[Beolab]

The Nagra CD does not have any USB socket unfortunately - they made a design decsion 6+ years ago that USB was not the way to go for them.. Toslink is the best of the digital outputs available (from a comparison last year with Yggy DAC).

I think you missunderstod my post, we try one more time

If you toggle between Nagra connected with Toslink VS your windows PC connected with USB to you DAVE at the same time , what do you feel today after the long upgrade process has been refined / sound better?

Then it is fun to read all post about every single thing we/they do with their systems, the result is always to the better, that is not even close to be true, but i am happy for everyones stong belives in their own happy world.

Try to mesaure the output distortion/jitter/RF of DAVE every time you do an upgrade or mesaure the RF noise, then we got a nice direction if the home made soultiin was an SQ upgrade or not.

I think the biggest diffrence is the inputs on DAVE sounds diffrently, where the USB are more supreme, so i think it is not only your home made power solutions / micro rendu / hq player / cat 6 cable / surge a d mire that give you this sound, it is mostly because of the USB input port sounds diffrent to Toslink or Coax and AES on DAVE.

 

[TheAttorney]

I think you missunderstod my post, we try one more time

If you toggle between Nagra connected with Toslink VS your windows PC connected with USB to you DAVE at the same time , what do you feel today after the long upgrade process has been refined / sound better?

Attorney: My PC doesn't have Toslink. But I did say that JRMC direct USB to DAVE was broadly equivalent in SQ (with different sound signatures) to Nagra CDC optical direct to DAVE. Compared to either of those start points, I'd say my end result combination was greater than a couple of major component upgrades. Comfotably greater, say, than I noticed at the time when moving from Yggy DAC to DAVE. Would Yggy have scaled quite as well as DAVE to have shown up each of these incremental improvements? I can't really say, as I no longer have the Yggy.

Then it is fun to read all post about every single thing we/they do with their systems, the result is always to the better, that is not even close to be true, but i am happy for everyones stong belives in their own happy world.

Attorney: I don't accept this at all. I only post the results that I think will be useful or interesting. I don't bore readers with all the times I hear no difference. Just imagine if every other post on every forum went like this: "Hey guys, amazing news!!! I just compared A to B and guess what? I heard no difference whatsoever. I was floored!!!" I didn't, for example, post that I heard no difference between my Monoprice and a no-name ethernet cable. Or that I had trouble deciding if I preferred the "dynamic" side or the "soft" side of which fuse direction to choose. Becuase too much information may dilute the key points I wanted to highlight. But I did say that the HRS footer made a difference to my MCRU, but no obvious difference to my DAVE, to show how system dependent that kind of tweak can be.

Try to mesaure the output distortion/jitter/RF of DAVE every time you do an upgrade or mesaure the RF noise, then we got a nice direction if the home made soultiin was an SQ upgrade or not.

Attorney: No chance. I don't have the time, inclination, equipment or skills to do that. This is a fun hobby, not a scientific experiment, for me. We each have to decide if another person's impressions are interesting enough for us to try something new.

I think the biggest diffrence is the inputs on DAVE sounds diffrently, where the USB are more supreme, so i think it is not only your home made power solutions / micro rendu / hq player / cat 6 cable / surge a d mire that give you this sound, it is mostly because of the USB input port sounds diffrent to Toslink or Coax and AES on DAVE.

Attorney: That was absolutely not the point of my post. What I have demonstrated to myself is that USB (and computer hifi in general) is highly subject to improvements. This is a good thing if you enjoy trying out improvements. And a bad thing if you want a simple hifi journey. Personally, I hate the accumulation of little boxes and cables in my hifi system, but I have to go with it when the benefits are so obvious. If I can find a simpler but better alternative, I'll shout about it very loudly.

 

[TheAttorney]

  Any plans to try the Sonor LPSU?

No, I'm done with that aspect of my hifi chain for now. Maybe will try the SOtM products as I mentioned if I can get them on trial.
But otherwise I want to keep my system constant whilst waiting for my HEK V2 headphones to arrive in the next month or so (Hifiman have apperently none in stock to send to my dealer immediately).

 

[evilaci]

  I ran into John in Singapore at an audio show and after I mentioned I was a DAVE owner his ears perked up and with a sparkle in his eye he told me that there's going to be something interesting coming at CES. I recently confirmed with him via PM also that this is going to be ready for sale immediately after the product announcement in the first week of January. So this is clearly not going to be the Davina.
 
Time to save up, folks! In two weeks' time, you may want to buy yourself a post-Christmas present.

Do you think the Davina will be in the price range like the Dave?
Thanks

 

[Rob Watts]

Davina is a performance driven project, not something that is determined by price. So once the bill of materials costs are added up, then Chord will set the retail price. The vague intent is Dave retail I guess, but I am more concerned about performance than anything else.
 
Incidentally, I am currently finishing off the first PCB layout for Davina....
 
Rob

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Is this just a stereo I/o product Rob merely to showcase the technology, or is it a multi input device meant for the whole recording, mixing and mastering process?

 

[Rob Watts]

Bit of both - it has two basic modes - recording, so analogue in, digital out. Or post processing, so digital in, digital out but with different sample rates and bit depths. It can decimate or up-sample, or sample rate convert. I will be talking more about it after CES.
 
The primary intention is to make a 768 kHz 24 bit recording. Then later use Davina to post process this file into any format.
 
Rob

 

[rkt31]

great, I was curious about that too. recording in 24 bit 768khz and then using other solutions to get lower sample and bit depth does not make sense. digital in digital out to get different sample rates is what was needed in Davina.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Interesting. I look forward to hearing more about it Rob

 

[rkt31]

I am not expert so a question from rob. can Davina record directly from mic will it need an external preamp ( or internal preamp in Davina ) ?

 

[a1uc]

Im really liking this setup , purchased Roon its well worth the cost
the cost

 

[Nik]

My little discovery ... I ask to the expert if they confirms my thesis about correct polarity setting:

Positive polarity (+ correct) or negative polarity (- incorrect).

If the number of tracks on a CD is equal, the first track will be in phase, (+ polarity), the second inverted (- polarity) and so on all alternating: + - + - ...

If the number of tracks on a CD is odd, the first track will be out of phase, (- polarity), the second inverted (+ polarity) and so on all alternating: - + - +...

My conclusion is that this depends on the printing of the CD and its probably the criterion for which the laser of the CD player reads the information about the structure of the CD (number of the tracks...).

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

I am not expert so a question from rob. can Davina record directly from mic will it need an external preamp ( or internal preamp in Davina ) ?

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here. Obviously a dynamic mic (like Sure SM58) doesn't need phantom power but with a condenser mic, for instance 'Neumann' it is necessary. You probably knew that but producers/engineers are pretty particular as to what mic pre's they prefer and so unless Chord are going to license something like Focusrite grade A pre's, adding your own pre's and targeting top end studios would probably result in a pretty superfluous add-on imo.

 

[miketlse]

I think that Rob detailed his preferred microphones, especially from the viewpoint of capturing the directionality of sound sources, earlier in the thread.

 

[rkt31]

@DaveRedRef-III, thanks a lot for clarifying.