[griff500]

Are you sure about the pric, cheapest I've seen an Aries G1 is £1300 and that's still a bargain

Aries Mini can be had for that money and it uses the same LDS interface. Excellent bit of kit for the money.

 

[kawhia]

Are you sure about the pric, cheapest I've seen an Aries G1 is £1300 and that's still a bargain

I mean the Aries, not G1. It is older, not sure if it is the predecessor of the G1. I got mine for around 500€. Hifishark lists several around 700 to 800. It is an excellent streamer for the money, but I have not compared it soundwise to anything more expensive, except the Grimm Mu1, but that is an entirely different device.
https://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/auralic/1.html

edit I may have been a little optimistic with the price. It is more 700 to 800, sometimes less.

 

[kawhia]

Aries Mini can be had for that money and it uses the same LDS interface. Excellent bit of kit for the money.

There is the Aries, Aries femto and the Aries mini.. price descends in this order. The first two are streamers only. The Mini has an inbuilt dac and is pretty cheap. I was talking about the Aries.

 

[number1sixerfan]

Hi everyone! I'm new here and am thinking of getting an mscaler and a dave. But I've read so many posts now and it looks like people don't like the sound unless one adds all kinds of expensive cables, adaptors, junction boxes, power supplies, and all manner of stuff.


My question is can you just buy a mscaler and dave and get great sound out of the box or does it sound pretty obiously lame unless you do a zillion expensive system mods?


I live in a very rural area so I can't test listen to them.


TIA!

As others have mentioned, it sounds excellent right out of the box. I've experimented with a lot and have also had nothing but the stock unit and cables right out of the box. The Mscaler is indeed a nice add, but to be honest the difference is not huge at all imo--definitely worth exploring if you want in the future, but not a must have at all imo. And in my opinion, all of the other upgrades and changes beyond that are quite a bit smaller (definitely excluding power conditioning and power supply upgrades here).

Also as someone else mentioned, I would look into better cables if you can (usually can find for really good prices in the classifieds), mainly because you can deal with some drop out issues with the stock cables.. but again you can definitely get by with them and especially if you give the Dave enough space away from other devices. But besides that, people are just tinkering lol, and there's nothing wrong with that. With the cost of the Dave, many are just trying to optimize its performance as much as possible, I do truly get it.

 

[Reactcore]

@LisaShayBrown
As others already said.. no worries ..stock Dave blows your mind theres no question about it.. it does already 7 years and Chord is not going to replace it soon. (It will come a DAC in Chords Ultima lineup though)

With Mscaler you might want to wait cause it will very likely come a new version of it next year.

 

[Triode User]

With Mscaler you might want to wait cause it will very likely come a new version of it next year.

And with a (much?) higher price area as well. . . .

 

[Powersquat]

And with a (much?) higher price area as well. . . .

Indeed, it will be interesting to see where the new MScaler will be priced, if an analogy were to be drawn with the TT2 and the present MScaler , currently there is a £1,000 differential between The TT2 and MScaler.

Presumably the same would apply with the Choral range, hopefully the price differential may be even greater with the more expensive products, but that may well be wishful thinking.

 

[nkj1]

Hello Everyone,

New here. Just bought a Dave several months ago and I am very impressed thus far. I have moved quickly to go to a full Farad power supply set up as well. I feel it makes a fundamental positive difference.

Looking to take the next step with an M Scaler but there seems to be a few dissidents amongst those that find it favourable. If I can't find one to try I may have to buy and re-sell if it does not work for me.

Glad to learn here on the Dave thread.

 

[audio_1]

Hi everyone! I'm new here and am thinking of getting an mscaler and a dave. But I've read so many posts now and it looks like people don't like the sound unless one adds all kinds of expensive cables, adaptors, junction boxes, power supplies, and all manner of stuff.


My question is can you just buy a mscaler and dave and get great sound out of the box or does it sound pretty obiously lame unless you do a zillion expensive system mods?


I live in a very rural area so I can't test listen to them.


TIA!

Some of the best digital that I have heard was from a straight Dave and also the Dave and Mscaler. That's why I bought them. No digital cable tweaks or power supplies. It sounds better obviously with an upgraded power supply and optical connections to the Mscaler but these aren't mandatory. Owners like improving their systems with time.

 

[LisaShayBrown]

Some of the best digital that I have heard was from a straight Dave and also the Dave and Mscaler. That's why I bought them. No digital cable tweaks or power supplies. It sounds better obviously with an upgraded power supply and optical connections to the Mscaler but these aren't mandatory. Owners like improving their systems with time.

Thanks!

 

[LisaShayBrown]

@LisaShayBrown
As others already said.. no worries ..stock Dave blows your mind theres no question about it.. it does already 7 years and Chord is not going to replace it soon. (It will come a DAC in Chords Ultima lineup though)

With Mscaler you might want to wait cause it will very likely come a new version of it next year.

Thanks!

 

[DJW50]

@LisaShayBrown
As others already said.. no worries ..stock Dave blows your mind theres no question about it.. it does already 7 years and Chord is not going to replace it soon. (It will come a DAC in Chords Ultima lineup though)

With Mscaler you might want to wait cause it will very likely come a new version of it next year.

Yes and let's hope it can use standard interconnects rather than the rather expensive ones the current one uses. With luck I'll have saved up enough money to buy the next version.

 

[nkj1]

I have a Mola Mola Tambuqui right next to my Dave with Farad power supplies. It is a very competent DAC.

However, Dave on used market and comparing between these two- I choose DAVE for now. More to come on this. I wonder how far Dave might pull ahead with M scaler or if it is worth the additional investment at this point.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

I have a Mola Mola Tambuqui right next to my Dave with Farad power supplies. It is a very competent DAC.

However, Dave on used market and comparing between these two- I choose DAVE for now. More to come on this. I wonder how far Dave might pull ahead with M scaler or if it is worth the additional investment at this point.

Can you elaborate on why you chose the DAVE over the Mola Mola Tambaqui? I hear the Tambaqui is overly smooth and doesn't have that attack the DAVE has, is this the case?

 

[DJW50]

I have a Mola Mola Tambuqui right next to my Dave with Farad power supplies. It is a very competent DAC.

However, Dave on used market and comparing between these two- I choose DAVE for now. More to come on this. I wonder how far Dave might pull ahead with M scaler or if it is worth the additional investment at this point.

Me too, I had them both at home on test for three days and couldn't really decide which I preferred. On the final day I decided the DAVE just had the edge with separation/detail. So it was down to who could do the best deal but I had a slight bias towards the DAVE so when I was offered a good deal on the DAVE I took it.