[agisthos]

Remember the Nagra DAC is built around DSD processing. So when​ comparing it to DAVE, are they talking about DSD or PCM music?
 
From what I can gather, Chord products are designed to extract the best sound from Redbook and PCM, which is fine by me, as listening to test tracks gets boring, real fast.

 

[Raika]

  Remember the Nagra DAC is built around DSD processing. So when​ comparing it to DAVE, are they talking about DSD or PCM music?
 
From what I can gather, Chord products are designed to extract the best sound from Redbook and PCM, which is fine by me, as listening to test tracks gets boring, real fast.

ok that is very important point ,I took this from  mr isquirrel  : I believe Nagra converts everything to DSD . me too I believe that

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Beolab
I think Rob intimated somewhere it was Crystal. Read so much over the last couple of weeks that I can't remember where!

 

[JaZZ]

«...So a regular quartz oscillator is best sounding...»

 
From Rob's post.

 

[Hiyono]

Maybe Rob Watts can give us more imformation. Does Dave use 4 FPGAs? What task does each one do?

"Like Hugo, Hugo TT and 2Qute, this is another FPGA-code fest from Rob Watts. Four FPGAs sit at the centre of the Dave. Providing financial context at the 2015 Munich High-End Show launch, Watts contrasts the ~US$300 price of a single Xilinx Spartan FPGA chip with that of an off-the-shelf decoder from the likes or Texas Instruments or AKM, the typical cost of which cost is US$4."
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/05/chord-electronics-launch-dave-dac-at-munich-high-end-2015/

 

[audiobill]

I wouldn't even try to speak for Rob, but I don't believe that each of the four FPGAs are used for a specific task or function. My understanding is that their combined parallel processing power is what's required to perform the level of computation needed to implement the 164,000 taps and extreme upsampling algorithms that Rob is implementing in DAVE. There are 166 separate DSP cores being used to implement the WTA filtering alone.

 

[Beolab]

And MSB charge $4400 - $8800 for a new upgrade Crystal Femto clock ladder, i wounder what the producing cost realy is, maybe 10% of the price or even lower if we look at the processor industry.

My gues is next gen DACs are based on a Intel XEON "FPGA" chipset instead of the Xilinx Spartan, for even more clock speed and faster calculations like Apple did for example.

They started with IBM processors and later switched to Intel..

 

[agisthos]

Its possible the FPGA part of the XEON is not that large. Or it may be way better than the Xilinx products?

 

[Rob Watts]

Dave has a single FPGA, with about ten times the capacity of Hugo's. I don't know where 4 came from, that would have been the DAC 64.
 
It controls everything, including the display, which means that apart from the USB decoder (which is not on Dave's ground as its galvanically isolated), there are no other digital processing devices. This way I get the lowest possible noise, with everything running from the crystal oscillator. That said, it was a pain creating my own font generator to drive the display.
 
It uses 5A of current, just to feed the FPGA, so has a big heatsink clamped to the device. 
 
Just to further clarify - Dave is still a work in progress. So further (small) improvements are coming (made some last night). Also we have not released product for review as its not finished, so any impressions are based from shows only.
 
Another point - something I have only recently got working - there are two different programs for the FPGA function. One that gives the best PCM which is called PCM+, and one that gives best DSD, DSD+. The DSD+ has lower latency WTA for use with video if the latency of PCM+ is too long. PCM+ has Hugo's DSD filter. It takes about a second to switch modes.
 
The reason for this is because I wanted non decimating DSD filters, and to get the necessary filtering to remove the HF distortion and noise from DSD, required a lot of DSP resources - there is actually 64 cores running to do the DSD. And I could not get all this complexity to fit with the 164,000 taps together.
 
Rob

 

[Raika]

and what about the amp of dave ?
thanks for your info, waiting for more .

 

[rkt31]

wow yiggy is better than hugo, who says ? why even after months of release of yiggy ,no respectable  magazine has tested it ? any idea ? hugo is tested by almost all magazines and websites  as a  portable as well as desktop device and in my knowledge no magazine or website till date has given it a negative review for sound quality, except some dubious reviews by a member on this forum. i will again say don't believe the over hyped reviews of yiggy. compare your self. in many reviews the yiggy has been reported  has having coarse treble which initially might give the impression of extra detail but can induce fatigue in long listen. with hugo there is no such report for treble part ( again only a member of this forum complained about the hugo's treble ) even im very much interested in reviews of yiggy by a reputed magazine. pls inform when you find one  .

 

[OK-Guy]

in other news for USA & Canadian viewers... I have been reliably informed by Chord that 'Bluebird Music' will be making an announcement re-DAVE at the end of the week, this will include pricing, hth...

 
Link:  http://www.bluebirdmusic.com/

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Rob,
Thanks for the additional explanation.
 
You mention "PCM+ has Hugo's DSD filter" - Why use a legacy DSD filter for PCM+?

 

[audiobill]

  in other news for USA & Canadian viewers... I have been reliably informed by Chord that 'Bluebird Music' will be making an announcement re-DAVE at the end of the week, this will include pricing, hth...

 
Link:  http://www.bluebirdmusic.com/

At the bottom of the Bluebird Music webpage for DAVE, it states that the US retail is $16,000 US complete with integrated stand, ($20,900 Canadian).

 

[Beolab]

Dave has a single FPGA, with about ten times the capacity of Hugo's. I don't know where 4 came from, that would have been the DAC 64.

It controls everything, including the display, which means that apart from the USB decoder (which is not on Dave's ground as its galvanically isolated), there are no other digital processing devices. This way I get the lowest possible noise, with everything running from the crystal oscillator. That said, it was a pain creating my own font generator to drive the display.

It uses 5A of current, just to feed the FPGA, so has a big heatsink clamped to the device. 

Just to further clarify - Dave is still a work in progress. So further (small) improvements are coming (made some last night). Also we have not released product for review as its not finished, so any impressions are based from shows only.

Another point - something I have only recently got working - there are two different programs for the FPGA function. One that gives the best PCM which is called PCM+, and one that gives best DSD, DSD+. The DSD+ has lower latency WTA for use with video if the latency of PCM+ is too long. PCM+ has Hugo's DSD filter. It takes about a second to switch modes.

The reason for this is because I wanted non decimating DSD filters, and to get the necessary filtering to remove the HF distortion and noise from DSD, required a lot of DSP resources - there is actually 64 cores running to do the DSD. And I could not get all this complexity to fit with the 164,000 taps together.

Rob

@Rob Watts

Will DAVE and Hugo/Qute2 see new firmwares updates that the user can upgrade through USB input in future ?

Dave will also have MQA format support i hope in your final upgrades before launch??