CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[ZappaMan]

I think the music that has been encoded, Is. replayed to a very high level.

Let the trolls say otherwise; but specifically by album and track, because Dave is great, without any regret.

 

[SteveHulk]

Looks like DAVE just got it's ass handed to it,

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chord-dave-review-dac-hp-amp.35974/

Oh puhleeeze

 

[AnalogEuphoria]

Can't lie im a bit surprised by the measured performance, it is the DAVE dac were talking about.

 

[chesebert]

Can't lie im a bit surprised by the measured performance, it is the DAVE dac were talking about.

I am guessing a brand new Dave probably measures better - smps does degrade over time unless overbuilt.

Edit: Brand new unit does appear to measure better. Here is the one from Stereophile (see blue and red noise floor for 24bit data):

 

[Thenewguy007]

Looks like DAVE just got it's ass handed to it,

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chord-dave-review-dac-hp-amp.35974/

Funny Goldensound & Stereophile didn't find these problems in their measurments.

 

[SteveHulk]

Funny Goldensound & Stereophile didn't find these problems in their measurments.

Funny how ASSR didn't get round to doing this "review" for seven years.

 

[chesebert]

Funny how ASSR didn't get round to doing this "review" for seven years.

Amir tests whatever that's sent to him by regular people. I guess no one sent him a Dave to test in the past 7 years.

Also, @Rob Watts should feel free to ask Chord to send Amir a new unit to review given the oddities in the noise floor in Amir's test.

Edit: looks like the unit Amir tested has about 18bit resolution, the one @GoldenOne tested has about 18-19bit and the one stereophile tested has about 20bit resolution.

 

[theveterans]

Oh puhleeeze

The sender actually prefers the D90SE over it. I suspect his unit is defective as shown by Amir’s measurements

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Here we go again...

 

[RustyGates]

The measured results of the DAVE seems to vary a lot throughout the past 7ish years and between reviewers, particularly over the recent years with APx555 rigs. ASR measured the Qutest to be equivalent if not better than DAVE. The question is what does Rob think about this?

 

[adrianm]

Looks like DAVE just got it's ass handed to it,

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chord-dave-review-dac-hp-amp.35974/

That's it, now I'm definitely getting a Topping.

 

[chesebert]

I mean from a design perspective it’s always better to have lower noise and higher linearity but in practice most musical materials have way less than 90db of actual dynamic range so I’m not really sure it matters all that much. In my mind the interpolation filter and reconstruction filter are far more important to get right. Also important to eliminate any pre or post ringing in the final output.

 

[Hooster]

So what effect is this going to have on the used DAVE market? Some seem to think that old DAVE is much worse than new DAVE. I honestly thought a DAVE was a DAVE.

Also, it is worth keeping in mind that the DAVE is still in the excellent category of dacs. It does the job just fine, the problem just seems to be the poor value for money it offers. It does not appear to be broken.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chord-dave-review-dac-hp-amp.35974/

With respect to panthers, here are the latest results:

 

[adrianm]

The thing is, the DAVE is old, with no upgradeable firmware, meaning it will just keep getting older.

I'm not sure why people keep thinking firmware upgrades will magically give them better performance. That's only the case if it was poorly designed when released, or if there was a critical flaw. And again i have to disagree here, with a dCS stuff you're limited to their up-sampling, which also seems to generate a ton of ultrasonic noise.
I consider HQP with LNS15 a huge upgrade over the M-scaler, not to mention solo Dave. Even the Mola Mola only has a 7th order noise filter. And being able to play with them with one click in Hqp, you can clearly hear what a difference it makes. And the updates will keep coming.

 

[paulrbarnard]

The one thing that is clear is that the dog whistle is coming through with perfect clarity on ASR. It would be nice if it didn’t do the same here.
The unit tested on ASR seems to be a good unit and the test results look completely correct. It is what it is, you can’t argue the numbers.
The question on this site should be do you like your DAVE or not and leave it at that.