AndrewOld
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2014
- Posts
- 1,032
- Likes
- 944
Definitely not gone AWOL!
And I am not retained by Chord at all; I give Chord a complete electronic design, they build it, I get a royalty on each unit sold. There are no design fees. I happily work on a project, as I want the product itself, and don't see any financial return for a long time - sometimes decades. There isn't even a contract between us - it's based on friendship and 23 years of working together with John...
Sometimes it's much more appropriate to bite one's tongue and let other users comment, particularly with comments like Blu2 is flawed.
Is Dave perfect? No. Is Blu2 perfect? No. But a BluDave is fundamentally more perfect than any other DAC product available at any price today - by IMO a huge amount - and I can back that statement up with the technical info I disclose, the measurements I publish, and the comments of users on the sound quality - let alone the huge number of awards and reviews that have been given.
Indeed, I got some flak from Chord about talking of ferrites at all; I ignored it. I am not in the business of trying to tell a story that my designs are perfect; all I care about is getting the absolute maximum musical pleasure I can; and that's why I talked about the importance of ferrites with Blu2; my thinking is that somebody with £8000 to spend on a source would be intelligent enough to appreciate that talking about how to get the best out of a device would not be taken as a negative thing in exposing a sensitivity. Remember also that it's merely the icing on the cake; an M scaler makes such a huge difference to the overall musical performance - I for one could not live without one, ferrites or not.
I wasn’t meaning in any way to criticise the Blu2. There’s not been a product in history that couldn’t be improved in some small way after it had gone into production, With the DAVE it was adding the Audioquest thingy for a few quid that solved a residual issue with galvanic isolation. With the Blu2 it was the need for ferrites to solve a residual issue with RF. Your honesty and openness about these things is fantastic. But all I would expect is for you to say straight which ferrites to use, because you can’t expect us dim users to have the necessary knowledge to pick the ideal ones. Now things have spiralled into a situation where some people are forking out £1650 to address this issue, so they believe, and that cannot be right. Anyhow, I’m looking forward to the stand-alone M Scaler to go with my wonderful DAVE. And if ferrites can squeeze a little extra out of it, I trust you will tell us which ones to use. (Of course, they may not be beneficial ... time will tell I guess!)