CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[DaveRedRef-III]

Chord amps used at Air Studios for near field monitoring

http://www.airstudios.com/the-studios/lyndhurst-hall/equipment-list/

 

[Sonic77]

  Hands up who reckons at least 50% of Blu sales, during the first 3 months, will be from rival DAC companies desperate to know what difference the M scaler makes to the performance of their own DACs, and to the performance of DAVE vs their own DACs?

​I'm sure Chord won't complain, but I might if it delays me getting my hands on this Cd Player

 

[romaz]

​I'm sure Chord won't complain, but I might if it delays me getting my hands on this Cd Player :bigsmile_face:

Blu 2 is expected to begin shipping in February.

 

[miketlse]

  Hands up who reckons at least 50% of Blu sales, during the first 3 months, will be from rival DAC companies desperate to know what difference the M scaler makes to the performance of their own DACs, and to the performance of DAVE vs their own DACs?

 
At first I thought, that there are not enough DAC companies, but if Chord are still only shipping a few Blu2s each month, then your estimate may not be far off the mark.

 

[Crgreen]

You seem to have overlooked the fact that Recording Studios have been asking for Davina based upon their assessment of Dave tech. It was they who suggested A Chord ADC rather than Chord touting the idea

As I said, I wasn't aware, but thanks to you, now I am. I'd no idea that Davina wasn't Rob's idea. That's one recording studio, which is a start I suppose. At the moment, we can't even get agreement on what kind of amplification Abbey Road uses, let alone whether they use a DAVE, but that would make two. Just how many recording studios are there?

 

[pkcpga]

Will chord add MQA soon since tidal is now streaming MQA and it has become more common. I listened to MQA through the meridian ultra dac and I have to admit I like the sound even better than dsd or cd. Can't imagine how great it would sound on the Dave.

 

[ecwl]

Will chord add MQA soon since tidal is now streaming MQA and it has become more common. I listened to MQA through the meridian ultra dac and I have to admit I like the sound even better than dsd or cd. Can't imagine how great it would sound on the Dave.

Hmmm. I already listened to MQA from Tidal using my Tidal for Windows app into Chord DAVE. Tidal app decodes the MQA stream back into 24/88 or 24/96 and plays it through the DAVE. As Romaz and Watts wondered if there's going to be a huge difference between 16/44 vs 24/96 in Blu Mk II, I have to say at least with a few tracks I heard through MQA compared to my CDs, I'm not hearing much of a difference through DAVE or even through Mojo (maybe a subtle difference with Mojo, not sure). I've found in the past 24/96 files are only marginally better than 16/44 with DAVE and noticeably but not dramatically better with Mojo. I think MQA is great for DACs with not enough tap length to upsample so MQA can both compress a 24/96 sound file to 24/48 in a lossy manner and it can tell the DAC the optimum upsampling filter with limited tap length to use. But I think for Chord DACs with much longer tap length for upsampling, the 16/44 to 24/96 upsampling is so close to the original 24/96 recording already, the benefits of MQA or even hi-res become more marginal.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

As I said, I wasn't aware, but thanks to you, now I am. I'd no idea that Davina wasn't Rob's idea. That's one recording studio, which is a start I suppose. At the moment, we can't even get agreement on what kind of amplification Abbey Road uses, let alone whether they use a DAVE, but that would make two. Just how many recording studios are there?

I think Rob indicated that they are not expecting to make big bucks from Davina but then again they had the same view of Hugo until it took off. I think the main benefit though will be raising the profile of Chord. Which is a good reason in itself.

Given what Romaz said earlier that Davina will be ADC and DAC I guess any studio interested in this tech would be more likely to wait and buy the Davina, especially at the price. I wish Chord well in this venture. They clearly have great product and are on a roll.

EDIT: 'not' expecting to make big bucks on Davina

 

[Crgreen]

According to Romaz' report, Davina will be a ADC and a DDC (upscaler). Obviously, the latter feature was never even hinted at previously, and it turns what appeared to be only a professional or hobby device into a real consumer product. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever be able to afford it for my DAVE and to use with my phono amp, though I could always trade in my preamp, which would then become redundant.

 

[miketlse]

According to Romaz' report, Davina will be a ADC and a DDC (upscaler). Obviously, the latter feature was never even hinted at previously, and it turns what appeared to be only a professional or hobby device into a real consumer product. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever be able to afford it for my DAVE and to use with my phono amp, though I could always trade in my preamp, which would then become redundant.

 
Rob has mentioned the ADC for many months, but a lot of readers failed to notice:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/5280#post_12948718
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/5160#post_12940973
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4830#post_12874921
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4785#post_12869814
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4740#post_12861944
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/3315#post_12646453
 
I think that someone posted that there is also info on the Rob Watts thread. 

 

[pkcpga]

Hmmm. I already listened to MQA from Tidal using my Tidal for Windows app into Chord DAVE. Tidal app decodes the MQA stream back into 24/88 or 24/96 and plays it through the DAVE. As Romaz and Watts wondered if there's going to be a huge difference between 16/44 vs 24/96 in Blu Mk II, I have to say at least with a few tracks I heard through MQA compared to my CDs, I'm not hearing much of a difference through DAVE or even through Mojo (maybe a subtle difference with Mojo, not sure). I've found in the past 24/96 files are only marginally better than 16/44 with DAVE and noticeably but not dramatically better with Mojo. I think MQA is great for DACs with not enough tap length to upsample so MQA can both compress a 24/96 sound file to 24/48 in a lossy manner and it can tell the DAC the optimum upsampling filter with limited tap length to use. But I think for Chord DACs with much longer tap length for upsampling, the 16/44 to 24/96 upsampling is so close to the original 24/96 recording already, the benefits of MQA or even hi-res become more marginal.

I have the luxury of having the Dave and now the ultra dac, with MQA the ultra dac seems to provide better separation and timing similar to dsd with much smaller and easily streamable sized files. So while I'm not ready to ditch the Dave for the ultra dac, I may wind up using the ultra dac for my home system instead. Even playing the tidal MQA through the cheap bluesound node 2 it definitely sounds much better than playing tidal hifi from it, since bluesound node 2 has an MQA dac. Cheap one but still sounds very nice for its price point. When I first heard MQA through a non mqa dac I didn't think all that much of it but with proper deciding I really like it and it's file size.

 

[Sonic77]

Blu 2 is expected to begin shipping in February.

Ok thanks that's good to know.

 

[ecwl]

I have the luxury of having the Dave and now the ultra dac, with MQA the ultra dac seems to provide better separation and timing similar to dsd with much smaller and easily streamable sized files. So while I'm not ready to ditch the Dave for the ultra dac, I may wind up using the ultra dac for my home system instead. Even playing the tidal MQA through the cheap bluesound node 2 it definitely sounds much better than playing tidal hifi from it, since bluesound node 2 has an MQA dac. Cheap one but still sounds very nice for its price point. When I first heard MQA through a non mqa dac I didn't think all that much of it but with proper deciding I really like it and it's file size.

I have to admit I am already changing my mind about my previous comments on MQA vs 16/44. I think it may depend on the source material. I wonder if some of those MQA files are just upsampled 24/44 to 24/88 like Bruno Mars. Probably some originally recorded MQA files do sound better than 16/44. But like I said, Meridian and other MQA DACs don't have long tap length filters like Chord DACs so using MQA to tell the DAC what digital upsampling filter to use once the file is decoded back to 24/88 or 24/96 probably make a bigger difference to sound quality.
 
I think ultimately, it just comes down to whether you like Ultra or DAVE more and how you like to play your files. If you have no way to decode your MQA stream to 24/88 or 24/96 and feed it to the DAVE, and you don't mind the Meridian Ultra, then maybe Ultra is the way to go for you. But if you like DAVE better, I personally would go through the extra effort of setting up a way to decode MQA stream to 24/88 or 24/96 by software and feed it to DAVE instead.

 

[Crgreen]

Rob has mentioned the ADC for many months, but a lot of readers failed to notice:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/5280#post_12948718

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/5160#post_12940973

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4830#post_12874921

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4785#post_12869814

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/4740#post_12861944

http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/3315#post_12646453

I think that someone posted that there is also info on the Rob Watts thread. 

Agreed, but that isn't what I said. I referred to two things and commented on "the latter feature" which is the DDC. The ADC is the "former" feature and has been discussed many times.

So far as I'm aware, for obvious reasons Rob has not mentioned the upscaler on this blog or anywhere else, but I stand to be corrected.

 

[pkcpga]

I have to admit I am already changing my mind about my previous comments on MQA vs 16/44. I think it may depend on the source material. I wonder if some of those MQA files are just upsampled 24/44 to 24/88 like Bruno Mars. Probably some originally recorded MQA files do sound better than 16/44. But like I said, Meridian and other MQA DACs don't have long tap length filters like Chord DACs so using MQA to tell the DAC what digital upsampling filter to use once the file is decoded back to 24/88 or 24/96 probably make a bigger difference to sound quality.

I think ultimately, it just comes down to whether you like Ultra or DAVE more and how you like to play your files. If you have no way to decode your MQA stream to 24/88 or 24/96 and feed it to the DAVE, and you don't mind the Meridian Ultra, then maybe Ultra is the way to go for you. But if you like DAVE better, I personally would go through the extra effort of setting up a way to decode MQA stream to 24/88 or 24/96 by software and feed it to DAVE instead.

So meridian rep explained there is a difference between computer deciding MQA files and dac decoding since dac decoding seem to play at 24/352.8 and not 24/88. I'm not super into the tech end of it but there is a noticeable sound difference playing through a MQA dac verse letting the app change it over for a non mqa dac. I've purchased a few album in mqa now as well and they really sound terrific for classical music verse standard cds and don't require the storage space of dsd. So I'm hoping the Dave will receive an update for mqa in the future even if I have to pay a fee to get the update.