CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[FunkyBassMan]

If Ultima DAC costs more than HMS+DAVE how is it going to sell? Unless it has a built in M Scaler it will be "worse" sounding.

DAVE production would have to stop to make it sell. Or it would only sell if the buyer owns/buys an M Scaler, in which case its price is "even more worrying" to the market at large.

Sure, there's lots of HMS+DAVE customers who will replace DAVE with Ultima DAC, but on its own it's not going to attract new customers to Chord when there's a better sounding and cheaper option. So that seems to be quite a problem for Chord...

Anyway, I know nothing about running a hi-fi company, so others can pitch in.

I would imagine the Ultima DAC would have an M-Scaler equivalent built-in, right?

 

[MvRBE10]

I would imagine the Ultima DAC would have an M-Scaler equivalent built-in, right?

Dont hope so, dave is much betrer without it.

 

[Jawed]

I would imagine the Ultima DAC would have an M-Scaler equivalent built-in, right?

Well, that's one of the things I suggested. But Rob has always been adamant that M Scaler needs a separate chassis because it's a rogue amount of power consumption and noise...

 

[jlbrach]

Dave is getting pretty old now and a bad value based on sound quality, IMO. I believe this is the 2022 list from Stereo.

that is a ridiculous list ,honestly anyone can post a list it doesnt make it so...personally i have heard the Mcintosh d-1100 quite extensively and owned a Mcintosh DAC and it doesnt hold a candle to the dave so I dont take this list seriously...the dave still holds up very well and its used price is as good as or better than anything out there IMHO...if I am reading this right the focal arche is rated as good as the dave ?...come on now

 

[chesebert]

that is a ridiculous list ,honestly anyone can post a list it doesnt make it so...personally i have heard the Mcintosh d-1100 quite extensively and owned a Mcintosh DAC and it doesnt hold a candle to the dave so I dont take this list seriously...the dave still holds up very well and its used price is as good as or better than anything out there IMHO...if I am reading this right the focal arche is rated as good as the dave ?...come on now

I am just passing along ratings from a German magazine. The three numbers separated by | represent sound scores for DSD, 24/96 and 16/44.1, respectively.

The score rating is probably some value based score (taking into account price). I didn’t look at that.

 

[Reactcore]

Dont hope so, dave is much betrer without it.

It may seem contradictive to my postings..
but he is not talking nonsense.

Ive been to his house a week ago.. yes with my optic linked MDave.. and let him demonstrate what he means. The system in question is a Dave with Farad3 PSU's and 4 Pinkfaun class D amps biwired to his speakers. Fed by a Aurender N10 optically linked to network and toslink to Dave.. No Mscaler. All connected to a dedicated net group with filtering.

This sounded increddible clean with instruments in focus and solidly placed on their respective locations. Kind of what my memory tells me of how my MDave sounds like via my headphone.

We listened to about 10 selected tracks.
Then we swapped out his Dave and PSU's for my single Dave with cap mod.. this was really close as i heard before.. maybe Farad3 had a slightly more rounded trebble on 1 or 2 tracks.

But then we connected my Mscaler via optic dualdata and played the same tracks.
I was ready for a boost in depth and transparency.

But.. this didnt happened.. it was quite shocking.. my instant impression was like a blanket was placed between me and his speakers. The sound got kind of blurred.. behind this blanket i did hear more space though.

I think this is due to the energy a cap buffer treatment gives that lifts Dave's performance up in a way that the Mscaler's 'blurryness' gets evident. So i had to know what is happening..
i switched the scaler to bypass and compared that to no scaler connected with -3dB volume
(Volume matched)

This changed nothing.. its like the signal is still being processed ofc to attenuate the volume.

Ok ..so now via my HD800 direct out of Dave..
Here i still could hear the same effect but the positive side.. better transients and holografic space became more appearent.. if i kept listening my mind quickly adjusted and i can enjoy it.. but something weird is going on.
It might be the electrical circuit in the scaler itself but i think its the code..

Later at home i continued my testings.. and i came to the conclusion it is heavily track dependent.. if a recording has even the slightest DSP, EQ, Dolby noise suppression or antialiasing applied.. Mscaler cant fully recreate the original non sampled sound and draws a bit blurry image. In this case Dave alone does a better job.

Im keeping my scaler cause i like its sound
-with the right tracks- and headphones..
but on my speakers i rather take it out fysically of my chain for most tracks..

Im really curious how the new coming scaler will do..

 

[GuiltyRocker]

that is a ridiculous list ,honestly anyone can post a list it doesnt make it so...personally i have heard the Mcintosh d-1100 quite extensively and owned a Mcintosh DAC and it doesnt hold a candle to the dave so I dont take this list seriously...the dave still holds up very well and its used price is as good as or better than anything out there IMHO...if I am reading this right the focal arche is rated as good as the dave ?...come on now

Basically a crappy list that someone put together, next!

 

[GuiltyRocker]

It may seem contradictive to my postings..
but he is not talking nonsense.

Ive been to his house a week ago.. yes with my optic linked MDave.. and let him demonstrate what he means. The system in question is a Dave with Farad3 PSU's and 4 Pinkfaun class D amps biwired to his speakers. Fed by a Aurender N10 optically linked to network and toslink to Dave.. No Mscaler. All connected to a dedicated net group with filtering.

This sounded increddible clean with instruments in focus and solidly placed on their respective locations. Kind of what my memory tells me of how my MDave sounds like via my headphone.

We listened to about 10 selected tracks.
Then we swapped out his Dave and PSU's for my single Dave with cap mod.. this was really close as i heard before.. maybe Farad3 had a slightly more rounded trebble on 1 or 2 tracks.

But then we connected my Mscaler via optic dualdata and played the same tracks.
I was ready for a boost in depth and transparency.

But.. this didnt happened.. it was quite shocking.. my instant impression was like a blanket was placed between me and his speakers. The sound got kind of blurred.. behind this blanket i did hear more space though.

I think this is due to the energy a cap buffer treatment gives that lifts Dave's performance up in a way that the Mscaler's 'blurryness' gets evident. So i had to know what is happening..
i switched the scaler to bypass and compared that to no scaler connected with -3dB volume
(Volume matched)

This changed nothing.. its like the signal is still being processed ofc to attenuate the volume.

Ok ..so now via my HD800 direct out of Dave..
Here i still could hear the same effect but the positive side.. better transients and holografic space became more appearent.. if i kept listening my mind quickly adjusted and i can enjoy it.. but something weird is going on.
It might be the electrical circuit in the scaler itself but i think its the code..

Later at home i continued my testings.. and i came to the conclusion it is heavily track dependent.. if a recording has even the slightest DSP, EQ, Dolby noise suppression or antialiasing applied.. Mscaler cant fully recreate the original non sampled sound and draws a bit blurry image. In this case Dave alone does a better job.

Im keeping my scaler cause i like its sound
-with the right tracks- and headphones..
but on my speakers i rather take it out fysically of my chain for most tracks..

Im really curious how the new coming scaler will do..

I hear the opposite of what you say when I plug in my M Scaler, without it the music just doesn't flow well, I love the M Scaler.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I hear the opposite of what you say when I plug in my M Scaler, without it the music just doesn't flow well, I love the M Scaler.

I agree. I find it very hard to listen without. Just what you say: it's not about frequency response or staging or any of all that stuff, it's entirely how the music flows.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

I agree. I find it very hard to listen without. Just what you say: it's not about frequency response or staging or any of all that stuff, it's entirely how the music flows.

With the M Scaler the music also dances around the room, it is hard to describe. Sometimes I hear such depth that i can hear stuff coming out of the walls and the decay is incredible on many tracks.

 

[Reactcore]

With the M Scaler the music also dances around the room, it is hard to describe. Sometimes I hear such depth that i can hear stuff coming out of the walls and the decay is incredible on many tracks.

I do hear this too and the scaler's effect is genuine but its also adding a bit blurryness sometimes.

Like without scaler i see a image zoomed in a bit and totally sharply in focus.. then with scaler it get zoomed out and i see more of the scene.. also more pixel resolution but slightly out of focus. This 'out of focus' translates to the blanket between me and speakers

This happends with most tracks with actually standard studio processing/eq treatment.
And very audible on speaker setup and Dave made more energetic cause of a cap mod (or external PSU for that matter) giving it rock stable voltage.

You need to take the scaler totally out to hear this .. not use bypass on scaler (red)

But then again.. with headphones i still enjoy the extra reverb en roomy/holographic sound alot.. but it doesnt take away the scaler do has a tradeoff which amount is track quality dependent

I do think Rob's WTA is the right approach but it needs an unaltered pure mic'ed and ADC'ed signal to fully work.. if it doesnt get this.. it blurrs the sound a bit compared to Dave alone

 

[GuiltyRocker]

I do hear this too and the scaler's effect is genuine but its also adding a bit blurryness sometimes.

Like without scaler i see a image zoomed in a bit and totally sharply in focus.. then with scaler it get zoomed out and i see more of the scene.. also more pixel resolution but slightly out of focus. This 'out of focus' translates to the blanket between me and speakers

This happends with most tracks with actually standard studio processing/eq treatment.
And very audible on speaker setup and Dave made more energetic cause of a cap mod (or external PSU for that matter) giving it rock stable voltage.

You need to take the scaler totally out to hear this .. not use bypass on scaler (red)

But then again.. with headphones i still enjoy the extra reverb en roomy/holographic sound alot.. but it doesnt take away the scaler do has a tradeoff which amount is track quality dependent

I do think Rob's WTA is the right approach but it needs an unaltered pure mic'ed and ADC'ed signal to fully work.. if it doesnt get this.. it blurrs the sound a bit compared to Dave alone

I see what you mean, but with all the modifications you have done I wonder if you have done something to alter the M Scaler. I don't know.

 

[Reactcore]

I see what you mean, but with all the modifications you have done I wonder if you have done something to alter the M Scaler. I don't know.

No i hear it the same with a unaltered scaler also via coax.

I had several on my table to compare and my scaler sounds the same.. ofc optical link removed the RF component giving its benefits.

And i do like its effect with my headphones.
Its why im so busy trying to find original non remastered recordings..

 

[number1sixerfan]

I see what you mean, but with all the modifications you have done I wonder if you have done something to alter the M Scaler. I don't know.

Or, the Mscaler is possibly imperfect just as with every other piece of gear that has ever existed and that's ok. (Fyi, I love the M Scaler)

 

[Reactcore]

Or, the Mscaler is possibly imperfect

I rather think most recordings are.. specially the ones with noise suppression techniques applied..