[Slim1970]

I hear variations of this statement. I myself am unsure. All I do know is that it is a balanced dac, which is little strange considering that the amp design is not balanced.

Anyways thread should probably get back to the Dave before people start getting angry.

The dave was definitely a pleasure to own.

The way I understand it is the Sagra is built around the Soekris R2R board

 

[ubs28]

Does a high quality power cable make any difference?

 

[iDesign]

Does a high quality power cable make any difference?

You would probably see a greater improvement by spending less to have an electrician update the outlet and aging wiring in your walls. An esteemed reviewer did a shootout of 27 power cables that cost thousands of dollars and this was their outlet. An expensive power cable won’t fix the obvious.

 

[adrianm]

You would probably see a greater improvement by spending less to have an electrician update the outlet and aging wiring in your walls. An esteemed reviewer did a shootout of 27 power cables that cost thousands of dollars and this was their outlet. An expensive power cable won’t fix the obvious.

Or do what I did, buy a new place I'm super excited to see if the HUGE difference my Isotek Aquarius makes now will also happen in the new place (construction just finished). Especially after installing a dedicated circuit, since even Rob swears by that.

 

[Malcyg]

Or do what I did, buy a new place I'm super excited to see if the HUGE difference my Isotek Aquarius makes now will also happen in the new place (construction just finished). Especially after installing a dedicated circuit, since even Rob swears by that.

You will definitely notice the difference! We moved 3 years ago into a house which was a new build a few years back and they put a very well considered dedicated home network system in at construction. We are lucky enough to have access to the same guy that designed the whole electrical installation and he knows what he is doing. When I set up my main system, it was incredible how much better it sounded in the new place and it confirmed that much of the time and money that I had spent chasing down power and Ethernet solutions were quite largely due to the electrical installation in the old house. The good installation gave a much bigger difference than any of the tinkerings that I had tried - albeit reluctantly - around clocking and cleaning.

 

[MvRBE10]

Or do what I did, buy a new place I'm super excited to see if the HUGE difference my Isotek Aquarius makes now will also happen in the new place (construction just finished). Especially after installing a dedicated circuit, since even Rob swears by that.

I did the same re-arranged the powerbox and dedicated one phase (of the three) just for audio. And installed these gigawatt breakers. And just one shielded 4mm2 power cable (shielding connected on the power side). Straight into the poweroutlet box. No euro connectors or other bs inbetween. And indeed there came alot of ease and darkness (musicality) into the complete system. Easy and not expensive.. just work.

 

[Christer]

You would probably see a greater improvement by spending less to have an electrician update the outlet and aging wiring in your walls. An esteemed reviewer did a shootout of 27 power cables that cost thousands of dollars and this was their outlet. An expensive power cable won’t fix the obvious.

This discussion makes me think of "crap in -crap out" and at least for headphone listening, the importance of trying to avoid grid power altogether ,whenever possible.

More difficult to do so with speakers for sure ,but I also clearly remember how much better my system sounded in my flat in town when it had been rewired.

But during my many happy years of travelling in the Tropics over winter before Covid and now war! struck, very variable grid power quality, was often a BIG problem especially after getting my Mscaler.

At its worst at one place I had rented for a couple of months in Thailand one winter a few years ago, where I could barely hear the benefits of my newly aquired Mscaler with the stock bncs . It had sounded good and a clear improvement over Qutest on its own, at my hotels in KL where I had bought it, but NOT at the same level in Phuket.
Later my Wave Storm BNCs cured most of those problems.

But I really wish Rob would make a TOP NOTCH easily transportable, not necessarily portable , I do NOT walk or run while listening to music, but a dac/Mscaler combo that runs on rechargable AND by the user EASILY exchangable , but still long lasting batteries!!

I would also VERY MUCH like him to do so WITHOUT involving such ridiculous costs!

Why, oh why, do Rob´s Chord products almost always have to be so extremely expensive???
Yes I know Mojo 2 is affordable but if it does not sound as good as H2 I see little need for one.

I do really appreciate the SQ benefits of his mscaling tech,but I also Strongly Object to some of the NOT nice "side effects" involved !

COST being the MAIN one!

Some kind of PGGB or other high quality similar "pre upscaled" solution is becoming tempting as an alternative to Chord´s refusal? to make mscaling available at more affordable price levels .
Mscaler X seems interesting indeed from a tech point of view, but it will most probably be ridiculously priced.


His current, always to be plugged in to the grid. And always to be powered on,design choices, DO NOT appeal to me for that very reason,nor are they environmentally defendable imho. Yes I have an Mscaler and I run it from the grid.
But battery capablity should imho NOT have be an extra option like powerbanks and such ,it should imho be there as an included way of running, not only Mojo and H2 but other products too.

TT had one why oh why, does not TT2 or Qutest have a batteries?

And to have to send a "dead battery" product like H2 or Mojo 2 to Chord for changing battery is absolutely unacceptable imho.
Cheers again Controversial Chris

 

[chesebert]

Are you in Ukraine? Why would the war have any effect on your power grid?

 

[Christer]

Are you in Ukraine? Why would the war have any effect on your power grid?

No I am in Sweden,but we had some power cuts lasting several days this winter during storms that knocked down trees that fell over power lines.
Moreover during the equally reliable thunderstorms in summer there are often power cuts for days.

Besides I want to get a solution where I can listen at least via headphones completely off-grid not only for that reason , I want to get Mscaler off-grid in a simliar way I can already run my Qutest and the very few but rather interesting PGGB testfiles I have.
Mscaler may do transients a bit better than PGGB ,but PGGB and Qutest on battery deliver a slightly lower noise floor than Mscaler,audible via headphones and with large scale symphonic music with a huge dynamic range.
And when I say huge dynamic range I do NOT mean the loud parts.
Cheers CC

 

[chesebert]

No I am in Sweden,but we had some power cuts lasting several days this winter during storms that knocked down trees that fell over power lines.
Moreover during the equally reliable thunderstorms in summer there are often power cuts for days.

Besides I want to get a solution where I can listen at least via headphones completely off-grid not only for that reason , I want to get Mscaler off-grid in a simliar way I can already run my Qutest and the very few but rather interesting PGGB testfiles I have.
Mscaler may do transients a bit better than PGGB ,but PGGB and Qutest on battery deliver a slightly lower noise floor than Mscaler,audible via headphones and with large scale symphonic music with a huge dynamic range.
And when I say huge dynamic range I do NOT mean the loud parts.
Cheers CC

I would recommend against battery power for best performance because this has been done to death 20 years ago and the consensus at the time was that you get dynamic limited when you are on battery - even for headphone use. I suspect battery-based power supply simply could not keep up with high instantaneous power requirement during high dynamic and complex passages. You can try again but thought you may find this data point useful.

 

[Christer]

I would recommend against battery power for best performance because this has been done to death 20 years ago and the consensus at the time was that you get dynamic limited when you are on battery - even for headphone use. I suspect battery-based power supply simply could not keep up with high instantaneous power requirement during high dynamic and complex passages. You can try again but thought you may find this data point useful.

Hmm, interesting take, but I was under the impression that according even to Rob himself the optimal way to run his dacs would be via some kind of battery powering.
Of course a battery capable of handling instantaneous power and current requirements optimally while avoiding the drawbacks and limitations of fluctuating and possibly dirty? grid power and the RF issues involved with grid power as well.
I have never auditioned Dave off-grid ,and only ever via headphones ,but never in a good HIFI system. No dealer I have visited has ever had a Dave in a high quality speaker based system. And one problem with Dave and Blu 2 and Mscaler , I have experienced was not enough power or current? delivered to handle very complex and loud passages in some symphonic works I had then quite recently been at the actual recording sessions of.
Ok ,the headphones were Susvara but there was no doubt in my mind that with a good powerful headphone amp added, things sounded notably cleaner and closer to how I had heard live at sessions in the hall.

Both that experience and some others too, have lead me to suspect that in spite of its other qualities ,"The Achilles Heel" of Dave could actually be a case of not having enough power or current reserves to drive some the most demanding headphones like Susvara to their full capability with dynamically non compressed large scale symphonic material. Apart from its very high price, imho actually "Way too high" price, that has been the main reason why I still do not own a Dave.
Cheers CC

 

[Arniesb]

I would recommend against battery power for best performance because this has been done to death 20 years ago and the consensus at the time was that you get dynamic limited when you are on battery - even for headphone use. I suspect battery-based power supply simply could not keep up with high instantaneous power requirement during high dynamic and complex passages. You can try again but thought you may find this data point useful.

"could not keep up with high instantaneous power requirement during high dynamic and complex passages"
It could be the same reason why switched mode power supplies suck? Those now days have lower noise figures and measurements dont show their shortcomings...
Most of the good dacs and amps have massive linear power supplies with massive amount of high end capacitors...
Bakoon, Sparkos, Headamps, Niimbus and Ferrums amps show worse measurements than Topping amps, but unlike Chinese amps they have Beefy power supplies.
I can bet that those power supplies that are bought for Dave wont show improvements on Audio Analyser, but people are happy with that upgrade right?

 

[number1sixerfan]

Hmm, interesting take, but I was under the impression that according even to Rob himself the optimal way to run his dacs would be via some kind of battery powering.
Of course a battery capable of handling instantaneous power and current requirements optimally while avoiding the drawbacks and limitations of fluctuating and possibly dirty? grid power and the RF issues involved with grid power as well.
I have never auditioned Dave off-grid ,and only ever via headphones ,but never in a good HIFI system. No dealer I have visited has ever had a Dave in a high quality speaker based system. And one problem with Dave and Blu 2 and Mscaler , I have experienced was not enough power or current? delivered to handle very complex and loud passages in some symphonic works I had then quite recently been at the actual recording sessions of.
Ok ,the headphones were Susvara but there was no doubt in my mind that with a good powerful headphone amp added, things sounded notably cleaner and closer to how I had heard live at sessions in the hall.

Both that experience and some others too, have lead me to suspect that in spite of its other qualities ,"The Achilles Heel" of Dave could actually be a case of not having enough power or current reserves to drive some the most demanding headphones like Susvara to their full capability with dynamically non compressed large scale symphonic material. Apart from its very high price, imho actually "Way too high" price, that has been the main reason why I still do not own a Dave.
Cheers CC

I don't think there's a compelling business case and profit model for making the headphone amplifier in the Dave more robust. You mention cost as a concern with Chord products, but certainly the upgrades you're hoping for would cause significant price increases. Also, it would likely require a two box unit (PSU), so there goes transportability as well.

It's already a must for many users to add an external amp for speakers, so I can't see anything changing to better power headphones like the TC or Susvara for a niche set of users given the tradeoffs and costs.

 

[Reactcore]

and I would still like to close the small gap from optical to the slightly better sounding USB input

Rob,
In what way is optical behind USB on Dave?
Is not All jitter discarded by buffering?
And is this the same case on HMS?

Sorry i reply on a 2016 post.. im catching up from the start of this thread ..oof

 

[Christer]

I don't think there's a compelling business case and profit model for making the headphone amplifier in the Dave more robust. You mention cost as a concern with Chord products, but certainly the upgrades you're hoping for would cause significant price increases. Also, it would likely require a two box unit (PSU), so there goes transportability as well.

It's already a must for many users to add an external amp for speakers, so I can't see anything changing to better power headphones like the TC or Susvara for a niche set of users given the tradeoffs and costs.

I guess you are correct regarding little "compelling business case and profit model" with Dave. Too late and frankly the really demanding headphone I mentioned did not even exist when Dave was designed,but in his defence, Rob did make TT2 notably more capable in that respect, although he compromised a bit in some other respects compared to Dave.
Unfortunately it has a lot to do with market segmentation as I see it, possibly also with max profit margins carefully calculated for each segment in his and the rest of Chord´s product line.
Actual parts and building costs are probably only a mere fraction of it all.

With Rob and Chord we very much pay for the many hours he has spent on his products designing and writing the code,both optimised and suitably compromised for each segment in the product line.

"Now for something completely diffferent"

Stax SRX900 on order? Did you audition it?

Or are you buying it unheard knowing how transparent Stax electrostats generally tend to be ,expecting this one to be their best ever??

I have not auditioned any Stax headphones since the 009S,but I am also a bit tempted to get back into electrostats again with headphones ,not only via speakers.
What about Dan Clark´s closed planars "Stealth" which Rob Watts and many but not all reviewers tend to laud ,have you heard it?
I want to audition it asap, but so far no closed headphone I have ever heard has been transparent and open sounding enough for me. The Raal SR1A on the other hand, which I see that you also own sound about as open as a headphone can get imho.
But unlike the Susvara which only needs lots of clean power and current, the RAAL will not even play directly out of Dave it needs a step up box or dedicated amp like an electrostat.

Cheers CC