romaz
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2013
- Posts
- 1,182
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- 1,265
Well done, Jon, and an excellent read! Even if you ended up not liking the DAVE or should you find the Schiit Yggy more to your liking, it's hard not to respect your conclusions given the detail you provided regarding your perspective and preferences and that you did indeed perform your due diligence! As we both use live music (mostly classical) as our reference, it becomes easier to relate to your descriptors and I agree with just about all of your points. As you have stated so well, with the DAVE, it is the recording that matters the most. Feed it a highly compressed or even a mediocre studio recording and the DAVE will make the most of what's available but the difference against another DAC may not be anything to write home about. Feed it something well performed and well recorded, regardless of complexity and the reward will be there. Can the DAVE surpass the vinyl experience with the proper recording? Probably not if part of your enjoyment is tied to the ritual of manually flipping through your library, removing a vinyl disc from its jacket, queuing it up and enjoying the album cover while you listen. There is certainly something to be said of such rituals. Of course, there is also something to be said about enjoying how something sounds, flaws and all, because it is familiar and because you equate it with good memories. Can the DAVE, fed with a well recorded 24/192 file match the technical aspects of what vinyl has to offer? On paper and with newer recordings, it would seem to me that the DAVE should be at least as good as any analog media, especially since most recordings these days are being recorded digitally to begin with.
I have received more than a few PMs questioning what I am hearing with the DAVE because their experience with the Hugo was only so so and since the DAVE and Hugo share the same DNA, how can the DAVE really sound that good? Well, between the Hugo and the DAVE is the difference of 150 DSP cores, more than 125,000 taps (digital sampling filters) as well as a chasm worth of difference between their noise shaper performance in addition to superior RF rejection. It would be like asking how good can the MSB Select II sound when the MSB Analog only sounds so so.
I have received many PMs questioning how it's possible the source player truly doesn't matter any further with the DAVE or how it's possible that a generic USB cable can sound as good as a much more expensive one or how it's possible that USB can sound good at all since it is such a flawed standard and so it is good for other people to comment on this as you have done so nicely. The DAVE truly forces you to rethink all that you know about high end audio setup and tuning and I find this as remarkable as how good it sounds.
You mentioned the Sonore microRendu and while this soon-to-be-released server, IMO, has the potential to rival even the finest music server regardless of cost, with the DAVE, you could get by with much less and be just as well off. I am using Sonore's less expensive ($300) Sonicorbiter SE with wonderful results and while I could easily use my Mac Pro with equally good results, both Sonore servers conveniently match the DAVE's playback capabilities, from 24/768 PCM to DSD 512 whereas a PC or Mac maxes out at 24/192 and DSD128 with Roon.
One thing you didn't mention was what headphone amp you use with your Ayre QB9 DAC? One question that seems to come up again and again is how is it possible the integrated headphone amp in this compact sized DAC that is smaller than a shoe box, which has no tubes and comes with an integrated switching power supply could possibly sound better than some $10,000 tube amp with its expensive NOS tubes and outboard linear power supply? Well, no matter what I or Rob or anyone else who owns a DAVE say, people don't believe it and they're already looking to pair the DAVE with another amplifier even before they've heard the DAVE. Certainly, a separate amp can bring a certain warmth or bloom or delicacy that the DAVE does not provide and an amp can even provide more drive for certain headphones, but as Rob has said more than a few times, if holographic transparency is what you are after, then you cannot do better than the DAVE's integrated headphone amp and so what I would take home from your experience as well as my own is to try the DAVE by itself first and only proceed with purchasing an outboard headphone amp if you feel you need it.
Regarding value, considering I have been able to sell of my expensive music servers, my expensive grounding box, my expensive line conditioner, several expensive mains cables and digital interconnects and my big expensive rack and still have better SQ than I have ever had before, the only thing that I can think of with more value for the dollar than the DAVE would be the Mojo.
