[Beolab]

Have spent over 4 hours today listening to Dave .
Arrived just as doors opened at 12. Room was empty with just Colin running things. Turns out Colin and I share a very similar taste in music so was able to listen to lots of music I am very familiar with.
 I own a hugo and love it.... UNTIL I heard DAVE!! 
Its like going from listening to music on my nokia phone to listening on Hugo. There is just MORE of EVERYTHING. 
Colin played a track on the DSX1000 then repeated same track on DAVE.  What a jump forward over QBD76 tech.
Dave makes Hugo sound a bit tame a bit boring in comparison (and Hugo is not in anyway boring and uninvolving!)
Dave is a GAME CHANGER. If you are anywhere near Suffolk go and listen to Dave tomorrow at the show!!

Hate to sound like a fanboy but Dave is that good. And sorry I am not very good with describing sound
I now have to work out how to find the money to buy a Dave.

Nice to here, it is a game breaker in the DAC segment, that wipes the floor with all of the other High End brands tech/spec wise.

Where the jump as big btw the DSX1000 (QBD76) vs DAVE as with HUGO vs DAVE in your opinion?

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Nice to here, it is a game breaker in the DAC segment, that wipes the floor with all of the other High End brands tech/spec wise.

Where the jump as big btw the DSX1000 (QBD76) vs DAVE as with HUGO vs DAVE in your opinion?

And Blu with QBD76 connected with twin digital BNC coax or AES/EBU XLR inputs to give 176kHz sampling rate ! 

 

[audiobill]

Hasn't anyone else been able to hear DAVE at Audio Show East? I thought we'd see a lot more comments on its performance by now. TIA

 

[Jiffi32]

It's quite a small event, but today is going to be busier than friday

 

[Jiffi32]

Nice to here, it is a game breaker in the DAC segment, that wipes the floor with all of the other High End brands tech/spec wise.

Where the jump as big btw the DSX1000 (QBD76) vs DAVE as with HUGO vs DAVE in your opinion?

I Dem'd the dsx1000 originally and found it slightly better than hugo, but decided to go with hugo and wait for what turned out to be Dave.
Sitting listening to my hugo today and listening to music that I listened to yesterday on Dave. Even on an unfamiliar system Dave is far more emotionally engaging than hugo. Soundstage depth on Dave is massive, focus and solidity are also greatly improved.
I think I have Dave withdrawal

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

 
I Dem'd the dsx1000 originally and found it slightly better than hugo, but decided to go with hugo and wait for what turned out to be Dave.
Sitting listening to my hugo today and listening to music that I listened to yesterday on Dave. Even on an unfamiliar system Dave is far more emotionally engaging than hugo. Soundstage depth on Dave is massive, focus and solidity are also greatly improved.
I think I have Dave withdrawal

 
Sounds like my Blu & QBD76 linked to my KGST to my 009's  

 

[Beolab]

I Dem'd the dsx1000 originally and found it slightly better than hugo, but decided to go with hugo and wait for what turned out to be Dave.
Sitting listening to my hugo today and listening to music that I listened to yesterday on Dave. Even on an unfamiliar system Dave is far more emotionally engaging than hugo. Soundstage depth on Dave is massive, focus and solidity are also greatly improved.
I think I have Dave withdrawal

Sounds like the DAVE is a breakthrough!

My QBD76 Coral stand is alu silver but i think a black DAVE ould be the winner!?

 

[Jiffi32]

Totally agree black is definitely the better finish, dial and buttons will be silver  

 

[lovethatsound]

Sounds like the DAVE is a breakthrough!

My QBD76 Coral stand is alu silver but i think a black DAVE ould be the winner!?

So would you say,dave is alot better than the Hugo,bearing in mind that the Hugo is £1400 and dave is £8000.also did you listen 2 dave with the chord blu transport?and if so did it sound alot better than the qdb76 with the chord blu transport?

 

[highfell]

So I attended the Audio Show in the East of England and was fortunate to be there for the worldwide launch of Dave from Chord on its second day. Apparently there are only two presently in the country only, the one I heard and one with the no cover which is with Rob to tweak.

Their sales director Colin hosted a one hour demonstration. Members of the audience chose the following tracks :

Track from So - Gabriel
Bijou - Queen
"Heavy rock" - Royal Blood
Territories - Rush
Second track of Quadraphenia by the Who
Many Rivers to Cross - Joe Cocker
Man Machine - Kraftwork : some of the electronic bits sounded gorgeous
Wrong - Depeche Mode : lots of complex stuff going on, deep bass, electronic really enjoyed it
Piano concerto - sounded very analogue, just like the pianist was in the room, fluid like running water, echo/sustain like a real piano
Wonderful World - Ottis Reading
Babylon Sisters - Groucho - Steely Dan
Tango in the night - Fleetwood Mac

Dave was played through PMC Fact 12 Speakers (£12,000 speakers), which were never going to be too shabby.

So how did Dave sound.

* Very clean sound. It just had musicality
* Not harsh
* Fabulously expansive sound stage
* Easy ability to deal with the wide dynamic range of the music being played.
* It was like a Hugo on steroids



As the audience chose a track each there was as you can see very varied music but Dave wasn't phased by anything thrown at it. It just dealt with everything effortlessly and the 60 mins just shot by. It was just wonderful to listen to.

There was no A/B comparison with Hugo, but I can only state how good it sounded. I have to say that the piano solo piece really surprised me. It really showed the class of Dave.

Do I want one - Yes I do.

 

[Beolab]

Thanks for the nice wright up!

Its funny you say; "Dave handled all sorts of misic"

Im going to be a little picky here, because after all they did not do a A+B comparison, so it is impossible to recognise and isolate just DAVE in the signal path. So most likley you liked the sound of the speakers and the rest of the pakage including the DAVE.

I will take all statments with a grain of salt before i here someone who have actually herard a proper A+B comparison, because it is impossible to say A was better than
B if you only have heard A.

 

[TokenGesture]

Also not enough acoustic stuff. Interesting you praised the solo piano as it with acoustic instruments that you can really hear the lifelike quality of Hugo.

 

[Jiffi32]

There was a comparison on Friday going from DSX1000 to Dave and the improvement was night and day. The DSX is a marginal improvement over hugo.
Colin said that Dave will be in dealers late oct/nov if all goes to plan.

 

[lovethatsound]

Hi chord,I'd like 2 ask you a question if i may.On the QBD 76 you have 2 AES balanced inputs so you can run in DUAL DATA Mode from the blu cd transport,I'm using this method now and 2 me it sounds slightly better than using the coax DUAL INPUTS,but DAVE only has 1 AES balance input,so no DUAL up sampling from the BLU transport from the AES output 2 DAVE.Could this not be changed before DAVE went into production?I'm sure their's many chord blu user's out there who would appreciate being able 2 use DUAL OUTPUT from AES 2 DAVE.Thanks for your time.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

Hi chord,I'd like 2 ask you a question if i may.On the QBD 76 you have 2 AES balanced inputs so you can run in DUAL DATA Mode from the blu cd transport,I'm using this method now and 2 me it sounds slightly better than using the coax DUAL INPUTS,but DAVE only has 1 AES balance input,so no DUAL up sampling from the BLU transport from the AES output 2 DAVE.Could this not be changed before DAVE went into production?I'm sure their's many chord blu user's out there who would appreciate being able 2 use DUAL OUTPUT from AES 2 DAVE.Thanks for your time.

A++   Totally agree.   The Blu is a great CD Transporter especially duel balanced out !