My point is Toslink is dated technology. It uses a very long wavelength and limits the bitrate. If Chord is serious about optical technology, they should develop their own optical connection from Scaler to DAC rather keep using BNC. Many DAC manufacturers develop their own optical connection.

How’s about conversion from optical to electrical signal at DAC end? It can potentially introduce noise during the conversion. Also the weakness of Toslink is only limited 4FS. It can’t transmit higher than 4FS.

They are a cult. Believe everything the master says.

What do you expect from tweakers when they found out the power supply of DAVE is $10 off the shelf item and the power supply of Mscaler is a few $ wall SMPS.

Really? I doubt he is an expert in power supply. The power supply of Dave is $10 off the shelf. And he says it is perfectly fine. Any modifications of Dave power supply is worse. But everyone tried other Dave power supply solutions tell him otherwise.

Will it be out by 1Q 2024? We are waiting for too long.

I hope you will use XMOS USB chip for the new choral scaler. It should not cost much to use them. Maybe you don’t believe USB chipset has any sound influences . But many people found XMOS is the best USB sounding chipset and Amanero is the worst sounding.

Writer of HQP thinks DSD is the best format for digital. He also puts out a lot of technical arguments to support his claim. I think the reason that you feel banging your head against a brick wall is that these arguments are very technical. It is extremely difficult for normal people to decide...

My question is that whether the new Ultima DAC requires this new scaler to have the best sound quality? Or the new Ultima DAC also has a companion Ultima scaler?

Please use USB chip XMOS for the Ultima DAC.

Is the voltage to Dave should be 5 15V -15 V? I remember Sean told me this is the voltage he used.

In what way is nonsense?

I agree with you. I always believe that one can implement pretty much the same filter in PC. There are now a few reliable sources saying the new HQPlayer poly-sinc-long-lp filter is equal to Mscaler. PC noises are easily addressed using a combination of HQPlayer NAA network client and Dan’s...

Hi @ray-dude, From ER thread in AS forum, I notice that that you feed NUC i7 directly to Dave. It seems that you bypass Mscaler and use HQPlayer for upsampling. Can you give your comments how HQPlayer’s upsampling compare to Mscaler. So far, we only have Dan’s experience. Would to have more...

I would still use battery to power HMS to completely break the ground. Using Chord PSU, I get the tingling feelings when I touch HMS. Although the plug is two prongs, in where I live, neutral is connected to ground. HMS is still connected to earth ground. Another way is to connect Chord PSU to...

Great write up. I strongly believe Dan is right on RF stuff. I ordered a 3m and 5m optical cable from him. I move all the upstream equipments to another room. So DAVE and upstream are physically separated by more than 4m and are in different electrical circuits. With this arrangement, the sound...

I second OptoDX. They are great in my system. Very happy with it.

I second that. OptoDX is a great product. It is much better than ferrite BNC cables. OptoDX definitely reduces the hardness I experience from HMS-Dave. Before one accuses me that it is my system problem and not from HMS-Dave. I also have another DAC and turntable. I don’t experience any hardness...

According to dmance, the mechanism of detecting dual rate is much more robust with TT2 than Dave. So I would try a new set of BNC cables.

There is one such box. Go to Dan’s website for more info and the white paper.

Dump the dual coaxial links and change to optical. Coaxial is RF hotbed.

Maybe. But I know that my DAVE is quite sensitive to electrical noise. I once had a noisy electrical equipment on the same circuit as DAVE. Turning on and off that equipment will cause DAVE to go haywire which the other equipments on the same circuit are not affected.

Are you prepared to use figure 8 power cable? Or better send back to Chord to examine.

If the circuit is floating, there can’t be any ground hum. However, some Hi-Fi equipment manufacturers require ground to function. But I know that some Japanese audiophiles float their Hi-Fi circuit to improve sound.

Ok. Can you try to disconnect the earth wire of the electrical plug of DAVE?