[romaz]

Now wait just a dog gone minute! Why didn't I think of that, it actually makes sense. Even Rob says optical equals no noise. So if that's the case, and it's been well known for a while that Blu2 outputs ton of noise, then why didn't it come with optical out in the first place?

I purchased this particular optical HDMI cable last year for my home theater projector and I could swear my black levels improved: http://www.celeritytek.com/documents/ct_dfo-hdmi_specifications.pdf

I discussed optical HDMI with Rob late last year as a possible connection medium between M-scaler and DAVE. Based on HDMI 2.0's bandwidth spec of 18Gbps, it seemed to me this could easily handle M-scaler's bandwidth and here was his response:

"Optical HDMI? That's interesting, I was not aware of that. 18GBPs would be enough for stereo 2048FS at 32 bits! Hmm, just looked at it - very interesting... £124, 10 Gbs. I could use this and create my own transmission protocol. My long term plan is to use optical, if I can't kill the issue with ferrite clamps on the BNC."

Obviously, this would only be applicable for a future M-scaler and DAC since neither Blu2 nor DAVE can be retrofitted with such a connection.

Having said that, Rob and I had a listening session a few months back and using a pair of 2m BNC cables between Blu2 and DAVE and a total of 64 ferrites (2.5GHz), we progressively went from 0 > 8 > 16 > 32 ferrites per cable. Using Rob's reference depth track, it was easy to hear improvement in depth as we went from 0-8 ferrites per cable and again from 8 to 16 ferrites per cable but to my ears, the latter yielded less of an improvement suggesting diminishing return. As we went from 16 to 32 ferrites per cable, I'm not sure I could hear any further improvement at all, certainly not enough to feel like I needed to place 32 ferrites on each of my BNC cables. Practically speaking, are 16 ferrites per cable the equivalent of optical? Maybe.

 

[romaz]

From what I've read, the FPGA in Blu2 generates a lot of noise which you have to fix with ferrites. Not saying there is no other source, I mean, I have P5 Power supply to reduce mains noise problems, but Blu2 is a source of noise as well.

I completely agree. I live in a small rural town (population of just over 2,000 people). Immediately in front of my house is my utility company's large transformer and this transformer provides me with very effective isolation. Having tested both a P5 and P10 in my home, I found no improvement in my noise floor at all with either unit and in my case, these AC regenerators actually caused harm. These devices are thought to be low impedance devices but I don't think they are as low impedance as people think. Even with low power source gear such as my DAVE, I found the P5 to stunt dynamics compared against the P10. If you find the need to purchase an AC regenerator, definitely go for the P10 over the P5 if you can afford it. As good as the P10 is, compared against my dedicated 20A line using 10g Romex, even the P10 resulted in stunted dynamics. Perhaps the latest P20 can match it but at $10k, you're better off installing a dedicated 20A line (which cost me under $400).

I recently upgraded the wire in my walls to a special 6g wire designed by Jim Weil of Sound Application. This wire can handle 55A continuous and >200A in peaks and while this is overkill for any audio component, in my setup, the improvement has been very easy to hear even with my DAVE which barely consumes 20 watts. This is not your ordinary 6g Romex but at only $10 per foot, this was not an expensive upgrade (about $1,200). Compared against the 14g wire that was previously in my home theater room, measured impedance is cut by 1/3 and the improvement in dynamics is dramatic.

Where good line conditioning can make a big difference is with the noise that your components generate and in my situation, I believe the noise generated by my components is quite a bit greater than any noise that comes from the outside. Again, I make this claim based on the fact that I have heard no improvement with AC regenerators but also with isolation transformers or balanced power supplies like the EquiTech Son of Q. I don't have time to follow any thread faithfully these days although I came across this recent post by @Triode User:

"The myth about switched power supplies being noisy is just that, a myth.

Sure, cheap badly designed wallwart ones can give out noise but they are a world away from the supplies in Dave and Blu2. "

This has not been my observation at all. There have been posts on other forums by DAVE users that they have perceived their DAVE to inject RF noise into the line that has adversely impacted their other components. Having tested this myself, I have found this to be very true for both Blu2 and DAVE and their noisy switching power supplies. While both Blu2 and DAVE have very high PSRR (in the range of about 130dB according to Rob), this doesn't mean they are completely immune to noise and you certainly account account for the PSRR of your other components in your chain.

During Rob's visit to my house last week, I had in place the finest RF mains conditioner that I had heard in my listening room to date and it well surpassed the performance of my Shunyata Denali as well as a Shunyata Triton V3 that I had on loan. It was a unit designed by Jim Weil of Sound Application and I felt so confident of its abilities that for Rob's visit, I plugged both Blu2 and DAVE into it along with my Zenith SE, Paul Hynes SR7 and Pass Labs X350.8 amp. During one of our listening sessions, Jim Weil dropped by because he wanted me to hear his latest RF mains conditioner that he felt was quite a bit better than the unit I had in place. With this new unit installed, after just a few seconds of listening, even Rob commented that the difference he heard was "not subtle." To my ears, image focus, sound stage, and transients improved considerably over Jim's other unit which I felt was already exceptional in its own right.

A few hours later, Rob wanted to test the specific impact of this RF mains conditioner on both DAVE and a prototype that he brought along (that was also powered by a switching PSU). To our collective surprise, we found that our overall system's SQ improved when both DAVE and Rob's prototype were powered separate from the other components (the Zenith SE, SR7 and Pass Labs amp). As good as this RF mains conditioner is, SQ is better with either DAVE or Rob's prototype isolated from the other components. While neither Rob, Jay nor myself agreed on everything we heard during our listening sessions, we were all in agreement here and it was Rob's assessment that DAVE's PSU was likely negatively impacting my other gear.

 

[romaz]

I am totally lost why an external clock has ANY relevance at all considering that both Blu2 and DAVE re-clock internally anyway? The whole point is to remove the need for external clock accuracy through internal clocking and jitter elimination.

You are misunderstanding the significance of a clock in a USB server. As DAVE utilizes an asynchronous USB transfer protocol, ultimately it is DAVE's clock that provides timing to the incoming USB stream, not the server. Referring back to John Swenson's post on CA, the function of a clock in a USB music server or USB endpoints like the ultraRendu, sMS-200ultra or tX-USBultra is not to time the signal (which is what a word clock is responsible for) but for "processing" the signal. How I interpret this is these clocks are necessary for the timely "functioning" of these components and so a good clock allows a component to function better. I'll use my production line analogy which I have used on CA. When a production line operates smoothly and in a timely manner, less mistakes are made and less time and energy are wasted to correct any mistakes. This would be similar to how Audiophile Optimizer improves SQ, by removing unnecessary background processes, you get fewer software errors and fewer latencies which also translates to less current draw and less noise being generated into the ground plane. Depending on how cleanly powered a clock is, clocks themselves have the potential to inject noise into the signal path. As there is a clock present at every buffered stage of a music server, potentially, some servers have more than half a dozen noisy clocks in the signal path and so it has been my observation (along with the observation of many) that the noise that these clocks generate somehow reach the DAC and that replacement of these clocks with cleanly powered clocks can result in improved SQ, even with BluDAVE. I know the skeptics among us are rolling their eyes at this point but those of us who have heard the impact of a low noise clock in a USB server knows what I'm talking about.

 

[romaz]

...lead me to wonder what Rob’s impressions were of his listening sessions with Romaz and Jay(of audiobacon.net).

I'm not Rob but I will provide my own account of my time with both Rob and Jay. Life is extremely busy for me right now but having received numerous PMs asking me about my time with these gentlemen, I felt it best to take this time to provide a response. As I previously posted, Rob brought along some of his prototypes and so I will not be discussing those.

First of all, it was my pleasure and privilege to have hosted both Rob and Jay at my home for nearly 5 days last week. It was the first time for either gentleman to visit me at my home in northern California and the three of us got along splendidly. I am grateful for the stimulating conversation about anything and everything. Having enjoyed on repeated occasions genuine English tea made for me by Rob himself, I now get it why you English enjoy your tea. Rob must have consumed at least a dozen cups per day! By the end of his stay, Rob felt that he could fit in well living in the U.S. as he found himself already speaking like an American. Like, way cool, Rob!

Our listening sessions were often more mundane than they were enjoyable as they involved the back and forth A/Bing of the same tracks over and over again. To set our ears to a proper reference, we attended a performance by our local symphony on Friday night. Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Beethoven I was well acquainted with but I was introduced that night to a very enjoyable piece from a contemporary composer I had never heard of before named Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer that happened to be one of Rob's favorites. While at home, having browsed through Rob's music collection on his 5TB drive, I can attest to the impressive vastness of his collection. Few engineers that I know are also genuine music lovers and Rob is definitely one of them. To break the monotony of our listening sessions, on Sunday we took off to Lake Tahoe where we enjoyed the 5 feet of fresh powder that had fallen the previous 2 days. With a small group, we spent a couple of hours on a snowmobile where we enjoyed beautiful views of the lake. Rob told me it was his first time on a snowmobile although you wouldn't have thought it. One thing I now know, Rob likes to go fast, much faster than Jay.

As for our impressions, I will begin with this. Having had friends over on numerous occasions for both blinded and unblinded listening sessions over the years, it came as no surprise that Rob, Jay and I have different ears, different sensitivities, different priorities and different preferences. While we each claim "live music" as our reference, we each differed in our interpretation of what live music should sound like. This should come as no surprise. At an orchestral performance, Rob told me he prefers to sit in the front row or even on the stage amongst the performers. While I enjoy being close to the performers, I prefer a slightly more "mid-hall" perspective as I like to glean the acoustics of a good venue. As this was Jay's first time attending a classical concert, it was not clear to me if he had a preference. I believe that most of the live concerts he attends are heavily amplified. Regardless, if I have accurately pegged these gentlemen, during our listening sessions, Rob's predominant focus was on depth and the avoidance of anything that was bright which he equated to RF noise. Jay had a proclivity toward timbre and tone while I was very sensitive to air and space and the layering of detail.

As we compared USB cables, during one of our blind listening sessions, Jim Weil, creator of the RF mains conditioner we were using in my system came by and he participated briefly. We compared Rob's cheap USB cable that incorporated 2 built-in ferrites against Jay's personal reference -- the Danacable TruStream USB, my personal reference -- the Clarity Cables Natural USB, and a new cable Jay had received for review, the TotalDac USB Gigafilter. Because the price of cables is offensive to some on this thread, I will not list what these cables cost. To my ears, the differences amongst these cables were not subtle. The TotalDac had the most laid back presentation. It had a nice smooth romantic tone but at the expense of detail. This would help offset a bright or harsh system nicely but in my setup, I ranked it 3rd out of the 4 cables. The Danacables TruStream had slightly less warmth then the TotalDac, was a bit more incisive and portrayed better detail resolution. It had more air than the TotalDac and I ranked this cable 2nd best. It was no surprise that I found my Clarity Cables Natural USB to be my favorite USB cable and it is a cable I believe I could consistently pick out in a blind test. Having compared this USB cable against several dozen USB cables over the past couple of years, I have found that it speaks to me better than any USB cable I have yet heard. It presents the most air and space while also layering detail better than any cable I have compared it to and yet, despite it's detail resolution, I find no harshness at all with this cable. To my ears, it was also the most neutral sounding of all the cables. Despite Jay preferring the Danacable in his system, in my system, he also found the Clarity Cables Natural USB to sound the best. Jim Weil agreed with this sentiment as well. It was the collective opinion of these three (Jay, Jim, and myself) that Rob's cheap USB cable came in last place. Speaking only for myself, Rob's cheap USB cable sounded dull and flat and the least engaging of the lot. Rob's opinion was different from the group. He felt his cheap USB cable sounded best and "dull" is how things can sound in the absence of RF noise. He described my Clarity Cables Natural USB cable as an "RF noise generator" and he thought it sounded the worst of the lot.

As we compared BNC cables, we weren't as far apart on our opinions as we were with USB cables. We all felt the naked (no ferrites) 2m cheap BNC cable sounded better than the shorter (0.5m) naked cheap BNC cable. We also felt that the 2m BNC cable sounded better with ferrites than without. It was with the 0.5m Habst cable where we disagreed. Both Jay and I preferred the Habst as we felt it provided more air, better timbre, and better detail resolution. Rob did not like this cable because he felt it sounded bright and once again labeled it an "RF noise generator." What is interesting is I do not find this cable to sound bright at all and so this is one of those instances where we disagree on what we consider to sound bright. I do find this cable to have considerably greater "presence" than the cheap BNC cable which is very much to my liking. "Bright" invariably leads to fatigue for me and yet fatigue has never been an issue for me with the Habst cable.

As an aside, without getting into details for confidentiality reasons, with one of Rob's prototypes, ferrites were not a benefit at all (in fact, ferrites made it sound worse) and while this was a surprising finding, we were unanimous on this opinion. In fact, there were several instances when were were surprised by what we heard. As Rob so wisely put it, "assume nothing." There are audiophiles on this thread that assume too much and have already made up their minds about how something will sound based on preconceived notions. You have to listen.

As we compared the Innuos Zenith SE against Rob's laptop running on batteries, both Jay and I preferred the Zenith SE to his laptop by a fairly wide margin. Jay felt it had more accurate tone and timbre while I felt the Zenith SE had better detail resolution, layering of detail, air and tonal weight. Rob felt his laptop portrayed greater depth and both Jay and I agreed although personally, I struggled at first to hear this depth because all I could hear was the missing detail. Once again, Rob labeled the Zenith SE an "RF noise generator."

To make things even more interesting, because Rob's personal Blu2 has an optical input, we were able to compare his laptop which has an optical output against my modified Oppo 205 which also has an optical output. Since both of these units output optical via Toslink, neither should be passing any RF to Rob's Blu2 but once again, in this comparison, Rob believed his Windows laptop running on batteries sounded better. Because my Oppo unit was being fed by the Zenith SE, it was Rob's opinion that the noise being generated by the Zenith SE was spilling into the mains line and polluting both Blu2 and DAVE. It was his opinion that the best server would have to be a server that ran on batteries, an opinion he has held for a long time now. If this is true, then clearly DAVE is not that immune to noise and music sources, cables and line conditioners can make a difference and this has been an opinion I have held for a long time. This doesn't take away from the high-level defenses implemented into the DAVE. It just means that DAVE isn't completely impervious.

While it might seem that Rob was often at odds with Jay and myself on what we heard and what we preferred, there were also many times when we agreed on what we heard. As much as I love the tonal qualities of Pass Labs' amplifiers, I now look at this amp as a temporary placeholder for what is to come from Rob and Chord and I will leave it at that. Also, without any equivocation, I can say that DAVE is a large gap more transparent and resolving than Hugo2 and the three of us are in agreement with this. While I have a preference for BluHugo2 over DAVE by itself, BluDAVE is just in a different league and this gap was no more apparent then when we had BluDAVE directly driving my Omega Alnicos. It was Jay's opinion that this combo sounded better than BluDAVE driving my Martin Logans via my Pass Labs and I would have to agree. While I have grown to really appreciate what the Martin Logan Renaissance 15As can do with large orchestral music, I still find more personal engagement with my BluDAVE directly driving speakers. I believe Rob was taken by the Omega Alnicos enough to want to purchase a pair for himself.

So what is my take away from all of this? First, there is no one in this industry that I respect more than Rob. It is his ears that created what I consider to be the finest DAC setup (Blu2 + DAVE) my ears have ever heard and so when Rob speaks, it would be foolish not to listen. At the same time, it is my ears and my sensitivities that I have to live with and so should I now subject myself to a sound that is not my preference? Over the years, Rob has alluded to some audiophiles preferring the sound of distortion (even if it is even-order harmonic distortion) and generally, he has reserved this statement for those who like R2R DACs. What is interesting is that I used to own a very good R2R DAC, the TotalDac d1-monobloc, and when I first heard the DAVE, my initial impressions were that DAVE was "brighter" than my TotalDac although I attributed this brightness to DAVE's superior detail resolution coming forward. It is this more illuminated detail resolution that caused me to switch to the DAVE and yet it is now this same quality that I'm hearing with cables and sources that I'm being told represents RF noise. Confusing? Yes, however, ultimately, I will always revert back to my tried and true mantra: "If it sounds better, it is better." How does it make sense to do it any other way? Perhaps, over time, my definition of "better" will change and I will learn to hear things as Rob hears them.

Another lesson that this exercise has reinforced for me is that don't assume that just because Rob likes something or that I like something or Jay likes something, that you'll like it, too. I'm sure many will read this post and wonder who's right and who's wrong? Listen for yourself and make up your own mind.

Finally, I'll close with this. With the past few PMs that Malc and I have exchanged, he has repeatedly asked me when I was going to retire from posting on forums as I indicated late last year that my retirement was imminent. I'm beginning to get the feeling that Malc believes I should retire now and I think he's right. I think the time has come and so this post will signal the beginning of the end for me here on this thread and on Head-Fi. Life has simply become too busy. I assume this post will generate questions and I will stick around to answer a few of those and bid my farewell. It's been my pleasure interacting with many of you. I feel I have made some genuine friends.

All the best,
Roy

 

[adyc]

Big thanks for your detail report. It is a big loss if you are not going to post here anymore. Your “retirement “ also mean you are not going to post in CA or other audio forums?

 

[austinpop]

Hi Roy,

I notice you didn’t mention clocks in your description of the listening tests. You and I have gone quite far down that path, and have heard the results. As I recall from our conversation with Rob at RMAF, he was skeptical, but willing to listen.

Your system is probably one of the best setups with clock optimizations. Based on your listening sessions, were you able to demonstrate to him the benefit of better system clocks? Is he convinced?

 

[Malcyg]

I'm not Rob but I will provide my own account of my time with both Rob and Jay. Life is extremely busy for me right now but having received numerous PMs asking me about my time with these gentleman, I felt it best to take this time to provide a response. As I previously posted, Rob brought along some of his prototypes and so I will not be discussing those.

First of all, it was my pleasure and privilege to have hosted both Rob and Jay at my home for nearly 5 days last week. It was the first time for either gentleman to visit me at my home in northern California and the three of us got along splendidly. I am grateful for the stimulating conversation about anything and everything. Having enjoyed on repeated occasions genuine English tea made for me by Rob himself, I now get it why you English enjoy your tea. Rob must have consumed at least a dozen cups per day! By the end of his stay, Rob felt that he could fit in well living in the U.S. as he found himself already speaking like an American. Like, way cool, Rob!

Our listening sessions were often more mundane than they were enjoyable as they involved the back and forth A/Bing of the same tracks over and over again. To set our ears to a proper reference, we attended a performance by our local symphony on Friday night. Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Beethoven I was well acquainted with but I was introduced that night to a very enjoyable piece from a contemporary composer I had never heard of before named Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer that happened to be one of Rob's favorites. While at home, having browsed through Rob's music collection on his 5TB drive, I can attest to the impressive vastness of his collection. Few engineers that I know are also genuine music lovers and Rob is definitely one of them. To break the monotony of our listening sessions, on Sunday we took off to Lake Tahoe where we enjoyed the 5 feet of fresh powder that had fallen the previous 2 days. With a small group, we spent a couple of hours on a snowmobile where we enjoyed beautiful views of the lake. Rob told me it was his first time on a snowmobile although you wouldn't have thought it. One thing I now know, Rob likes to go fast, much faster than Jay.

As for our impressions, I will begin with this. Having had friends over on numerous occasions for both blinded and unblinded listening sessions over the years, it came as no surprise that Rob, Jay and I have different ears, different sensitivities, different priorities and different preferences. While we each claim "live music" as our reference, we each differed in our interpretation of what live music should sound like. This should come as no surprise. At an orchestral performance, Rob told me he prefers to sit in the front row or even on the stage amongst the performers. While I enjoy being close to the performers, I prefer a slightly more "mid-hall" perspective as I like to glean the acoustics of a good venue. As this was Jay's first time attending a classical concert, it was not clear to me if he had a preference. I believe that most of the live concerts he attends are heavily amplified. Regardless, if I have accurately pegged these gentleman, during our listening sessions, Rob's predominant focus was on depth and the avoidance of anything that was bright which he equated to RF noise. Jay had a proclivity toward timbre and tone while I was very sensitive to air and space and the layering of detail.

As we compared USB cables, during one of our blind listening sessions, Jim Weil, creator of the RF mains conditioner we were using in my system came by and he participated briefly. We compared Rob's cheap USB cable that incorporated 2 built-in ferrites against Jay's personal reference, the Danacable TruStream USB, my personal reference, the Clarity Cables Natural USB, and a new cable Jay had received for review, the TotalDac USB Gigafilter. Because the price of cables is offensive to some on this thread, I will not list what these cables cost. To my ears, the differences amongst these cables were not subtle. The TotalDac had the most laid back presentation. It had a nice smooth romantic tone but at the expense of detail. This would help offset a bright or harsh system nicely but in my setup, I ranked it 3rd out of the 4 cables. The Danacables Trustream had slightly less warmth then the TotalDac, was a bit more incisive and portrayed better detail resolution. It had more air than the TotalDac and I ranked this cable 2nd best. It's no surprise that I found my Clarity Cables Natural USB to be my favorite USB cable and it is a cable I believe I could consistently pick out in a blind test. Having compared this USB cable against several dozen USB cables over the past couple of years, I have found that it speaks to me better than any USB cable I have yet heard. It presents the most air and space while also layering detail better than any cable I have compared it to and yet, despite it's detail resolution, I find no harshness at all with this cable. It was also the most neutral sounding of all the cables to my ears. Despite Jay preferring the Danacable in his system, in my system, he also found the Clarity Cables Natural USB to sound the best. Jim Weil agreed with this sentiment also. It was the collective opinion of these three (Jay, Jim, and myself) that Rob's cheap USB cable came in last place. Speaking only for myself, Rob's cheap USB cable sounded dull and flat and the least engaging of the lot. Rob's opinion was different from the group. He felt his cheap USB cable sounded best to his ears and "dull" is how things can sound in the absence of RF noise. He described my Clarity Cables Natural USB cable as an "RF noise generator" and he thought it sounded the worst of the lot.

As we compared BNC cables, we weren't as far apart on our opinions as we were with USB cable. We all felt the naked (no ferrites) 2m cheap BNC cable sounded better than the shorter (0.5m) naked cheap BNC cable. We also collectively felt that the 2m BNC cable sounded better with ferrites than without. It was with the 0.5m Habst cable that we disagreed. Both Jay and I preferred the Habst as we felt it provided more air, better timbre, and better detail resolution. Rob did not like this cable because he felt it sounded bright and once again labeled it an "RF noise generator." What is interesting is I do not find this cable to be bright at all and so this is one of those instances where we disagree on what we consider to sound bright. I do find this cable to have considerably greater "presence" than the cheap BNC cable which is very much to my liking. "Bright" invariably leads to fatigue for me and yet fatigue has never been an issue for me with the Habst cable.

As an aside, without getting into details for confidentiality reasons, with one of Rob's prototypes, ferrites were not a benefit at all and while this was a surprising finding, we were unanimous on this opinion. In fact, there were several instances when were were surprised by what we heard. As Rob so wisely put it, "assume nothing." There are audiophiles on this thread that assume too much and have already made up their minds about how something will sound based on preconceived notions. You have to listen.

As we compared the Innuos Zenith SE against Rob's laptop running on batteries, both Jay and I preferred the Zenith SE to his laptop by a fairly wide margin. Jay felt it had more accurate tone and timbre while I felt the Zenith SE had better detail resolution, layering of detail, air and tonal weight. Rob felt his laptop portrayed greater depth and both Jay and I agreed although personally, I struggled at first to hear this depth because all I could hear was the missing detail. Once again, Rob labeled the Zenith SE an "RF noise generator."

To make things even more interesting, because Rob's personal Blu2 has an optical input, we were able to compare his laptop which has an optical output against my modified Oppo 205 which also has an optical output. Since both of these units output optical via Toslink, neither should be passing any RF to Rob's Blu2 but once again, in this comparison, Rob believed his Windows laptop running on batteries sounded better. Because my Oppo unit was being fed by the Zenith SE, it was Rob's opinion that the noise being generated by the Zenith SE was spilling into the mains line and polluting both Blu2 and DAVE. It was his opinion that the best server would have to be a server that ran on batteries, an opinion he has held for a long time now. If this is true, then clearly DAVE is not that immune to noise and music sources, cables and line conditioners do make a difference and this has been an opinion I have held for a long time as well. This doesn't take away from the high-level defenses implemented into the DAVE. It just means that DAVE isn't completely impervious.

While it might seem that Rob was often at odds with Jay and myself on what we heard and what we preferred, there were also many times when we agreed on what we heard. As much as I love the tonal qualities of Pass Labs' amplifiers, I now look at this amp as a temporary placeholder for what is to come from Rob and Chord and I will leave it at that. Also, without any equivocation, I can say that DAVE is a large gap more transparent and resolving than Hugo2 and the three of us are in agreement with this. While I have a preference for BluHugo2 over DAVE by itself, BluDAVE is just in a different league and this gap was no more apparent then when we had BluDAVE directly driving my Omega Alnicos. It was Jay's opinion that this combo sounded better than BluDAVE driving my Martin Logans via my Pass Labs and I would have to agree. While I have grown to really appreciate what the Martin Logan Renaissance 15As can do with large orchestral music, I still find more personal engagement with my BluDAVE directly driving speakers. I believe Rob was taken by the Omega Alnicos enough to want to purchase a pair for himself.

So what is my take away from all of this? First, there are few people in this industry that I respect more than Rob. It is his ears that created what I consider to be the finest DAC setup (Blu2 + DAVE) my ears have ever heard and so when Rob speaks, it would be foolish not to listen. At the same time, it is my ears and my sensitivities that I have to live with and so should I now subject myself to a sound that is not my preference? Over the years, Rob has alluded to some audiophiles preferring the sound of distortion (even if it is even-order harmonic distortion) and generally, he has reserved this statement for those who like R2R DACs. What is interesting is that I used to own a very good R2R DAC, the TotalDac d1-monobloc, and when I first heard the DAVE, my initial impressions were that DAVE was "brighter" than my TotalDac although I attributed this brightness to DAVE's superior detail resolution coming forward. It is this more illuminated detail resolution that caused me to switch to the DAVE and yet it is now this same quality that I'm hearing with cables and sources that I'm being told represents RF noise. Confusing? Yes, however, ultimately, I will always revert back to my tried and true mantra: "If it sounds better, it is better." How does it make sense to do it any other way? Perhaps, over time, my definition of "better" will change and I will learn to hear things as Rob hears them.

Another lesson that this exercise has reinforced for me is that don't assume that just because Rob likes something or that I like something or Jay likes something, that you'll like it, too. I'm sure many will read this post and wonder who's right and who's wrong? Listen for yourself and make up your own mind.

Finally, I'll close with this. With the past few PMs that Malc and I have exchanged, he has repeatedly asked me when I was going to retire from posting on forums as I indicated late last year that my retirement was imminent. I'm beginning to get the feeling that Malc believes I should retire now and I think he's right. I think the time has come and so this post will signal the beginning of the end for me here on this thread and on Head-Fi. Life has simply become too busy. I assume this post will generate questions and I will stick around to answer a few of those and bid my farewell. It's been my pleasure interacting with many of you. I feel I have made some genuine friends.

All the best,
Roy

Excellent! And I can visualise Rob bombing along on his snowmobile.

And then you close by blaming me for your retirement, as if I wasn’t unpopular enough!

Good luck with it all Roy, where you get the stamina from for all your investigative work, travel, forum postings and career, I’ll never know. But you have been generous in sharing your findings both publicly and by PM and I’m sure that many have benefitted from that.

 

[flyte3333]

My long term plan is to use optical, if I can't kill the issue with ferrite clamps on the BNC."

Obviously, this would only be applicable for a future M-scaler and DAC since neither Blu2 nor DAVE can be retrofitted with such a connection.

I knew Rob was thousands of steps ahead of my dreams

it was Rob's opinion that the noise being generated by the Zenith SE was spilling into the mains line and polluting both Blu2 and DAVE. It was his opinion that the best server would have to be a server that ran on

One reason I THINK a single mode or multi mode fiber connection between future M-Scaler & DAC (like Playback Designs have with their PLink connection) is it means both server AND M-Scaler CAN be far away from the listening room (if one wanted to).

This is something a BNC connection, even with ferrites that kill all RF MAY not solve as the maximum recommended length of BNC cables MAY mean the M-Scaler needs to be close to DAC. Possibly

To make things even more interesting, because Rob's personal Blu2 has an optical input

Not fair at all Rob! It may be a sign of my dream that future M-Scalers will have all the inputs that people use too. So every input gets the M-Scaler goodness. Exciting times ahead.

And thanks for sharing all of this romaz. A great read indeed.

 

[STR-1]

All the best, Roy. Thanks for all your supremely generous contributions to this and other threads/forums, and for the time you took to offer me advice and recommendations on my slightly chaotic journey towards building a decent music system. Hopefully, we’ll see you back on head-fi in a year or two with much to say about the next generation of world-leading dacs, m-scalers etc.

 

[TheAttorney]

Having said that, Rob and I had a listening session a few months back and using a pair of 2m BNC cables between Blu2 and DAVE and a total of 64 ferrites (2.5GHz), we progressively went from 0 > 8 > 16 > 32 ferrites per cable.

And do you still think that your Habst BNC cables sound better than any number of ferrites on the standard cable?

EDIT: I see that you've already answered this. Question withdrawn.

 

[HeeBroG]

"Having said that, Rob and I had a listening session a few months back and using a pair of 2m BNC cables between Blu2 and DAVE and a total of 64 ferrites (2.5GHz), we progressively went from 0 > 8 > 16 > 32 ferrites per cable. Using Rob's reference depth track, it was easy to hear improvement in depth as we went from 0-8 ferrites per cable and again from 8 to 16 ferrites per cable but to my ears, the latter yielded less of an improvement suggesting diminishing return. As we went from 16 to 32 ferrites per cable, I'm not sure I could hear any further improvement at all, certainly not enough to feel like I needed to place 32 ferrites on each of my BNC cables. Practically speaking, are 16 ferrites per cable the equivalent of optical? Maybe."

Hi Roy,
Can you share what the reference depth track is?

 

[SuperBurrito]

Roy, thanks so much for your efforts! Very informative.

 

[JaZZ]

It's a shame that you're leaving, Roy, but I do understand you – having semi-retired myself, so to speak.

Excellent and fascinating last post! (My only complaint is that it is a hyperlink.)

 

[bacon333]

"Having said that, Rob and I had a listening session a few months back and using a pair of 2m BNC cables between Blu2 and DAVE and a total of 64 ferrites (2.5GHz), we progressively went from 0 > 8 > 16 > 32 ferrites per cable. Using Rob's reference depth track, it was easy to hear improvement in depth as we went from 0-8 ferrites per cable and again from 8 to 16 ferrites per cable but to my ears, the latter yielded less of an improvement suggesting diminishing return. As we went from 16 to 32 ferrites per cable, I'm not sure I could hear any further improvement at all, certainly not enough to feel like I needed to place 32 ferrites on each of my BNC cables. Practically speaking, are 16 ferrites per cable the equivalent of optical? Maybe."

Hi Roy,
Can you share what the reference depth track is?

 

[bacon333]

For the few BluDAVE owners with the Innuous Zenith SE server, dropouts may be caused by the implementation of Roon for Linux OS. From what I'm gathering, it seems like ultraRendu and microRendu owners don't have this issue (could be wrong).

I've found that as long as files/streams from Roon are a multiple of 48 kHz, it'll play fine. So if you have an 88.1 kHz file, upsampling to 96 kHz will prevent dropouts. For 44.1 kHz files, upsample to 48 kHz. This upsampling could be done in Roon's DSP management. Of course, this isn't optimal but it's an easy solution with no audible consequences from my listening tests.

When going USB direct from laptop via Foobar or using a Squeezebox app, I haven't experienced any dropouts which may point to Roon as the culprit. Also, any originals at 48/96/192 kHz rates aren't affected.