I just spent two weeks listening to the DAVE in a generous in-home audition here in Seattle. When the local rep dropped it off, the DAVE was still in the box, fresh from the factory. This was apparently the first DAVE to make it to the American Pacific Northwest. I mostly ran it 24/7 so that by the end of the audition, it had about 300 hours.
How I Got to this Point
Before getting to my impressions, a little background and context. I discovered the DAVE (and this head-fi thread) because I decided, after ten years as an audiophile, to take the plunge into serious head-fi. I initially dismissed the DAVE as too expensive. Then I read a few posts claiming that DAVE was immune to the quality of everything in the audio chain that precedes it – assuming, of course, that it is being fed bit perfect information. It seemed like an outlandish claim, but it got my attention.
My original plan was to buy a top headphone amp and headphones, something like the ALO Studio Six or Cavalli Liquid Gold or a GS-X, and pair it with headphones in the $1500-$3000 range. Then I would tackle my next project: finding a top-notch source that would feed my Ayre QB-9 DSD dac. I was prepared to spend between $3000 and $8000 on said source, an Aurender or Antipodes or something similar. I was getting tired of applying sonic band aids like Jitterbugs, Regen, etc. Eventually, in a year or two, I figured I would replace the Ayre with something better.
[An aside on the subject of music servers and their ilk: the upcoming Sonore microRendu may be poised to disrupt the server market. It promises many of the benefits of a dedicated high-end music server in an incredibly small package for $640, plus it can serve as a Roon endpoint (and works with other software). Even the microRendu, however, appears to need a really good linear power supply to perform at its best. A good USB cable will likely still be a necessity. So we are still looking at a $1000 to $3000 expenditure, in addition to the computer and Ethernet cabling you will still need to make it work.]
The DAVE upended my thinking. Specifically, DAVE’s alleged immunity to source components and its inclusion of a reportedly excellent headphone out created the tantalizing possibility that I could forget about the quality of the source, stop my search for a standalone headphone amp, and buy a dac now, all in one compact, attractive, space-saving package. Yes, the DAVE is very expensive. But when I subtracted what I would spend on a very good source and cabling and standalone headphone amp, DAVE looked like it might be a real value proposition—but only if it made music at a very, very high level. Frankly, I was skeptical of the claims made on this thread by those who belong to the “cult of DAVE” (no disrespect, only humor, intended).
Musical Priorities
Like most folks here, I don’t pretend to understand the technical explanations provided by Rob Watts, but I love the fact that he’s so active on this site and he occasionally provides valuable insight to non-technical people like me. For me, it’s all about musicality. I’m a music lover first, a French horn player in a previous life, and a regular patron of symphony, chamber music, and jazz concerts. I’m a musical omnivore and my collection of about 4500+ albums spans the gamut of musical taste. During the two-week audition, I was able to hear a Seattle Symphony concert and a recital by pianist Jeremy Denk. (A word to classical music lovers: if you get a chance to hear Denk, go. This was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended, period.)
My musical/sonic priorities are these:
- I want/need to understand the musical intent of the performers
- Listening should be an emotional experience; if I find that I’m thinking too much about the “sound,” then that’s an indication something is off
- Tone is critical, in terms of color or timbre, but especially in terms of density and substance; digital tends to shortchange tone
- Immediacy and presence are close cousins to tone; I want to hear performers in the room in terms of immediacy, but the stereo system should recover all the air and ambience of the venue when appropriate
- Resolution is important, but not at the expense of a natural, fatigue-free listening experience
Through the years, my analog system has bettered my digital system in each of the above areas, though of course it all depends on the quality of the recording, source file, and/or vinyl pressing.
One further point: When I’m auditioning any new component, especially a major purchase like a dac, turntable, speaker, etc., my ears had better tell me within the first few minutes or first few tracks whether this is a change for the better. If I have to spend hours debating the merits of a change, well, it’s probably not worth it.
First (and Lasting) Impressions
Ok, so is DAVE all its cracked up to be? First, the usual disclaimers: I don’t claim to have wide experience with the world’s best dacs, I’m a relative headphone newbie (though I listened mostly through my two-channel system), this is my ears and my system, etc., etc.
I let DAVE warm up for half and hour before sitting down and listening (yep, I’m impatient). For the first twenty minutes, I was unimpressed. Then I discovered I had not readjusted the audio settings in Roon for my new device. After adjusting, it took me about 30 seconds to decide that this was a completely new and, in my experience, unprecedented level of digital playback. This occurred about an hour after opening the box from the factory. That impression has not wavered once during the two-week audition.
Don’t get me wrong – DAVE is not a miracle worker in the sense that it will transform a bad recording into something different. DAVE’s degree of improvement varies quite widely with the quality of the recording, and if your interest in music means you don’t often play really well-recorded music, or if you don’t have a very resolving system, you are not going to experience the best DAVE can offer. DAVE really shines on well-recorded material, whether that’s Redbook or DXD.
DAVE’s Alleged Immunity to Noise
To test DAVE’s immunity to noise, I had to settle on some experiments with USB cables and USB band aids, as I did not have access to multiple music servers. My basic source is a 2013 MacBook Pro laptop running Roon/Tidal (via wifi), with a standard external hard disk drive holding 2.5 TB of music. The laptop and hard disk are noisy, both physically and electrically. I own a very nice Audience USB cable ($900) that outperformed a Light Harmonic Lightspeed cable in my system. With the Ayre, both of these cables were big upgrades over an older Transparent USB cable. Further improvements were made when I added an Uptone Audio Regen and two Audioquest Jitterbugs.
I listened to DAVE in four different USB cable scenarios: 1) with the cheap “Made in China” USB cable that Chord supplies with the DAVE; 2) with my older, $90 ten-foot Transparent cable I bought in 2009; 3) with the Audience cable; and 4) with the Audience cable plus Regen plus Jitterbugs. After spending about three hours swapping cables and listening to the same five or six familiar selections, I had to conclude: I could detect no difference. For the remaining duration of the audition, I listened with my old 10-foot Transparent cable, which allowed me to move my computer that much further away from the other components.
It’s funny – you see the el cheapo cable that comes with DAVE and you think – it’s a throwaway, why did they do that? It turns out it’s brilliant proof-of-concept marketing.
The caveat to my immunity experiment is that I did not have a variety of music servers to play around with, so I can’t personally comment on whether these might make a difference. But based on the reports of most others here (especially Roy (Romaz)), my thought is that the DAVE is either immune or largely immune to sources. If there is some sonic benefit to an $8k Aurender N10 or $16k W20, or for that matter a much less expensive Sonore microRendu with LPS, it had better be clearly audible and a significant upgrade. By the way, Romaz deserves a special shout-out for his intelligent and insightful posts and his generosity in responding to a few PMs from me.
While I had the DAVE, I also had the Hugo TT in house from the local Chord rep. I’d never heard the TT before (or any Chord dac, for that matter). The TT was already burned in. On the question of source immunity, I already knew that my Ayre QB-9 DSD dac’s performance varied significantly with different USB cables and USB band aids. I did some quick A/B tests switching out the various cables on the Hugo TT. I found that the cheaper USB cables resulted in a harder, glassier sound.
Comparisons
Ok, how about overall sonic comparisons between the three dacs I had on hand (you know, the missing part of so many reviews we read in publications)?
First, a few words about the Hugo TT and Ayre. I like the Ayre and I still think it’s an excellent dac for its current $3450 asking price. Compared to the Ayre, the Hugo TT was, in my opinion, a better dac. The difference was not night and day, but the TT was more resolving, had a lighter and brighter tonality (without etch), had more precise transients, and was just more emotionally involving. The Ayre had a more rounded sound, with a warmer midrange. On piano, the TT resolved fast passages better than the Ayre, which slightly blurred runs of notes. I think some people would find the Ayre more to their taste because the tonal character is different and it might be more synergistic in a given system, but in my system the TT was the better dac. A friend who will soon be in the market for a dac and thus was keen to hear the Ayre vs. the TT reached the same conclusion, finding the TT to be both more detailed and smoother. Of course, it is also the more expensive dac (currently $4795).
How about the TT and the DAVE? I was particularly interested in this comparison as at least a few folks have stated that they think the TT is the sweet spot in Chord’s lineup and that differences between the DAVE and TT may not be all that great.
My ears tell me differently. There is a very wide chasm between the DAVE and TT. The delta is
much greater than the difference between the TT and the Ayre. Night and day difference. This difference is more apparent with higher quality recordings, but it is unmistakable with just about any recording, at least in a resolving system or with high-quality headphones.
What Sets DAVE Apart
Here is what makes the DAVE so special to my ears:
- First and foremost, it generates tone that is dense, colorful, and true to life; there is a solidity and materiality to the tone that distinguishes it from any dac I have heard. Some on this thread have referred to DAVE’s “purity” and I think we are probably hearing the same thing. I do not hear the tone as either warm or cool, dark or light. Rather, it is vibrant, vivid, and realistic.
- There is immediacy and presence in spades; the musical intent of the performers is readily, obviously apparent. Barriers to emotional involvement are broken down.
- Clarity and resolution is stratospheric on well-recorded music, especially of the recording venue. This is very apparent on well-recorded, hi-rez orchestral music. For example, percussion is extremely tactile and vivid, and you have a very precise sense that the instruments are located in the back of the hall. You do not pay a sonic price for all of this resolution in terms of an analytical, “microphone-centric” presentation. Rather, the feeling of vibrant, smoothly flowing music is pervasive.
- All instruments sound wonderful and realistic, but well-recorded grand piano is sublime. Dynamic contrasts (especially micro dynamics) are where so much of the emotional power of music lives and DAVE delivers big-time.
- Voices are “right there.” One surefire hallmark of a dac’s resolution is when you find that you are hearing certain lyrics for the first time because they were previously obscured.
- Bass is vastly improved. I am not a basshead, and my speakers are not truly full range, but I consistently heard bass lines that had been lost in the muck before. I am fairly certain that DAVE is not actually producing more bass, although subjectively that seemed to be the case with certain recordings. Rather, my theory is that DAVE cleans up all the frequencies, and the improvement in the power zone of 100 hz to 400 hz allows the mid-bass and bass to come through with more clarity and impact.
- DAVE eliminates or reduces a harshness that previously accompanied treble response or very loud passages in certain recordings. We’ve probably all experienced those recordings where you turn down the volume or cringe for 10 seconds until a shrill or highly dynamic passage is over. Two examples: 1) American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham has a lovely recording of French songs (La Belle Epoque – The Songs of Reynaldo Hahn) that is generally well-recorded but contains louder passages in Graham’s upper vocal register that were previously unpleasant in their digital harshness and glare. With DAVE, I actually turn up the volume on this album and revel in the increased dynamic range without shrillness. 2) With DAVE, I am able to experience the full dynamic range of certain hi-rez, mostly live recordings of big symphonic pieces. For example, the dynamic range of something like Mahler 5 with MTT and the San Francisco Symphony is gigantic. DAVE lets you listen to the fff passages without cringing. At the same time, it is so quiet and resolving that the nuances of ppp passages are clearly discernible. Sometimes this is more apparent on headphones (my listening room has an ambient db level that typically ranges from the low 30s to the low 40s depending on time of day). The same ability to deal with recordings of very wide dynamics is a revelation with some big band jazz recordings, e.g., the Maria Schneider Orchestra. To hear so deeply into complex music is a pleasure.
I had three audiophile friends over a few nights ago, all of whom were familiar with my system. After hearing the DAVE for 10-15 minutes, they firmly instructed me: “Buy that dac.” To say that they were marveling at the DAVE’s contribution to sound quality is putting it mildly.
A Digression on Analog and Digital
One of these friends asked me if, in the event I purchased the DAVE, I might listen a lot less to my vinyl record collection. I told him I thought not, but after two weeks of listening to really good digital, you wonder what analog will sound like when you fire up the turntable. Not to worry. I’ve had a few analog listening sessions since the DAVE departed, and I’m happy to report that analog retains its magic. Sonically, my analog system does certain things better than even DAVE. First, there is a texture, tactility, and dimensionality that just sounds different, and I would say, better, than digital. Flesh and blood tone. Second, there is a continuousness or natural flow to the music that just kind of washes over you and that I find puts me in a more accepting, open frame of mind when listening. Finally, there is a kind of natural bloom to analog that sounds real and pleasing. Having grown up with vinyl, I also find that it tends to trigger more memories, which for me and a lot of other audiophiles is a big part of the experience.
Of course analog has all sorts of technical problems and I’m not going to get into a digital/analog argument, as all of these points are subject to debate and personal taste. Keep in mind that, even assuming a purchase of the DAVE, I will have spent at least $10k more on the analog side of the equation, so my analog setup had better sound really good. I have a fantastic turntable/cartridge setup guy, which is essential unless you are really good at doing that yourself. For many people, vinyl is just a pain in the butt. I kind of like the rituals.
Operational Modes and a Few Minor Complaints
Ok, sorry for the detour – back to the DAVE. I played with DAVE’s signal phase mode late in my audition. I was surprised to hear some familiar cuts sounding a little better when switching phase from positive to negative or vice versa, and so I think this is a useful feature worth further exploration. With regard to the high frequency filter, my observations here are with it turned off. When I toggled back and forth with this mode late in the audition, I heard no difference on a handful of tracks.
Do I have any nits? I don’t like the fact you have to manually switch between PCM and DSD, and wait the 20 seconds or so until DAVE resets itself. I have playlists that contain tunes from both formats and switching is an inconvenience. You absolutely must do this, however, to get the most out of your DSD recordings – it sounds markedly better in DSD mode. Sometimes when I was in one or the other mode, I would forget to switch back to the correct mode. I didn’t find the remote particularly useful. And I don’t like the fact that I won’t be able to listen to vinyl on headphones, but that would of course mean we are back to a standalone headphone amp and a presumptive loss of transparency. None of these are deal killers.
What about Head-Fi?
Bear in mind that maybe 75% of my listening was with my loudspeaker system. That’s what I’m most familiar with and, despite inevitable room interactions, it was quite easy to discern the differences between the DAVE and the other dacs (or any dac I’ve had in my system). It’s early in my high-end head-fi days, but I suspect headphones will likely remain secondary in my listening hierarchy. That said, I did spend some quality time with 1) a well-burned in HE1000 with a copper Purity Audio Impresa cable and 2) a brand new HD800 with stock cable. Most of my listening to the HD800 was done after it had been played for 150 hours or so.
Although I’ve listened to headphones for years, I am new to both of these headphones and super high-end head-fi in general. Both phones were very enjoyable and mighty impressive with the DAVE. I expect personal preference would drive a given listener’s choice. Physically, the Sennheiser was more comfortable on my head, and that’s always an important consideration. Putting aside comfort, I personally preferred the sound of the HE1000; it is a great pairing with the DAVE. Tonality differed between the two phones, with the HE1000 leaning slightly to the warm side and the HD800 slightly to the cool. The HiFiMan sounded a little more relaxed, a little softer on the transients, and overall perhaps a little more natural than the Senn. The Senn gave an impression of intoxicating clarity on some music and I can hear its appeal. I have read that some consider the HE1000 too soft, but I found it plenty incisive with the DAVE, and perhaps a closer approximation to how acoustic music sounds in a real space. Then again, maybe some of these differences can be chalked up to the fact that the HD800 was unmodified, with stock cable, and had relatively low hours. Or maybe it’s my subjective taste. In any event, I'm buying the HE1000.
I did not do a lot of headphone listening with the Hugo TT, but for the most part I thought it was very, very good. Not as refined or precise or pure or detailed as the DAVE, but something I could easily live with given a little hedonic adaptation. With certain music, I did not like the synergy between the HD800 and the TT – there was a shrillness to some brass, a thinness to the sound.
Power and Isolation
With respect to power, I used an Audience Au24 SE LP power cord ($1080) on the DAVE, connected to an Audience aR6 TSSOX power conditioner ($6450), which is itself on a dedicated circuit. I didn’t experiment with other power cables. I have been very happy with Audience power products through the years.
With respect to isolation, I used three Stillpoints Ultra Minis ($375) under the DAVE on an IKEA bamboo cutting board ($15). Stillpoints have made a big difference with most components in my system and I use the Ultra SS (combined with the IKEA boards) under my speakers, power conditioner, and amplifier.
One More Audition
After this rave review, you have probably assumed I already have my new DAVE on order. Not yet. When I spend this kind of cash, I feel like I need to do my due diligence, and so I have a Schiit Yggdrasil on order. Schiit has a 15-day audition and return policy (minus a 5% restocking fee, which I find reasonable). Schiit makes the audition process easy, and that cannot be said for some of DAVE’s other competitors. I was hoping the Yggy would arrive during the DAVE audition, but Schiit appears to be running a little behind on their orders and I probably won’t have the Yggy until early to mid-April or so.
If you are thinking that this will not be a fair fight, you are right. I understand the Yggy is sensitive to what comes before it, and I won’t be able to pair the Yggy with a top notch source. Moreover, I will be using the USB input of Yggy, which I understand is not its best input. And my audio memories of the DAVE won’t exactly be fresh.
Realistically, I don’t expect the Yggy to compete all that closely with the DAVE. But I am open to the possibility that it could happen – my expectations have been wrong before – and I find it hard to ignore the opinions of so many others who have found the Yggy to punch way above its weight. Plus, I’m just curious. I suppose I could try to audition something like the TotalDac or Rockna or MSB or a dozen other summit-fi dacs. But I have little interest in spending more than $13k on a dac, or even half that, unless it (a) has a killer headphone out; and/or (b) eliminates the quality of the source from the equation.
So in another month or so, I will follow up this post with another (shorter!) post about my impressions of the Yggy. If the Yggy turns out to be a true giant-killer (DAVE-killer?), more power to the Schiit boys.
Final Thoughts
Only a crazy audiophile could say this, but DAVE appears to be an outstanding value. When you realize that you are buying a world class dac/headphone amp/digital preamp without the need for a fancy and expensive music server, an audiophile grade USB cable, separate linear power supplies, various USB tweaks, a transparency-robbing standalone headphone amp and associated cables, isolation tweaks on the non-dac boxes, grounding boxes and cables, rack space, and all the headaches that accompany these extras, the DAVE value proposition is evident.
You can run Roon/Tidal on a stock computer and ultra cheap USB cable. Or, if you have Ethernet in your listening room, you can get the computer and hard disk or NAS out of the room and invest $355 in a Sonore SonicOrbiter SE and run Roon/Tidal through a tiny component with no sonic penalty and, most likely, a sonic benefit. (For an inexpensive way to even further isolate your system from noise carried on the Ethernet signal, see Romaz’s post #281 on the “Comparison of 5 High End Digital Music Servers” thread.)
With the DAVE, Rob Watts has created something really special, something that advances our understanding and appreciation of music. Bravo!
