[GoldenSound]

So other than the limited measurements from Stereophile there were none available for the DAVE afaik.

I've now done a fairly thorough set if anyone might be curious https://goldensound.audio/2022/03/14/chord-dave-measurements-with-mscaler/

If there is anything specific someone would like me to test before these go back to the owner lmk

 

[chesebert]

So Dave is essentially a multi bit modulator with high tap reconstruction filter with discrete opamp output?

 

[jlbrach]

PS I fundamentally disagree with the Topping and Dave in the same sentence bit....

yes, he lost me mentioning the 2 together

 

[801evan]

Another stab at the Dave from the purveyors of Holo Audio? Lol. Weak.

 

[sm60]

PS I fundamentally disagree with the Topping and Dave in the same sentence bit....

Yes, I thought putting the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket might rile some of you

First, that assessment is based on listening to the Topping in my system, the original one with the fancy AKM DAC, not the more recent one that has a different DAC as that AKM factory burned down recently. The Topping offers stunning value for money. Measurements are textbook state of the art. Yes, the Dave is better, but 13x better? No.

I firmly believe DAC technology only gets you so far. It’s what you do afterwards that makes all the difference. Both the Dave and the Topping use off the shelf $10 parts and a measly power supply. That basically kills any hope of playing with the “big boy” DACs like the Lampi. The analog section matters. If Chord wants to play in the big league, they need to step up their game. Reusing a $20 medical power supply, as someone here pointed out, and using bargain basement parts is not going to cut it, no matter what whiz bang M-scaling and million tap filtering you do. The analog section matters hugely.

Let me explain it another way. I’m a big vinyl lover, having had quality turntables for 30+ years. One thing I learned early was the phono stage matters hugely. I have several at home, all the way from the Uber expensive Audio Research Reference Phono 3SE tube unit to a much cheaper Primare solid state phono stage. The ARC 3SE is 40+ pounds, basically identical to their ARC Reference 6SE no holds barred preamp. It is fully balanced with 3 6HP30 tubes per channel with a massive tube rectified power supply. it has 74dB of gain for the low output moving coil and all remote accessible control of the loading. It’s utterly noiseless even with my 0.2mV Koetsu Onyx Agate Platinum. It is mind blowingly stunning in its sheer dynamics and resolution, but always musical and refined. It leaves the Primare in the dust, even though the Primare is a good solid state phono stage with R-core transformers etc. But unlike the ARC, it’s not a cost no object design. I can use a $100 Shure with the ARC 3SE and still be blown away by its sheer splendor. Vinyl sounds like master tape. There’s absolutely no sense of hearing a record playing unless you have a really noisy album surface. And with the Miyajima Infinity Zero mono cartridge, mono recordings have a realism that the best digital still does not match in my experience.

You would think that amplifying a 0.2mV signal can’t be all that hard. Heck, you can do RIAA equalization on a single chip, which is what you find on home theater receivers. They sound awful!

The reason I lumped the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket is that they both treat the analog section as an afterthought, the main focus in both these DACs is the digital upscaling and the D-to-A conversion. In my experience, that doesn’t get you state of the art performance compared with DACs that go the extra mile in the power supply or analog design. The MSB Reference DAC, which costs several times what even the Lampi costs, pushes the power supply design to even greater heights, weighing in its fully tricked out form to more than 80 pounds.

I used for many years the Mark Levinson 32 preamp, which weighed almost 75-80 pounds, a big chunk of which was the external power supply module that literally regenerated clean A/C from your noisy A/C wall socket. If you look at its measurements in Stereophile, even today 30 years later, it beats everything else — noise levels are -140dB down. You could hear that in its solidity of sound.

So, hopefully that explains why I think the Topping and Dave are cut from the same sonic cloth. Apologize for the lengthy explanation!

 

[iDesign]

Yes, I thought putting the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket might rile some of you

First, that assessment is based on listening to the Topping in my system, the original one with the fancy AKM DAC, not the more recent one that has a different DAC as that AKM factory burned down recently. The Topping offers stunning value for money. Measurements are textbook state of the art. Yes, the Dave is better, but 13x better? No.

I firmly believe DAC technology only gets you so far. It’s what you do afterwards that makes all the difference. Both the Dave and the Topping use off the shelf $10 parts and a measly power supply. That basically kills any hope of playing with the “big boy” DACs like the Lampi. The analog section matters. If Chord wants to play in the big league, they need to step up their game. Reusing a $20 medical power supply, as someone here pointed out, and using bargain basement parts is not going to cut it, no matter what whiz bang M-scaling and million tap filtering you do. The analog section matters hugely.

Let me explain it another way. I’m a big vinyl lover, having had quality turntables for 30+ years. One thing I learned early was the phono stage matters hugely. I have several at home, all the way from the Uber expensive Audio Research Reference Phono 3SE tube unit to a much cheaper Primare solid state phono stage. The ARC 3SE is 40+ pounds, basically identical to their ARC Reference 6SE no holds barred preamp. It is fully balanced with 3 6HP30 tubes per channel with a massive tube rectified power supply. it has 74dB of gain for the low output moving coil and all remote accessible control of the loading. It’s utterly noiseless even with my 0.2mV Koetsu Onyx Agate Platinum. It is mind blowingly stunning in its sheer dynamics and resolution, but always musical and refined. It leaves the Primare in the dust, even though the Primare is a good solid state phono stage with R-core transformers etc. But unlike the ARC, it’s not a cost no object design. I can use a $100 Shure with the ARC 3SE and still be blown away by its sheer splendor. Vinyl sounds like master tape. There’s absolutely no sense of hearing a record playing unless you have a really noisy album surface. And with the Miyajima Infinity Zero mono cartridge, mono recordings have a realism that the best digital still does not match in my experience.

You would think that amplifying a 0.2mV signal can’t be all that hard. Heck, you can do RIAA equalization on a single chip, which is what you find on home theater receivers. They sound awful!

The reason I lumped the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket is that they both treat the analog section as an afterthought, the main focus in both these DACs is the digital upscaling and the D-to-A conversion. In my experience, that doesn’t get you state of the art performance compared with DACs that go the extra mile in the power supply or analog design. The MSB Reference DAC, which costs several times what even the Lampi costs, pushes the power supply design to even greater heights, weighing in its fully tricked out form to more than 80 pounds.

I used for many years the Mark Levinson 32 preamp, which weighed almost 75-80 pounds, a big chunk of which was the external power supply module that literally regenerated clean A/C from your noisy A/C wall socket. If you look at its measurements in Stereophile, even today 30 years later, it beats everything else — noise levels are -140dB down. You could hear that in its solidity of sound.

So, hopefully that explains why I think the Topping and Dave are cut from the same sonic cloth. Apologize for the lengthy explanation!

Great post. You should start a Lampizator thread— exactly the info I was looking for.

 

[Sampajanna]

Yes, I thought putting the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket might rile some of you

First, that assessment is based on listening to the Topping in my system, the original one with the fancy AKM DAC, not the more recent one that has a different DAC as that AKM factory burned down recently. The Topping offers stunning value for money. Measurements are textbook state of the art. Yes, the Dave is better, but 13x better? No.

I firmly believe DAC technology only gets you so far. It’s what you do afterwards that makes all the difference. Both the Dave and the Topping use off the shelf $10 parts and a measly power supply. That basically kills any hope of playing with the “big boy” DACs like the Lampi. The analog section matters. If Chord wants to play in the big league, they need to step up their game. Reusing a $20 medical power supply, as someone here pointed out, and using bargain basement parts is not going to cut it, no matter what whiz bang M-scaling and million tap filtering you do. The analog section matters hugely.

Let me explain it another way. I’m a big vinyl lover, having had quality turntables for 30+ years. One thing I learned early was the phono stage matters hugely. I have several at home, all the way from the Uber expensive Audio Research Reference Phono 3SE tube unit to a much cheaper Primare solid state phono stage. The ARC 3SE is 40+ pounds, basically identical to their ARC Reference 6SE no holds barred preamp. It is fully balanced with 3 6HP30 tubes per channel with a massive tube rectified power supply. it has 74dB of gain for the low output moving coil and all remote accessible control of the loading. It’s utterly noiseless even with my 0.2mV Koetsu Onyx Agate Platinum. It is mind blowingly stunning in its sheer dynamics and resolution, but always musical and refined. It leaves the Primare in the dust, even though the Primare is a good solid state phono stage with R-core transformers etc. But unlike the ARC, it’s not a cost no object design. I can use a $100 Shure with the ARC 3SE and still be blown away by its sheer splendor. Vinyl sounds like master tape. There’s absolutely no sense of hearing a record playing unless you have a really noisy album surface. And with the Miyajima Infinity Zero mono cartridge, mono recordings have a realism that the best digital still does not match in my experience.

You would think that amplifying a 0.2mV signal can’t be all that hard. Heck, you can do RIAA equalization on a single chip, which is what you find on home theater receivers. They sound awful!

The reason I lumped the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket is that they both treat the analog section as an afterthought, the main focus in both these DACs is the digital upscaling and the D-to-A conversion. In my experience, that doesn’t get you state of the art performance compared with DACs that go the extra mile in the power supply or analog design. The MSB Reference DAC, which costs several times what even the Lampi costs, pushes the power supply design to even greater heights, weighing in its fully tricked out form to more than 80 pounds.

I used for many years the Mark Levinson 32 preamp, which weighed almost 75-80 pounds, a big chunk of which was the external power supply module that literally regenerated clean A/C from your noisy A/C wall socket. If you look at its measurements in Stereophile, even today 30 years later, it beats everything else — noise levels are -140dB down. You could hear that in its solidity of sound.

So, hopefully that explains why I think the Topping and Dave are cut from the same sonic cloth. Apologize for the lengthy explanation!

Topping, as you say, makes great dacs for their price and they are great for desktop headphone setups. But Dave they are not. They are Honda Civic and Dave is BMW. Sure, there are Lamborghinis out there as well. But a Honda Civic, while good enough for many and certainly good enough to get around is NOT a BMW. If you hear Topping and Dave as similar, i would never say you can’t hear or are wrong, but I would say that you and I are so different that I don’t think we’ll ever agree.

You are also touching here on another HUGE issue in the mainstream audio in magazines, forums and online reviews, which is that most of the reviewers are elderly and so all and everything revolves around the standard of “analogue” and the “old days” of vinyl. I know analogue has its charm and I believe it can sound great. I have heard analogue set ups that sound way better than digital and also digital that are better than analogue. I am also open to the possibility that all things equal at the very top of performance analogue still edges digital out. But I do NOT want to collect things, especially as records get more and more expensive. I am not interested in a house full of records and all that comes with that. Of course, I am not asking that anyone share in that sentiment. It’s just me. I listen to a lot of music, and so would need a huge collection. And I dont have any nostalgia surrounding records. My rig has always been digital. Sure, I havent been into this for 40 yrs, only 10-15. I just have different priorities. I suspect that you and I will differ on our opinion of the Lampi. I am completely open to it and still not sure if I can review it at home, but I hope to be able to. At shows Lampi dacs have always been too tubey for me. That could be the tubes, the room, the other equipment, etc. I am into tubes and have a tube headphone amp (Cayin HA300). I have owned several Woo Audio products as well. So I am not anti-tube. I am always open. My current monos have a tube input stage (AVM Ovation 8.3s)

Finally I agree with you on the importance of the power supply. And my money is where my mouth is: I have two DC4 for Mscaler and Dave. You mentioned not getting instrument separation from your Dave. That is NOT my system/experience at all! I have excellent separation and imaging in 3D with a deep soundstage. I have Martens. I would say the Dave’s strength is between the speakers. It’s weakness is outside them—the width of stage isn‘t as big as other dacs I have heard. But separation is in spades, so is transparency and clarity. Someone above mentioned a DSD upsampling dac as “better” —the EMM labs—I have heard that along side Dave and Tambaqui. It lacked their detail, but it was still great and had a bigger soundstage and more “liquid” “smooth“ “analogue” sound, which suits the big speaker brands like magico, YG, Wilson, etc. but is too much for the already smooth Martens. Everything is relative, always relative to other gear, synergy, room, subjective listening preferences and sensitivity and type of music played. Lampi may be better for jazz, but is it for Biosphere? Bvdub?

Finally, I love this forum, as others have stated. I am also open to debate. We all grow through engaging with alternative perspective. And I am not overly sentimentally connected to my Dave. Nor am I a Chord fanboy. I have owned their amps, for example, and didn’t like them. Also, if I had the cash, I would switch to an MSB reference or Select any day. Lampi… I don’t know. Maybe we will see if i can test this one….

 

[chesebert]

“Analog” is not the old days and does not apply only to elderly audiophiles. Everything in real life is analog and digital is simply a mathematical representation of the analog real world. Some data can be represented perfectly others cannot, including music reproduction.

 

[alxw0w]

So other than the limited measurements from Stereophile there were none available for the DAVE afaik.

I've now done a fairly thorough set if anyone might be curious https://goldensound.audio/2022/03/14/chord-dave-measurements-with-mscaler/

If there is anything specific someone would like me to test before these go back to the owner lmk

Interesting. Thanks.
Can you check usb vs optical on solo Dave ?
Can we measure any differences?
At least in sound there is a big difference.

Ps. Also it would be nice to see 2,5v and 2v rca out and also these measurements with -10dbfs (or it was-9 dbfs on chord slides, not sure now).

 

[Sampajanna]

“Analog” is not the old days and does not apply only to elderly audiophiles. Everything in real life is analog and digital is simply a mathematical representation of the analog real world. Some data can be represented perfectly others cannot, including music reproduction.

You are correct, technically. I should have said “vinyl” i dint mean analogue in its engineering sense, but in terms of records and tape—-media, in other words, not gear or type of gear. What I meant was that those who have listened to vinyl for years or decades and made a mental, emotional standard out of it then try to get their digital rig to meet that standard and grade that gear based on how close it comes to the years or decades they spent perfecting a vinyl setup. Those of us who never started that way or arent coming from that world do not have that reference or standard. I realize this is an oversimplification of a big issue, but you hopefully understand me… What I mean is that I don‘t listen to two pieces of equipment and say “I like this one more. It sounds more like vinyl.” That isn’t a part of my experience. But it is a HUGE part of what one reads on forums and in magazines… Not better or worse, just different….

 

[chesebert]

I’m unfortunately not convinced at all that 1) the splitting of the M-scaler/Blu with the Dave with two BNC cables is a sensible design 2) Rob’s “million tap” filter etc. is all that significant an advance in digital audio 3) A hardwired static non-upgradeable design at this stage of progress in streaming audio is a sensible choice.

My 2 year experience with the Blu Mk2 and the Dave convinced me that it was worth exploring alternatives. I’m very happy with my Lampizator Pacific. Yes, it’s twice as expensive as the Dave, but if I compare the improvements in sound from the $1k Topping D90 to the Dave (which is 13x more expensive) vs the improvements in sound from the Dave to the twice more expensive Lampi Pacific, the latter is a far bigger jump.

Yes, the Dave is better than the Topping, but not hugely 13x better. It’s largely cut from the same sonic cloth. Both have a lot of trouble unpacking complex musical pieces, or even simpler combos. My neighbor, back when I lived in Massachusetts, played double bass for the Boston Symphony, but had a lovely jazz trio gig called 3rd String Trio. Their CD of lovely Parisian cafe music features a banjo, a guitar and a harmonium. The Topping and the Dave consistently blur the musical lines, making it hard to tease apart these three instruments. On the Lampi, it’s a whole another world where the three instruments are carved out in a distinct sonic landscape and you can effortlessly separate the lines. On much more complex music, e.g., a Bruckner symphony or Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party, the differences are even greater.

To me it’s no contest. I haven’t heard the recent dCS DACs or the MSB Reference DAC. I will emphasize I am comparing against the stock Dave, not the upgraded Dave with Sean’s LPS. That would make an interesting comparison, as the price for the combo with the M-scaler is the same as the Lampi.

All that said, the Dave has some advantages. It is much smaller and lighter than the Lampi, and doesn’t require expensive tube rolling. The Dave can be used with headphones. That’s why I’m still keeping my Dave. But I have no desire to bring it back into my main system anymore. It’s primary use is as a headphone tabletop DAC, which is like the smaller Chord DACs like the Qutest or the TT2.

Also these are listening room and system dependent choices. There’s no single best choice. I listen in a 6000 cubic foot space with 5” feet tall Quad Electrostatics combined with two massive REL G1 Mk2 subs, being driven by two huge ARC tube mono blocks with 16 KT 120 tubes. In a system of this caliber, the Dave is not competitive with the much larger and massive Lampi. On a smaller system with bookshelf speakers and a smaller room, the Dave might be a better choice.

Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party is warm, big and holographic - soundstage extends forever. This is from the Qobuz 44.1 track. Wow. What are some of your other “test” albums?

 

[Triode User]

You mentioned not getting instrument separation from your Dave. That is NOT my system/experience at all! I have excellent separation and imaging in 3D with a deep soundstage.

I am 110% with you on this one. Prior to getting the Dave I had a Bricasti M1 SE and one of the main reasons for selling that and getting the Dave was the first rate instrument separation I hear with the Dave. Indeed I have yet to hear anything better in that regard from any other Dac. Everything else sounds just a little bit muddled.

On another matter on Friday last week we had a little gathering at my house and one of the guests brought a Gaia and T+ combination and I am afraid that once again reminded me that I do not like the sound of R2R ladder dacs. (Also the comparison brought home the Dave’s phenomenally deep and tight bass).

 

[HeeBroG]

Yes, I thought putting the Topping and the Dave in the same bucket might rile some of you

First, that assessment is based on listening to the Topping in my system, the original one with the fancy AKM DAC, not the more recent one that has a different DAC as that AKM factory burned down recently. The Topping offers stunning value for money. Measurements are textbook state of the art. Yes, the Dave is better, but 13x better? No.

With that yardstick; I suppose your Lampi Pacific DAC is 26x better than the Topping!

 

[HarveyLowis]

I am 110% with you on this one. Prior to getting the Dave I had a Bricasti M1 SE and one of the main reasons for selling that and getting the Dave was the first rate instrument separation I hear with the Dave. Indeed I have yet to hear anything better in that regard from any other Dac. Everything else sounds just a little bit muddled.

On another matter on Friday last week we had a little gathering at my house and one of the guests brought a Gaia and T+ combination and I am afraid that once again reminded me that I do not like the sound of R2R ladder dacs. (Also the comparison brought home the Dave’s phenomenally deep and tight bass).

hi Nick @Triode User , i tried to email and DM you, but never hear back from you.

Can you check your email or DM ? thank you.

 

[Crashem]

I agree. It is all system/budget/music dependent. I suspect people who like the Playback or EMM labs dacs, for example, have Wilson’s, magicos, YG or similar speakers that are Uber detailed, neutral and forward. Such dacs tame these speakers and make a pleasing, liquid tone. My speakers and amps are a hair warm of neutral. Marten speakers sound musical no matter the gear in my experience. My AVM Ovation 8.3 amps have tube input stage. They arent tubey at all, but are a hair warm or “organic” or what have you….

Anyway, I may have the opportunity in the next couple weeks to audition a fully-loaded Lampizator Pacific (balanced with Volume Control) in my home vs the Dave/Mscaler fully loaded with 2 SJ PSU and storm cables… I also have the option to buy the Lampi, so we will see what we see….

Remember the balanced Pacific can be used single ended. It’s hard (eg expensive) to find quad’s of some tubes.

I agree that the Pacific blows away the Dave. Did a 2 week test of Dave vs. GG a while back. GG was superior for me but Dave definitely had aspects better and I could see someone liking the sound better on the Dave. Pacific took the lampi sound in a more “modern” direction. Lost some of the euphonics of the GG but was superior in all other ways. Did a quick listen (3 days ish) vs. friend’s Dave vs. Pacific. Basically, the Dave was slightly superior in micro details but lost on all other counts to my ears. On good 2ch system, it is really noticeable.

Now Lampi has Horizon coming out and it supposedly superior to Pacific. Looking forward to hearing that. Given relative rapid DAC improvements, I am so happy that Lampi has been keeping up given their generous trade in program. Basically getting 100% credit on old dac for new.

Oh, on that list of of top 10 dacs, just wanted to point to two Dacs. DCS just announced their new Apex Vivaldi which i imagine is excellent. Also, WADAX Atlantis is strong contender for best dac on the planet. Couple people in whatsbest forum with ridiculous systems (think 1M+) and contenders for best systems anywhere have switched to Wadax Reference dac. Given the price of that dac, that is no small thing.

Finally, if I was looking at Dave today and assuming I was staying in same price range. I would auditioning it vs. Holo May, Mola Mola Tamquiri, lampi Atlantic or discounted GG (different flavor), msb, dcs