[minibox]

Ferrites won't have any downsides to using them on mains cables, with DAC's or amps; with analogue cables you have the potential non linearity issue as a possibility, but this will not come into play with mains cables.
So it's worthwhile trying them; I could not hear a benefit when using them with Dave though. But Dave has many internal RF filters though.

Rob,
Your components are arguably the best in the world and have changed my listening experience. I have not heard a dac that betters Dave and I believe the blu2/Dave combo to be the best digital source component in the world. I personally am grateful that you’ve applied your genius to providing us with the best possible listening experience. That being said, could you include no less than 50 ferrites per cable with dave and blu2? It’d be great if all the ferrites were all the exact same shade of matte black. My wife occasionally tells me I’m OCD, but I know she’s the crazy one.

 

[Christer]

Rob,
Your components are arguably the best in the world and have changed my listening experience. I have not heard a dac that betters Dave and I believe the blu2/Dave combo to be the best digital source component in the world. I personally am grateful that you’ve applied your genius to providing us with the best possible listening experience. That being said, could you include no less than 50 ferrites per cable with dave and blu2? It’d be great if all the ferrites were all the exact same shade of matte black. My wife occasionally tells me I’m OCD, but I know she’s the crazy one.

Having intensively auditioned the BLU"/DAVE combo via highend headphones only so far I was also very impressed with how unexpectedly and surprisingly good rbcd can sound via that combo.
But since I am absolutely NOT willing to cough up the necessary sum to buy one of those or even a DAVE, I am constantly looking for more affordable alternatives to get as close to digital SOTA SQ as possible.
If I understand things correctly what the M-scaler does is add even more interpolation to low res ie 16/44.1 than even DAVE on its own does by upsampling 16/44.1 to 32 bits 705.6 khz?
I thought the only way to do so was with BLU2 so far?
A separate M scaler still being a thing only hinted at from Chord.
But since my oldish SACD player is refusing more discs than it accepts and also plays the ones it does play a bit below my Quetest DAC in plain SQ terms I have been looking for an upgrade in order to still be able to play my roughly 200 SACDs and rbcds before the manufacturers stop making SACD capable players .
During this search I stumbled upon an SACD /CD player from DENON "DCD 2500" which according to the technical information provided both by DENON and a susprising load of VERY positive reviews indeed! in basically all the major European HIFI mags ,also upsamples rbcd to
32 bits/705.6khz !!!
And it seems to do so for a mere fraction of the price CHORD wants for a DAVE /BLU2 combo. The price of the DCD 2500 seems to hover around the 1500-to 2000€ level from most dealers.
Is there anybody here who has any experience with this product?
Or even compared it to DAVE/BLU2?
Cheers Christer now back home in hot and sunny Sweden after nearly 8 months in Asia and on a daily basis playing a lot of very nice sounding LPs via my electrostatic speakers too.

 

[Whazzzup]

There are tones of alternatives in music servers. There are multiple forums here, you dont need to consider price points out of your target that are amazing.

 

[Hifi Boy]

Rob,
Your components are arguably the best in the world and have changed my listening experience. I have not heard a dac that betters Dave and I believe the blu2/Dave combo to be the best digital source component in the world. I personally am grateful that you’ve applied your genius to providing us with the best possible listening experience. That being said, could you include no less than 50 ferrites per cable with dave and blu2? It’d be great if all the ferrites were all the exact same shade of matte black. My wife occasionally tells me I’m OCD, but I know she’s the crazy one.

Either that, or have something built into the new standalone MScaler which would filter out the noise prior to it exiting the box. That way we wouldn't need to use ferrites on cables in the first place.

 

[thunder 99]

When will DAVINA be making an appearance?

 

[Crgreen]

When will DAVINA be making an appearance?

As I understand it, Davina is a research project. Whether it will see the light of day as a consumer product is another matter, and I’m not sure how big a market there is for A/D convertors. Even in recording studios, it’s unlikely that music listeners would get any benefit in respect of a significant number of recordings for quiet some time, if at all. The recording business is not crying out for better convertors, though some small audiophile labels might be interested/

 

[RobinTim]

As I understand it, Davina is a research project. Whether it will see the light of day as a consumer product is another matter, and I’m not sure how big a market there is for A/D convertors. Even in recording studios, it’s unlikely that music listeners would get any benefit in respect of a significant number of recordings for quiet some time, if at all. The recording business is not crying out for better convertors, though some small audiophile labels might be interested/

What would be those audiophile labels? I am especially looking for some well recorded Folk/Blues/Indie music.

 

[Rob Watts]

When will DAVINA be making an appearance?

I finished last night verification for the 705/768 to 44.1/48k decimation filters. Next job is the noise shaper OP at 104.25 MHz to 750/768 decimation; and since this is -250 dB FIR filter, it will not be a easy process to code.

Davina is as @Crgreen identifies primarily a research project, so it's low on my priorities, although in the future I expect it to be big in the pro world - but that will be a new ADC interface specifically for pro.

I hope to fire up the prototype later this year....

 

[Christer]

I finished last night verification for the 705/768 to 44.1/48k decimation filters. Next job is the noise shaper OP at 104.25 MHz to 750/768 decimation; and since this is -250 dB FIR filter, it will not be a easy process to code.

Davina is as @Crgreen identifies primarily a research project, so it's low on my priorities, although in the future I expect it to be big in the pro world - but that will be a new ADC interface specifically for pro.

I hope to fire up the prototype later this year....

Hello Rob,that sounds interesting. But I don't quite understand the need for decimation.
Why go to the extremes of 32/or even 64 bits and 768 khz sampling and then decimate it to 44.1??
Any decent laptop can quite easily handle 32/768 these days.

Why on earth would one want to risk "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" by decimating a real HIRES format?
In today's world of ever increasing data capacities at lowering costs I just don't see any need whatsoever to decimate a theoretically as perfect and not bandwidth limited signal as can be captured. Why risk throwing away crucially important timing and possibly also spectral hf information by doing so.

I am aware that there can be problems with extreme out of band noise and digital artifacts aliasing down into the audible band. But it also a fact in the real analogue world of live acoustic music that both strings/brass and and especially some percussive instruments actually produce harmonics high above the rbcd 22khz bandwidth limit. With some percussion I think the harmonics reach into the 90-100khz region or even higher?
Please don't read this as a personal attack or criticism.
It is not in any way intended as such.
I am only asking these questions again because I really care about the best possible sound with digital recording techniques.
PS I hope you enjoyed your Machu Picchu trek.

Please educate me.
Cheers Christer
PS 2 You may run the risk of running into me again in London in July, I see Canjam there coincides with the PROMS.
I LOVE the PROMS and I am a bit curious to see what you have up your sleeve to be introduced at Canjam.

 

[Crgreen]

What would be those audiophile labels? I am especially looking for some well recorded Folk/Blues/Indie music.

Who can say in advance of the technology being available? It would be nice to think that Rob’s professional kit would be adopted by major recording studios and that there will be a corresponding increase in sound quality, though much will still depend on microphone placement, mixing etc. We shall see, but I suspect it could be a long wait. In the meantime, there are several lifetimes’ worth of recordings which benefit from his DAC designs, which is good enough for me.

 

[hmartin]

I finished last night verification for the 705/768 to 44.1/48k decimation filters. Next job is the noise shaper OP at 104.25 MHz to 750/768 decimation; and since this is -250 dB FIR filter, it will not be a easy process to code.

Davina is as @Crgreen identifies primarily a research project, so it's low on my priorities, although in the future I expect it to be big in the pro world - but that will be a new ADC interface specifically for pro.

I hope to fire up the prototype later this year....

I would have hoped Davina was higher priority, makes me sad to think of all recordings of great music made without better ADC technology. Also consider getting Davina ADC from tape of the old masters, finally perfect sound forever.

 

[Crgreen]

I would have hoped Davina was higher priority, makes me sad to think of all recordings of great music made without better ADC technology. Also consider getting Davina ADC from tape of the old masters, finally perfect sound forever.

Indeed, but will there be much of a market for yet another batch of newly remastered recordings? We’ve had SACD, PCM, MQA already. And if the future really is streaming rather than downloads, even cynical record companies would have a hard job re-selling their back catalogue in yet another version. For my part, I’d be interested in trying a few, but I’m not sure I’d want to replace much more of my collection. Optimum sound quality won’t mean a great deal unless it sells in sufficient numbers. And notwithstanding the deficiencies in the ADC, many of those old analogue recordings sound very good indeed - well, good enough for me - and apparently for Rob too, who has used them in demos.

 

[Crgreen]

And I should add that as I understand it, something like 90 per cent of those old analogue recordings have been transferred to digital already for archive and re-release purposes. To get the benefit of Rob’s ADC, you’d have to have access to the original analogue tapes, assuming they haven’t perished and are still available. That’s a very expensive business and the remastered releases would not be cheap. For example: Mobile Fidelity had access to the original tapes for its vinyl re-issues of albums by Miles Davis’ great 1960s quintet, and you can hear the difference, but they cost about £50.00 each.

 

[hmartin]

And I should add that as I understand it, something like 90 per cent of those old analogue recordings have been transferred to digital already for archive and re-release purposes. To get the benefit of Rob’s ADC, you’d have to have access to the original analogue tapes, assuming they haven’t perished and are still available. That’s a very expensive business and the remastered releases would not be cheap. For example: Mobile Fidelity had access to the original tapes for its vinyl re-issues of albums by Miles Davis’ great 1960s quintet, and you can hear the difference, but they cost about £50.00 each.

Yes I agree. This is the problem, as soon as there is a remastered 24/96 version the labels are unlikely to do a new 24/96 version just because there is a much better ADC, but I think there are mastering engineers that are very passionate and will pick the best ADC when they are given the assignment to do a re-digitization to 24/96, its just when there is already "one" 24/96 version they will not be given such an assignment as there is a market problem selling a better “24/96” version to anyone else but an audiophile.

 

[hmartin]

But I guess the absolute best sound quality will be when you place the ADC direct at the microphone and do all digital mixing without any "bad" sample rate conversions etc. Just imagine Isabelle Faust or Yuja Wang etc etc recorded in this way.

It will be awesome with the simple transparent analogue section, no floor noise modulation, no long runs with cables.