[ray-dude]

The mscaler with one million taps can be thought of as being 10 times more accurate than dave with its 164K taps. I expect improvements across the whole spectrum of musical qualities with hms. I'm using TT2 vs mTT2 as a reference here as this is all i have to go on.

Hard to make a direct mapping to "accuracy" but each doubling of taps gives an additional bit of ideality of the filter.

IIRC, the ideality of the filter (where sinc function is the ideal) is 12.2 bits Hugo 2, 13.9 bits Dave, and 16.6 bits M scaler. That is, DAVE's filter is identical to an ideal sinc filter to 13.9 bits. Basically, mScaler is 2.7 bits more ideal filter than DAVE. DAVE is 1.7 bits more ideal filter than Hugo2.

Comparing mDAVE vs mTT2 vs mHugo2, all have the same input signal (the same 16.6 bits of ideal filter), but I find DAVE hugely superior. Signal accuracy is about more than taps, but taps goes a long way to getting the most sound quality you can get from the rest of the DAC. Put another way, a near perfect digital reconstruction would purely reveal the accuracy and quality of the rest of the DAC.

Early on, I preferred mHugo2 to vanilla DAVE (no mScaler) but it fell well short of mDAVE (w/ mScaler). Over time, I've come to prefer DAVE vs mTT2 or mHugo2. What DAVE brings to the table, Hugo2 and TT2 just can't match, no matter how many taps you feed them with. That being said, the ultimate is still lots of taps feeding DAVE. Give DAVE the best signal and best power and best mechanical environment you can, and you will be astonished how much magic has been hiding in these recordings all along.

 

[adrianm]

The mscaler with one million taps can be thought of as being 10 times more accurate than dave with its 164K taps. I expect improvements across the whole spectrum of musical qualities with hms. I'm using TT2 vs mTT2 as a reference here as this is all i have to go on.

Well after my second weekend of testing...i like it..but the stock bnc's are just horrendous. Improvements be damned, it's just fatiguing after long periods and less enjoyable i can easily live without the improvements, but not with the added fatigue. It just makes me want to listen less.
With these ( most likely snake oil cables, but i haven't heard any others ) the sound is clearer and less fatiguing, and i could definitely see myself adding the m-scaler. There are improvements across the board and a bit less RF noise, but at the cost of...well...cost :
https://www.technologyfactory.eu/en...crystaldigit-standard-diamond/a-8652-10000592
I'm probably going to audition other BNC cables if i do end up getting it but the fact that it needs an upgrade to be an upgrade (IMO) certainly leaves a bitter taste.

 

[saudio7]

Don’t buy expensive BNC cables, the key are ferrits, so just good quality BNC and around 20 or more ferrits.