Understood. Ultimately though it's being stated that some music sounds better off with just the Dave (with the upgrades done), than with the Mscaler. Which is ok lol.
I not going to write off your findings given your technical experience and level of testing you and a few others have done and shared for the sake of maintaining that the Mscaler is perfect. I know that gets a bit political in this thread. Anyways, really appreciating a lot of what you've been sharing.
I dont like my finding anymore than you and others.
It means im looking to create a parallel toslink output on my server to connect to Dave direct so i can easily switch to really bypass my Mscaler with certain music or going on speakers without needing to keep reconnecting cables.
Selecting bypass on the scaler is sadly not working for this.
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 does not surprise me at all.
I’ve played around with chord DACs at my dealer paired with various class D amplifiers. Inevitably, it degrades the Chord DAC sound to be just like most other decent DACs.
I think the main culprit is that Chord DACs try to get very accurate transient reconstruction at high sampling rates, 705.6kHz onwards whereas the switching frequency of Class D amplifiers are usually at 500kHz. It’s great that many customers in the store don’t hear the difference and live happily with their class D amplifier. But I think the issue is audible.
On top of that, if the class D amplifier and the Chord DACs are on switching power supply, there is always the possibility of ground loop leakage current RF noise to deal with.
Another way to think about this is that most high-end DAC brands that also sell amplifiers, I think only Mola Mola sells class D amplifiers whereas everybody else, MSB, Emm Labs, Linn, etc. don’t. Some of them might use switching power supplies but the amp topology is not class D.
That said, if you’re happy with your Chord DAC and its sound with your class D amplifier, that’s great. You gotta own and listen to what you love.
I dont own class D, my Denon POA S10 mono's are class A.
The ones i talked about were at @MvRBE10 place.. further i hear the spoken effect also on my own speakers and to a lesser degree on my headphones direct out of Dave.
His amps are Linear powered and the setup sounded stunningly good.
Sidenote:
MvRBE10 sadly cant react himself fastly due to his posts must be approved by Hf admin cause of his given Member of the trade status.
This should be rectified i think since hes not a trader as far i can see
Understood. Ultimately though it's being stated that some music sounds better off with just the Dave (with the upgrades done), than with the Mscaler. Which is ok lol.
I not going to write off your findings given your technical experience and level of testing you and a few others have done and shared for the sake of maintaining that the Mscaler is perfect. I know that gets a bit political in this thread. Anyways, really appreciating a lot of what you've been sharing.
No device is perfect regardless of price, or brand. The M Scaler certainly isn't perfect, if you think about the Sinc function which drives the long interpolation application, for the Sinc function to be perfect it needs infinity, that's not possible, so by definition it is not perfect.
No device is perfect regardless of price, or brand. The M Scaler certainly isn't perfect, if you think about the Sinc function which drives the long interpolation application, for the Sinc function to be perfect it needs infinity, that's not possible, so by definition it is not perfect.
It was and certainly is perfect giving what was/is possible with the technology at the time. This does not mean things can't advance as the FPGA technology and Mr. Watt's research moves forward.
No device is perfect regardless of price, or brand. The M Scaler certainly isn't perfect, if you think about the Sinc function which drives the long interpolation application, for the Sinc function to be perfect it needs infinity, that's not possible, so by definition it is not perfect.
True.. and even if it would be infinite.. it must be fed a pure unaltered ADC'ed signal to recreate the original analog audio.. something thats not the case in say 90% of the available recording releases.
Using headphones i do enjoy my Dave Mscaled regardless of the tradeoff caused by studio remixing. So it stays in my system.
I think with Robs new unit the differences in sound quality due to recording purity will only get bigger..
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..
From your descriptions I would expect that you find it "more blurry". My theory is that you prefer the sound of "crystalline imaging" and that recordings should have "pitch black spaces in the gaps between notes".
You might say, "Jawed, you just like the fuzzyness of Hugo M Scaler".
Going to be fun finding out!
Do you use crossfeed when listening with headphones?
From your descriptions I would expect that you find it "more blurry". My theory is that you prefer the sound of "crystalline imaging" and that recordings should have "pitch black spaces in the gaps between notes".
You might say, "Jawed, you just like the fuzzyness of Hugo M Scaler".
Going to be fun finding out!
Do you use crossfeed when listening with headphones?
Before i heard this 'evidence' at MvRBE10's place i was totally confident that the Mscaler makes every source only better. And found others nuts to even sell it. I actually almost never listened to Dave alone before.. i had my scaler first (with Qutest)
But this cant be unheard and i reasoned what causes it by testing alot.
I barely use XF, actually only sometimes with old hard left-right recordings.
All i can say is be openminded and do this test with Dave (preferably with PSU treatment) and a scaler physically in and out on a resolving speaker system by plugging cables. Try different tracks.
All i can say is be openminded and do this test with Dave (preferably with PSU treatment) and a scaler physically in and out on a resolving speaker system by plugging cables. Try different tracks.
Now consider the addition of a MScaler that is also just powered up in a quiescent state (no input to upsample and no output). In this case, the MScaler is about 30cm (about 12") away from Hugo2. Notice the change in the RF energy measured.
The final plot shows the net contribution of an MScaler to the Hugo2's out-of-band signal (with energy differences subject to signal sweep and noise floor). Remember, this is all generated by RF noise radiated across open air - there is no signal or power connection between the two.
While i was testing my link i noticed RF transmitting too.. but from the coax mantles.. this is why the conversion to optical happends inside in my housing. So i lose transmitting from cables. This graph is consistent with what ive seen.
I Have compared my scaler's performance with 20m fiber to another room vs placed on Dave and couldnt notice a difference anymore
while before on coax it was a bit harsch and edgy sounding.. The RF effect is the opposite as what im discribing now.
Normally when i just leave the scaler in and dont touch anything i dont notice it too and my MDave sounds increddible transparent.
This effect i can only hear when A-B direct comparing to Dave alone in a good speaker setup. Its just weird to hear and ofc i dont like it. But im okay with it since i still get benefits from certain tracks specially on headphones.
Before i heard this 'evidence' at MvRBE10's place i was totally confident that the Mscaler makes every source only better. And found others nuts to even sell it. I actually almost never listened to Dave alone before.. i had my scaler first (with Qutest)
But this cant be unheard and i reasoned what causes it by testing alot.
I barely use XF, actually only sometimes with old hard left-right recordings.
All i can say is be openminded and do this test with Dave (preferably with PSU treatment) and a scaler physically in and out on a resolving speaker system by plugging cables. Try different tracks.
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