I’d give it a few days of continuous use and for your system (and possibly brain) to adjust. My experience with the almost all components, including digital and analogue cables (and the iSilencer) is that it can take time for burn-in and/or the system to settle down, possibly something to do...

I’ve been trying the new angled pads with the Elite, out of a Chord DAVE, with mixed impressions. The soundstage is set slightly further back, there’s a bit more detail and probably a more even frequency response, but everything seems a little grey. With the hybrid pads colours are more vibrant...

Meze Elite - a winning combination.

The use of compression doesn’t surprise me, nor the issues that can arise when it’s not applied. Many highly regarded recordings use compression of some kind, though it might depend on the overall sound levels and dynamic range. For example: I understand the ECM label almost always uses mild...

I’d say 150 to 200 hours.

You may be right, as reflected in the fact that there doesn’t seem to be much overlap between the figures Rob emphasises and other figures cited. Although there’s an element of subjectivity and taste involved, what I find more difficult to understand is the claim that one can’t hear a...

Most if not all of the things you mention may be true but I still think that, with the possible exception of point 4), it misses something. It’s an argument ad hominem, using motive to judge the accuracy of the conclusion. For me, the substantive question is what measurements matter and why they...

Perhaps adding fuel to the fire, but there is Einstein’s famous dictum that not everything that can be measured is important and not everything that’s important can be measured. One of the frustrating things about these debates is that there is no consensus on what measurements matter, how they...

Rather than have the truth out there it would be nice to have it in here!

I can’t remember seeing that in the manual but as a headphone user, if correct, that’s an important - indeed critical - piece of nformation.

Smooth, Dynamic, etc in the Filter mode is a little different from upsampling on an Auralic device. The Filters are relatively benign and Smooth is a popular option. I think the point that’s been made is that it might be best to have the quite separate upsampling option off and leave that to the...

My own experience with upsampling prior to the DAVE, albeit brief, is that although certain tonal characteristics can be affected, you tend to lose something in transparency.

Boulder by name and boulder by nature?

Yes, that would be my recommendation: keep the digital signal in its native format and let the DAVE handle upsampling.

My understanding is that Dave upsamples through all its inputs, other than possibly the dual BNC inputs from an mscaler, which does the upsampling.

Yes, the only way from the Phoenix USB reclocker.

I have an Aries G2.1 as a Roon endpoint, feeding an Innuos Phoenix USB reclocker, going into the Dave. Given that Dave’s onboard upsampling is likely to be superior I don’t engage any upsampling in either Roon or on the G2.1 - vanilla source all the way to the Dave. To my ears that results in...

I’m reminded of the story of Dr Johnson observing two fishwives arguing from houses on opposite sides of the street. “They will never agree,” he observed, “as they are arguing from different premises.” Probabaly best to leave it there.

Very impressive. Aside from the improved casework it’s astonishing the lengths people will go to in order to remove the RF issue, one which Rob Watts regards as trivial. For others, apaprently not!

I don’t know if they still qualify as “new”, but I have outstanding results with the Meze Elite. Well recorded instruments, such as those on the Tord Gustafson album (and most ECM releases) allow you to revel in their palpability.

A review of the Elite is in this month’s Stereophile. It concludes, “The Meze Elite is an elite [groan] headphone, comparable to the best at any price. Class A+.”

Audio Research do provide dampers, two for each of the smaller tubes, with their products. I suppose my point was that although tubes are known to be microphonic (something exploited by certain guitarists) my understanding was that the cause of the vibrations is external sound waves, such as...

Well the Chord Dave you can see has a built-in headphone amp, which is also very good, but the McIntosh MHA200 does add/reveal something extra, particularly with the NOS Cryo treated, matched pair of Mullard CV4024 tubes with which I replaced the stock tubes.

This tube headphone amp works well:

I appreciate all of that, but my original question remains: when listening on headphones what is the source of the microphonic vibrations?