I had heard a lot about Chord DAC’s and how they have a different approach to making their gear, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen their promo video laying out how they are different. Thanks for sharing!
so long as you keep in mind that it's an ad and not much else, it's fine. the voice talks of problems that weren't problems even 15 years ago, treats typical DAC chips as if they're just horrible noise and error factories, when almost all of them can do better than 100dB SNR and almost as much for THD(the latest ESS stuff talk about getting up to 140dB in SNR when implemented nominally as per the design they suggest). if almost all other DAC manufacturers stop at a given and already massive oversampling value, it's because they have all considered that there was no point pushing further unless we start developing new hearing appendixes somehow. when the voice starts listing all the subjective stuff in sound that are supposed to be improved by the ludicrously small change due to the ludicrously high oversampling, I somehow expected him to continue and tell us that is would brought back the ex wife home and regrow my hair too.
most of the statements about perception and audibility in the video are unsubstantiated and not supported by the research papers on the specific variables and amplitudes the guy talks about. it's just ultra typical modern marketing, where they make up issues by blowing somewhat correct ideas way out of proportions, ignoring the very concept of hearing thresholds, just for the sake of being able to say that they're the only ones putting that much efforts into solving them. and of course they are, everybody else has also tested those variables and found that their stuff was already well above what needed to be done to push noise below hearing levels, to make jitter a non issue, to have clocks so good that even on crazy cheap consumer implementations you're going to end the song maybe 3 or 4 samples too soon or too late, in a 3mn song that just played
8 million of those samples(if anybody can actually notice that timing error by ear, I'll stop eating my lovely Pringles for the rest of my life). as for the programmable chip, while it's presented like a great innovation to push the limits of whatever, in reality it's the breadboard of chips, the stuff you use because you haven't made your own chip yet. the chip manufacturers develop a design(probably using such programmable chip in the process at some point), then they actually go build the chip the exact way they need it to be to do the exact function they want it to do.
now don't get me wrong, marketing is everywhere, they all do that "it's not a bug, it's a feature" crap, and they all try to make the consumer fear something he has no reason to fear to create a need out of nothing. even the usually very serious ESS I mentioned as an example, can't help but talk about the improvement in clarity and soundstage from their latest chip that does up to 140dB SNR. and why not? legally you can claim anything so long as it's a vague subjective term. the only stuff they will have to say somewhat accurately because they would be sued if they lied, that's the value of some objective variable they mention. Chord is the same, I don't doubt one second that they do oversample to the ludicrous value they mention, such clear objective concepts have to be true in an ad. the rest about what's enough or not(relatively to what?) or what's clearly an improvement subjectively, they can say almost whatever they want, so of course they do.
