[Crgreen]

They are 250 euros per pair excluding shipping and VAT. Interestingly they were built to be used as analog cables as well so they come standard with bnc to rca adaptors, and even with rca female adaptors that are true 75 ohm in case you need to modify your component.

They are the same price up to 4m- any length is the same price.

I don't have as much experience with BNC, but I have a friend who bought them with me, having owned Ansuz's top DTC BNC cable (goes for ~US$19K each, double that for a pair), and he says the Phasure BNC is 80% of the Ansuz. Price for performance ratio wise, that's good enough for me.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Clive101]

Has anyone tried Chord Sarum T with the DaveBlu...?

Please could someone give me a description of digital glare..?

Thank you

 

[Triode User]

Obviously, I’m aware of your views on the Blu 2, and that of others. That should be apparent from my earlier post. Something is wrong, and I acknowledge that it might be my hearing, or that I’m unusually sensitive to glare.

For the avoidance of doubt, I didn’t post the message because I thought someone would have a solution, or to be told that others have no such problem - I already know that - but to just to provide some balance in views.

Has anyone tried Chord Sarum T with the DaveBlu...?

Please could someone give me a description of digital glare..?

Thank you

Do you mean the digital cable version of Sarum T (presumably made up with BNC both ends)? No, sorry, can't help there.

But yes please for me also to be enlightened about this digital glare. I used Blu2 connected to Dave with Canare £20 ish BNC cables for a few weeks (no ferrites) and thought the sound was awesome. Way way better than just Dave. Absolutely stunning in fact. No way was Dave by itself to be considered to even be in the same league. Then I added some ferrites because Rob suggested it and yes the sound is better but it is a marginal thing compare to the increase is sound quality by adding Blu2 to Dave. To be honest, if Rob hadn't mentioned the ferrites I would have been perfectly (joyously even) happy with just the Canare cable.

I just don't get this digital glare thing.

 

[Clive101]

Do you mean the digital cable version of Sarum T (presumably made up with BNC both ends)? No, sorry, can't help there.

But yes please for me also to be enlightened about this digital glare. I used Blu2 connected to Dave with Canare £20 ish BNC cables for a few weeks (no ferrites) and thought the sound was awesome. Way way better than just Dave. Absolutely stunning in fact. No way was Dave by itself to be considered to even be in the same league. Then I added some ferrites because Rob suggested it and yes the sound is better but it is a marginal thing compare to the increase is sound quality by adding Blu2 to Dave. To be honest, if Rob hadn't mentioned the ferrites I would have been perfectly (joyously even) happy with just the Canare cable.

I just don't get this digital glare thing.

Yes digital Sarum T bnc connectors.

Digital Glare, pleased that I am not alone on this topic.

 

[jelt2359]

Where do you guys get ferrites? Curious to try.

 

[Malcyg]

Digital Glare, pleased that I am not alone on this topic.

Yes, me too. I know that there has always been a sharp edge to digital music which, for me, BluDave has removed but only after working on reducing ‘noise’ which is the main culprit imo, including network noise which I found to have a significant adverse impact. Maybe this is what others mean by glare but I’d also be interested to know.

 

[Triode User]

Where do you guys get ferrites? Curious to try.

These are what I use and are the ones used by Rob Watts:-
http://uk.farnell.com/wurth-elektro...t-7-5mm-246ohm/dp/2082472?CMP=i-ddd7-00001003

There are some cheaper ones on Amazon that have been mentioned but they are not the same.

 

[Clive101]

Yes, me too. I know that there has always been a sharp edge to digital music which, for me, BluDave has removed but only after working on reducing ‘noise’ which is the main culprit imo, including network noise which I found to have a significant adverse impact.

Yes I agree, same issue with mains and network and laptop noise now changed to mid range Melco and treated for mains power, cables helped as well. As they say "All quite on the western front" or should I say Dave front..?
Harshness reduced vocals more natural etc.

But still trying to get to the digital glare meaning, I guess some sort of noise issue..?

Edit Disconnected from network or dedicated network I flip between the two alternatives

 

[michaelvv]

Do you have an early curved-glass DAVE? I'm wondering if there are two versions of DAVE with minor internal differences (Roy, Romaz's, DAVE is a curved-glass model and he seems to have a lot of trouble with "digital glare"). Honestly, it seems exceedingly unlikely that there has been an internal change to DAVE, but I've got to mention it. Try to borrow a "new" DAVE from your dealer to compare with your old DAVE?

Bearing in mind that my DAVE (flat glass), with galvanic isolation on USB, is fearsomely sensitive to RFI, to the extent that I'm using 40 ferrites on the USB cable, I'm afraid to say I would guess the fault lies entirely in the RF noise transmitted into DAVE via the BNC cables.

I think everyone with a DAVE (or any other Chord DAC) is forced to use heavy RF filtering on electrical digital signal cables feeding into DAVE. I would go so far as to say that the DAC isn't working correctly unless there's a vast amount of RF filtering on the digital cable.

If you're especially sensitive to "digital glare", then it simply means you should be using more ferrites. There's no way that 10 can be enough on each BNC cable, given that 20 on the USB cable are not enough.

DAVE was designed for Rob's home system and he doesn't seem to have a problem with RF. Everyone else does, though.

Now playing: Tim Buckley - Once I Was

Do your extended use of ferrites on your USB kabel, also improved stability (skips hiccups etc) or is it "only the sound quality" ??

It's quite interesting as I as a happy amateur had build a couple of tubes amps (4P1L 2A3) and when I added
Chokes in my Power Supplies and starting using Split Bobbin Trafos, my noise level dramatically improves.

Are you using any "tubes", or are you solid state only ??

 

[Jawed]

Do your extended use of ferrites on your USB kabel, also improved stability (skips hiccups etc) or is it "only the sound quality" ??

I think so. But in the middle of my experiments I also "reset" the drivers on my computer, so that might be the reason. Sometimes I would get hiccups at the start of a piece of music, when jumping to a new track. Normal continuous play didn't have hiccups. I would have a few per day.

Are you using any "tubes", or are you solid state only ??

My headphones are plugged into DAVE. I like my simple hi-fi

Now playing: Patrick Noland - Beyond a Trance

 

[Malcyg]

Do your extended use of ferrites on your USB kabel, also improved stability (skips hiccups etc) or is it "only the sound quality" ?

I used to get occasional dropouts on Dave inputs BNC 3&4 (but not at all on 1&2) but I have not had a single dropout since fitting the ferrites to the BNC cables.

 

[esimms86]

@Jawed, I see in your signature that you have a USB cable with 40 Ferrite cores. Which USB cable do you use and how would you describe the sound difference, i.e., with and without Ferrites?

Also, a general question for everyone. I know that Rob is not a fan of using expensive cables but is there a point in putting Ferrite cores on higher end BNC and USB cables or would doing so be similar wearing a belt and suspenders? Further, is there an optimal number of Ferrite cores per cable?

 

[Triode User]

@Jawed, I see in your signature that you have a USB cable with 40 Ferrite cores. Which USB cable do you use and how would you describe the sound difference, i.e., with and without Ferrites?

Also, a general question for everyone. I know that Rob is not a fan of using expensive cables but is there a point in putting Ferrite cores on higher end BNC and USB cables or would doing so be similar wearing a belt and suspenders? Further, is there an optimal number of Ferrite cores per cable?

And @Jawed can I ask about how you selected those ferrites of yours? I got some of the same ones as you from Amazon and they are not the same as the Farnell ones I have been using. Have you checked the spec on them? In other words are they targeted at the frequencies that need filtering? I just wonder if you have ended up with so many because of their spec.

 

[Jawed]

@Jawed, I see in your signature that you have a USB cable with 40 Ferrite cores. Which USB cable do you use and how would you describe the sound difference, i.e., with and without Ferrites?

I wrote a detailed post here:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/does-chord-dave-system-need-a-dcc.809287/#post-13799263

I'd characterise the differences as: huge increase in the sense of power, extreme refinement, transients that are swifter and clearer, a new kind of transparency that feels very even across the soundstage and duration and dynamics of the music, lyrics in songs being effortlessly comprehensible and a subtlety in rhythms and arrangements that makes music feel more expressive.

I discovered that an optical connection gave me this huge upgrade, and in my system at least with an apparently very RF noisy PC as my music source (and film, YouTube etc.) USB was far worse. And so I tried various numbers of ferrites and have arrived at something that equals optical.

I selected them based upon easy availability. They're so cheap that lots of them don't hurt financially. With regard to the frequency ranges that they filter, they are generally not extremely narrow in their effect, but even where their effect is diminished at a given frequency, the use of lots of them compensates. It's brute force: they add up and produce strong enough filtering across a very wide range of frequencies.

There's no way an average person can determine the troublesome frequencies, so brute force filtering is simple and still very cheap. The important thing I learnt a couple of months ago is that they add up - I was under the misapprehension that "one is enough". Additionally there's a threshold effect. So if you hear only a small change or even no change with say 5 ferrites, that's probably simply because you haven't used enough.

Only Rob has reported on the comparative effect of ferrites with known frequency characteristics. So "accidentally" (since he didn't buy them based on their filtering specifications) we have a "slightly preferred" option for the BNC cables that connect Blu 2 and DAVE.

Also, a general question for everyone. I know that Rob is not a fan of using expensive cables but is there a point in putting Ferrite cores on higher end BNC and USB cables or would doing so be similar wearing a belt and suspenders? Further, is there an optimal number of Ferrite cores per cable?

They can't make the cable perform worse. Too many aren't a problem, because they have no effect on the digital data being communicated. In my opinion ferrites make all expensive USB and BNC/phono SPDIF digital cables entirely redundant. But if you already have such a thing, you can't downgrade the cable by adding ferrites (unless you think the ugliness or weight added is a downgrade!).

I think the only way to determine the right number is by adding more until they stop making a difference.

Yes, the cost of lots of ferrites is more than the cheapest cables you can buy. But, particularly with the packs of 10 you can buy on Amazon, the price of experimentation is absurdly low. It's like the cost of a round of drinks for 10s of ferrites.

Sometimes when people change their system setup, it unbalances the rest of their system. The rest of the system may need to be tweaked when ferrites are added. The powerfulness, refinement and cleaness of the sound, the classic "darker, warmer, smoother" sound that Rob talks about is not a fault. If you think dynamics are worse, it's because you had gotten used to edginess in the system, what can sometimes be a pleasant distortion (as long as it's not too strong).

In the end, my PC as a digital source seems pretty awful, so I probably had a much bigger upgrade than most people could expect. So my enthusiasm reflects the bad starting point I had...

Now playing: Mary Black - My Donald

 

[esimms86]

@Jawed, thanks for the detailed response. You’re obviously someone who spends his money cautiously and responsibly(not the typical audiophile ).

Love Mary Black!