[Reactcore]

Which mod was this?

Edit : oh the super charged amp link!

I got a huge performance gain swapping out the voltage regulators with Sparkos VRs.

Interesting
Tell us more what it did.. do you have pictures of that?

 

[801evan]

Interesting
Tell us more what it did.. do you have pictures of that?

The mod was on a different device. I replaced a 78xx and 79xx series of VR. You can check the Sparkos website for compatibility with the Dave VR.

https://sparkoslabs.com/discrete-voltage-regulators-audio-power-supply/

 

[kawhia]

Can someone explain to me: why can I buy a 1000€ AES Ebu cable, but I can barely spend 100€ on a toslink cable? Is there no audible gain to be expected from a higher value toslink cable? Thanks

Is toslink the best connection between an Auralic Aries streamer and DAVE?

 

[nkj1]

4 buffercaps are installed in my Dave on the amp section yesterday..

Ohmy Dave's got muscles now..
I hear authority and gripp on my HP's drivers. Even with higher volume levels it keeps control
The low end i can feel it rumble..

I will post a section of how i did in my mscaler thread soon.. but i cant get my phones off my head lol

Why havent i done this earlier.. increddible how full bodied the sound became with such easy and cheap modification.
I even hear new details in the low region..

Certainly no external amp needed for me

Nice....... can you catch me up?--- I am new here. Are you using an external power supply(s) with the DAVE now?- is the buffering with your new mod in addition to this?

thanks

 

[Articnoise]

Can someone explain to me: why can I buy a 1000€ AES Ebu cable, but I can barely spend 100€ on a toslink cable? Is there no audible gain to be expected from a higher value toslink cable? Thanks

Is toslink the best connection between an Auralic Aries streamer and DAVE?

Because toslink is generally seen as suboptimal for obtaining the best sound in the audio world.

 

[LucyWu]

TOSLINK - plastic or glass "cable", simple molded terminal ends. Cheap to make, little opportunity for cable manufacturers to choose fancy materials.

AES/EQU and SPDIF cables can use a wide variety of wire formulations, fancy or cheap connectors and possibly rf blocking ferrites, so manufacturers can produce products at a variety of prices.

Optical cables offer less choice of material and termination, so narrower price spread and (even though Rob Watts receommends them for electrical isolation reasons) much less popular.

 

[kawhia]

Strangely enough I find a 10€ toslink cable to sound equal or a little better than a JPS superconductor AES cable between streamer and Dac. Therefore my second question which input in DAVE is to be preferred?

 

[kawhia]

even though Rob Watts receommends them for electrical isolation reasons

Thanks. I missed that on first reading.

 

[ecwl]

Because toslink is generally seen as suboptimal for obtaining the best sound in the audio world.

I think this has been discussed many times in this forum.
Toslink has more jitter than AES/coax digital inputs but it offers electrical isolation
Even though all DACs have some degree of jitter immunity, ultimately, the DAC architecture determines how immune a DAC is to jitter which is why most DACs sound worse with Toslink.
But Chord DAC’s pulse array DAC simply has a different architecture which are much more jitter immune than other DACs. In fact, you can see lately that other DACs are changing their architecture like Linn and Mola Mola to sort of improve their DAC architecture’s jitter immunity (but still not match Chord).
This is why IMHO, Chord DAC’s can take a high-jitter source from Toslink and sound amazing whereas other DACs can’t. It is also why everybody else says Toslink is worse than AES/coax since it’s true for non-Chord DACs

 

[Reactcore]

Nice....... can you catch me up?--- I am new here. Are you using an external power supply(s) with the DAVE now?- is the buffering with your new mod in addition to this?

thanks

No im on stock PSU but added buffering aside it inside Dave.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

which input in DAVE is to be preferred?

Optical, if you don’t need DSD or DXD compatibility. I once listened A/B to an opticalRendu (Farad Super3 PSU plugged in PS Audio regenerator, AudioQuest Diamond USB cable) and a Raspberry Pi (powered with USB power bank, Chord’s stock optical cable). I don’t remember what Pi hat it was, but @alxw0w knows for sure. Both sources were plugged in HMS-Wave-DAVE. We tried both Roon and LMS.

Raspbery Pi played exactly as good as oRendu with all expensive cables and supercapacitor PSU. There was bigger difference between software players (Roon/LMS) in both setups than between oRendu and RaspberryPi.

The only think I didn’t like about RPI - it played DSD64 with strange attenuation. I don’t know if it was caused by RPI software or toslink interface limitation. Also you can’t stream DSD128, DSD256 or DXD via toslink.

So for Qobuz/Tidal which are limited to 24/192 PCM Raspberry Pi connected via toslink to HMS/DAVE is as good as any other streamer, no matter the price.

P.S. Actually it was a very embarrassing experiment. I realized how much money I wasted buying cables and power supplies for Rendu

P.P.S. Interesting that for some reason CD transports are still relevant even for Chord. I tried to compare a CD with it’s contents ripped and played through Roon/LMS and real disc was always much more engaging and interesting to listen to.

 

[jlbrach]

Can someone explain to me: why can I buy a 1000€ AES Ebu cable, but I can barely spend 100€ on a toslink cable? Is there no audible gain to be expected from a higher value toslink cable? Thanks

Is toslink the best connection between an Auralic Aries streamer and DAVE?

I will gladly sell you a toslink cable for 1000 dollars

 

[Triode User]

P.P.S. Interesting that for some reason CD transports are still relevant even for Chord. I tried to compare a CD with it’s contents ripped and played through Roon/LMS and real disc was always much more engaging and interesting to listen to.

Back when I had the Blu Mk2 the challenge was always to try to get the ripped version to sound as good as playing the cd.

By the way, I totally agree with you regarding the differences between the various playback softwares / apps. I cannot find better than LMS + Squeezelite.

 

[alekc]

@Triode User and @Ragnar-BY honestly speaking I think there is something magical about spinning CDs. It may be similar case with reading paper books vs. reading an ebook, and current research shows there are differences in chemical processes in our brains when doing those both things while both are theoretically just reading. I know that despite the quality and price of my audio chain, the CD as a source always sounds best for me (even without additional upsampling). It could be complete misconception, yet I still love spinning CD vs streaming or listening from files. Just my 2 cents...

 

[zen87192]

Cannot agree more... playing CD's on even my 'simple' Pioneer PD-S904 Stable Platter Player offers more sublime sounds than when streaming.