CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[adrianm]

I think if the claim is best ever objectively and nothing else comes close, and objective measurements show otherwise, that is a fair discussion in my opinion.

Friendly discussion. Doesn't need to get so heated in my opinion but unfortunately it does.

Claim made 7 years ago. If Rob still maintains this, he's welcome to defend it. That's not my issue though. It's that people oversimplify things and ASR's reviews are always manipulative and taken out of context. They are not meant to inform, they're just meant to make a certain demographic feel better about themselves and sell them on a few brands. Just like all forums. They're just covering a niche market. What is comical is the cult following.
I do agree that the headphone output could be bettered, despite what Rob and other claim. I also agree that the PSU, in stock form, is bad. I even agree with Amir on the M-scaler on some issues. But he is being manipulative.
And just like he boils it down to "I can't hear anything special" , we can boil it down to "we can hear it "

 

[adrianm]

Y’all could quit moaning and upgrade to a Qutest. Just saying

Hi Aleph, we appreciate you taking the time to create a Head-fi account just to post this. We're also happy you feel validated. We were just talking about you

 

[Reactcore]

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/

"At low to medium volumes, the sound was excellent and I could not detect any impairments. Crank up the volume though and the sound proceeds to get shrill and congested." .. lol did he 'crank up' to clipping level? We all know Dave has +19dB headroom to accomodate for HMS -3dB and low level recorded material.

Measurements are easy to influence by ones measurement setup.. the cables and connectors used.. the measured source .. even by air born HF signals like a internet router nearby. Specially if youre measuring such tiny levels.

As a past repair engineer i had different outcomes myself due to setup faults measuring on all kinds if equipments.

I would like to see how he had setup his AP in the room. I'm not blindly following a headless panther.. but rather my ears

 

[Triode User]

Why are the opinions of some random, frustrated people supposed to mean anything? Most people here that would sell Dave, would buy something they would disagree with even more. As stated countless times, Amir is far from some authority on ...anything. For all expensive equipment reviews he is an outlier compared to everyone else.
You could argue Dave is outdated, but I know at least one known reviewer who bought his Dave last month. And he's heard everything.
As for me, i have no problem saying Dave's psu sux and needs improvement, and the headphone amp, likewise. I'll keep auditioning other dacs, cheaper and more expensive. If i find something else i like more, i'll get it.
I sure as hell won't do it because of Amir's rankings, like the guy who "prefers the topping over Dave anyway". Talk about objectivity

I think the Dave owes its success and sound quality to a balancing act between the different and sometimes conflicting design parameters and consequent measurements when putting together the total package to get the best sound. A ‘review’ such as ASR does not take this into account because they focus on simplistic headline measurements such as SINAD which are easy to present in a league table.

However such a league table does not produce a correct ranking for sound quality. It is a bit like ranking cars based on maximum speed and 0 to 60 times. It is interesting and a bit of fun but ultimately it really doesn’t say which is the better car. I have heard many of the DACs in that SINAD league table and the unpalatable truth for ASR is that they simply do not sound anywhere near as good as Dave. ASR doesn’t ’do’ proper listening and in any case his perfunctory listening with Dave was all headphones which is of no relevance for me because I do not own any.

SINAD ranking is OK for a bit of Primary School playground banter (my Dad’s car has a higher top speed than your Dad’s car, My Dad’s DAC has a better SINAD rating than your Dad’s DAC, etc) but it is no way to choose which DAC to buy.

I'm absolutely fine with that, it's a 7 year old device, and I only care about measurements up to a point. Have no intention of debating measurements or fr graphs.
It was sota at the time. It can be had for a significant discount, and I haven't heard anything else cheaper that's better to my ears, or I would've bought it.

The only thing I would add to what you say is that to my ears Dave still stands up to and beats the sound quality of many DACs which are quite a bit more expensive.

Measurements are interesting up to a point but it appears that they still cannot predict which DAC sounds better than another. I had personal experience of this a couple of months back when I wanted a DAC for a second system and thought I could rely on the excellent measurements for the Holo May DAC and bought a L2 version. I tried everything I could to make it sound good and in the end I sold it and bought a second hand Dave instead.

 

[griff500]

Has he ever done a review where he doesn’t get different results on each channel?

He didn’t perform a proper listening test because nobody else does…

I don’t think anyone will be surprised that he thinks a $150 DAC performs as well or better…

 

[DJW50]

Y’all could quit moaning and upgrade to a Qutest. Just saying

Your comment made me smile, as a Qutest owner who will some time in the future get hold of a DAVE to do what I always do, stick it in my system and if it wows me buy it if doesn't like 6 other DAC's to date it will go back for a refund. And that to me is far more important than graphs
I did watch a couple of ASR's Youtube presentations and decided not to bother watching anymore, he reminds me of a politician in our country called Nigel Farage who at best is just a disruptor. Youtube is a good vehicle for presentations of every form but there is an awful lot of rubbish too.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

ASR doesn’t ’do’ proper listening

Unfortunately Amir is not able to do so. He was not hearing difference between hd600 and hd650, to him they are the same.
Which of course is false as even Axel Grell admitted that these are different headphones. (As everybody with decent hearing knows this. After hearing both, and you know it right away it's nothing hard to spot)

 

[flyte3333]

They're just covering a niche market.

Have you read ASR's measurements of Molo Mola DAC? Priced similar to Dave

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-mola-tambaqui-dac-and-streamer-review.10770/

He focuses on measurements.

 

[adrianm]

Have you read ASR's measurements of Molo Mola DAC? Priced similar to Dave

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-mola-tambaqui-dac-and-streamer-review.10770/

He focuses on measurements.

No, but I know it since it came out. Some reviewers subjectively preferred Dave, I have no ways of auditioning it, so I never bothered. Also, I didn't pay anywhere close to that for my (new) Dave.
One of the key features of Dave which I love, is the crossfeed implementation. As such, I only see myself replacing it with a dCS Lina, since they have their own Expanse feature, which is supposedly even better. Headphone listening without a good DSP crossfeed is just a no-go for me. The ones done in amps i've heard is a joke. Even though it probably also measures slightly worse, that matters a lot more to me.

 

[flyte3333]

No, but I know it since it came out. Some reviewers subjectively preferred Dave, I have no ways of auditioning it, so I never bothered. Also, I didn't pay anywhere close to that for my (new) Dave.
One of the key features of Dave which I love, is the crossfeed implementation. As such, I only see myself replacing it with a dCS Lina, since they have their own Expanse feature, which is supposedly even better. Headphone listening without a good DSP crossfeed is just a no-go for me. The ones done in amps i've heard is a joke. Even though it probably also measures slightly worse, that matters a lot more to me.

Ok but some people argue that he favours cheap Chinese over 'high end'.. 'niche markets' - ASR's Mola Mola measurements puts that argument away.

People seem to just look at the brand he reviews, the price and then scroll to the bottom to his conclusion.

And ignore everything in the middle (APx555 measurements)

 

[adrianm]

Ok but some people argue that he favours cheap Chinese over 'high end'.. 'niche markets' - ASR's Mola Mola measurements puts that argument away.

People seem to just look at the brand he reviews, the price and then scroll to the bottom to his conclusion.

And ignore everything in the middle (APx555 measurements)

"Conclusions
The Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC shows again that just because a DAC is designed from ground up, it need not perform poorly. It is actually the opposite with it performing at the top of the class with respect to distortion and noise."

I'm sorry, does this not just scream bias to you?

 

[zen87192]

Does anyone own a Grimm Audio MU1 going through a DAVE here? I'd love to gain your thoughts on this Setup.

 

[flyte3333]

I'm sorry, does this not just scream bias to you?

This is interesting.

Where is the bias ?

Plus why do people care what his opinion is? I ignore it and look at the measurements

Mola Mola is similarly priced to Dave and measures better.

 

[801evan]

I doubt any Dave owners here bought it due to how it measures.... Such ppl are free to buy a topping d90, mola mola tambaqui and Holo audio may and hang a print out of their how well they bench.and Amir's conclusion silkscreened to a cotton cover.

 

[adrianm]

This is interesting.

Where is the bias ?

Plus why do people care what his opinion is? I ignore it and look at the measurements

Mola Mola is similarly priced to Dave and measures better.

"Sally may be a woman, but she is a surprisingly good driver". I would move on to more obvious examples, but that would surely get me banned If you don't see it, you don't see it. Like i said, feel free to to only look at measurements, i don't. Mola Mola also came out 5 years after Dave. It's mind boggling to me how people overlook these facts.