CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[Triode User]

I can understand indeed these improvemenst are incremental. But i guess you are at a 20k powersupply system if i all add them up. I just cant take that route. Hope when farad has his super10 finished, also a 3k lps per piece to see what that will being as improvement. That would be a fairer comperisment. But we have to judge it also with our wallet not only the ears and this is already a huge step up and utterly safe thats also a reason for some people.

No, the DC4 three rail supply for Dave is £4500 and that sounds amazing. The ARC6 for Dave is £5850. All plus VAT of course but so are the Farad prices. Whilst the Farad is cheaper than the DC4 I am guessing it is not ridiculously cheaper. If the Farad Super10 is going to be 3k per piece plus the Dave board then that is going to be 10k plus VAT which is quite a bit more than the ARC6.

 

[Reactcore]

The opto dx requires 2 really good psus on both ends. Please don't use powerbanks coz...it's not going to sound right.

Thats why i just ordered 2 sets of these:

I will build the TX ones into Mscaler and the RX ones into Dave and use both unit's internal 5v rails. So no external RF or groundloops possible. They use a 50/125 MM fiber with ST bajonet connector (locks like BNC)

They support upto 5Mbaud speed which is more than enough for 2x 384k Spdif.

I will report after my testings.. but first the long wait for delivery from China..

 

[801evan]

Thats why i just ordered 2 sets of these:

I will build the TX ones into Mscaler and the RX ones into Dave and use both unit's internal 5v rails. So no external RF or groundloops possible. They use a 50/125 MM fiber with ST bajonet connector (locks like BNC)

They support upto 5Mbaud speed which is more than enough for 2x 384k Spdif.

I will report after my testings.. but first the long wait for delivery from China..

Fancy. Will it replace any of the spdif sockets? Does it have a crystal inside?

 

[Reactcore]

Fancy. Will it replace any of the spdif sockets? Does it have a crystal inside?

Nope it will act as a replacement or addon for 2 coax inputs (DBNC)
Theyre plain simple analog devices

But i must convert floating 0.6Vtt spdif to TTL and back to make it work.
This i will test before altering my Dave and Mscaler

 

[Triode User]

So what is this mysterious further upgrade to ARC6? As much as you can say at this point.
Is it something that fits inside DAVE in the space of the old p/s and does it look horribly expensive?

All I can say is that I am guessing it is less than 1K. Apart from that I cannot say more. I might already have said more than I should.

 

[audio_1]

Because the Opto dx's optical isolation is compromised the moment you plug in the receiver side into the mains...the only way it works 100% if if you use a battery.
Toslink would actually be better at 24/192 because you get full galvanic isolation, 0 noise. Even on battery the Opto-dx is dependent on the voltage regulator used.
Unfortunately, no matter how low noise Toslink is, the M-scaler is not immune to jitter, so BNC in actually sounded better from this perspective, but worse from the noise standpoint. So pick your poison.
And if you've moved on from the M-scaler, HQP + SRC-DX makes such a big difference than it more than compensates for the noise. Of course, there's no galvanic isolation, which is why the Intona helps. That's the least crazy improvement. The monoprice cable is 10m long and needs another usb a to usb cable and another really good 5v power supply. That + the rest of the stuff I have is already enough to make me buy a streamer/ or Phoenix USB and call it a day.

Have you heard it! It's performance is not compromised if there is a high impedance path between the mains supply for the Dave, opto-dx receiver and the Blu2 or Mscaler and digital source components. I have separate circuits for the Dave opto-dx receiver and the Heisenberg power amps and the opto-dx transmitter, Blu2 and digital sources. I also have separate power conditioners on each circuit. By high impedance path, I mean long power supply cables from the consumer unit, power conditioner and power cords. There is absolutely no brightness, brittleness or fatigue in my system sounds really musical. Mscaling works wonders on 44.1 kHz 16 bit files from Qobuz and makes them sound almost as good as high resolution recordings.

 

[audio_1]

Thats why i just ordered 2 sets of these:

I will build the TX ones into Mscaler and the RX ones into Dave and use both unit's internal 5v rails. So no external RF or groundloops possible. They use a 50/125 MM fiber with ST bajonet connector (locks like BNC)

They support upto 5Mbaud speed which is more than enough for 2x 384k Spdif.

I will report after my testings.. but first the long wait for delivery from China..

Can you just connect the Mscaler's BNC Spdif output directly into the transmitter and Dave's BNC Spdif into into the receiver? This imho is the way the Dave and Mscaler should be connected. Sorry for posting, just read the post above.

 

[kawhia]

Does anyone know where to connect the phase? Up or down?

 

[adrianm]

Have you heard it! It's performance is not compromised if there is a high impedance path between the mains supply for the Dave, opto-dx receiver and the Blu2 or Mscaler and digital source components. I have separate circuits for the Dave opto-dx receiver and the Heisenberg power amps and the opto-dx transmitter, Blu2 and digital sources. I also have separate power conditioners on each circuit. By high impedance path, I mean long power supply cables from the consumer unit, power conditioner and power cords. There is absolutely no brightness, brittleness or fatigue in my system sounds really musical. Mscaling works wonders on 44.1 kHz 16 bit files from Qobuz and makes them sound almost as good as high resolution recordings.

I haven't, that's pretty much what Dan told me. I also considered some crazy power scheme but in the end, that's just too much hassle for me. I'm sick of expensive ghetto solutions for a 14k dac.

 

[Reactcore]

Can you just connect the Mscaler's BNC Spdif output directly into the transmitter and Dave's BNC Spdif into into the receiver? This imho is the way the Dave and Mscaler should be connected. Sorry for posting, just read the post above.

Well you can.. but it wont do anything.

The transmitter emitter uses 5v
I will feed the positive half of the BNC signal to the base of a NPN transistor to 'switch' the emitter on/off.

On the receiver side i try use a resistor devider to lower the output voltage.

Since 1's and 0's are determined by the state times (small vs wider pulses) a rise/fall delay shouldnt matter much. As long i keep both channels synchronised.

If it works out i will create a 'How to' thread and a schematic. Its for sure Much cheaper than a Wave or Opto-DX solution.
(under €100 with 0.5m fiber cables included)

 

[adrianm]

Well you can.. but it wont do anything.

The transmitter emitter uses 5v
I will feed the positive half of the BNC signal to the base of a NPN transistor to 'switch' the emitter on/off.

On the receiver side i try use a resistor devider to lower the output voltage.

Since 1's and 0's are determined by the state times (small vs wider pulses) a rise/fall delay shouldnt matter much. As long i keep both channels synchronised.

If it works out i will create a 'How to' thread and a schematic. Its for sure Much cheaper than a Wave or Opto-DX solution.
(under €100 with 0.5m fiber cables included)

So much innovation coming out of the Netherlands lol

 

[Reactcore]

So much innovation coming out of the Netherlands lol

Lol im a money pincher.. and like to hobby around.. i dont like to walk the easy and expensive paths

 

[Somatic]

So if one tries and upscales with HQPlayer doesn’t this bypass Rob’s WTA filters? Isn’t this the whole point of buying the Chord gear for its signature sound?

 

[muski]

Yes. Going SRC-DX, OPTO-DX, DC Block with HQPlayer.

Wondering if I should get a LPS for the optodx?

I experimented with different Opto-DX power setups and ended up using a pair of UltraCap LPS-1.2s. On the T side I have one LPS-1.2 connected to a decent LPS. On the R side the other LPS-1.2 is fed by a PowerAdd battery to maintain power isolation. I'm not an electrical engineer, but the idea was to give the SRC-DX fast power with low-impedance without adding too much noise. Sounded better to my ears.

Yes, it's a lot of boxes but I mostly listen with my eyes closed

 

[Somatic]

Just curious if the SRC-DX, OPTO-DX, DC Block out of motherboard USB is comparable to toslink? The USB input on the Dave sounds dull and distant compared to the clearer optical input.