[JaZZ]

Originally Posted by romaz /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
...once you hear Hugo 2 for yourself, you'll see because when I heard it for myself at CES, my first thoughts were "OMG, I'm listening to DAVE!" and it was only after a direct A/B at the Chord booth was I able to convince myself that DAVE was still noticeably better but this gap has definitely narrowed.  I would be willing to bet Hugo 2 by itself can outperform the combination of SGM 2015 and T+A 8.  At this point, I would consider Hugo 2 as the 2nd best DAC I've ever heard.

 
Wow, Roy, that's quite a statement!

And one that makes me all the more look forward to the Hugo 2 – which I probably won't be able to omit, also because I like the look. Thus a portable version of the DAVE...

 

[maxh22]

Wow, Roy, that's quite a statement! :tongue_smile: And one that makes me all the more look forward to the Hugo 2 – which I probably won't be able to omit, also because I like the look. Thus a portable version of the DAVE...

Dave JR aka Dogo

 

[romaz]

   
Wow, Roy, that's quite a statement!

And one that makes me all the more look forward to the Hugo 2 – which I probably won't be able to omit, also because I like the look. Thus a portable version of the DAVE...

Yes, it is a portable DAVE and one I could happily live with if something happened to my DAVE.  If the Mojo/Poly combo wasn't so darn convenient, I would feel compelled to sell my Mojo and get the Hugo 2.  DAVE is clearly better with not just more TAPS but also a better output stage and power supply but unless you compared the two directly, you wouldn't think you were missing out on anything.  It has 4 filter options (DAVE with HF filter, DAVE without HF filter, Mojo with HF filter and Mojo without HF filter) to give you different flavors.  I think DAVE will now be for those who want the best of the best and are looking to take full advantage of the M-scaler and possibly the digital amps.

 

[Christer]

   
You seem to misunderstand much about what is happening here.  HQPlayer and Rob's DACs both seek to accomplish the same thing, to bring you closer to the music by lifting veils resulting in greater depth and providing greater clarity of detail through upsampling.  HQPlayer's ambitions, however, are more modest and limited by the hardware platform they choose to use, meaning a PC or Mac.  To upsample to DSD512 (or DSD1024), you need an incredibly powerful and noisy machine and yet with the FPGA in DAVE, Rob can upsample much higher and with the M-scaler in Blu Mk2, even higher still.
 
According to Miska, upsampling with HQP from 16/44 to 11.4MHz yields something like 4M taps but according to Rob, his method of calculating taps is incorrect and if he were to use this same formula, DAVE would have tens of millions of taps.
 
Regardless, as I own 2 copies of HQPlayer (for Mac and Windows), a while back, I used my video editing PC which is an HP Z820 workstation with dual 8-core Xeons, 64GB of RAM and nVidia Quadro K5000 GPU with 1536 CUDA cores.  This machine was very capable of allowing me to smoothly upsample to DSD512 with HQP direct to DAVE but also using my microRendu as an HQPlayer NAA and yet DAVE sounded better without upsampling in every instance.
 
Here's another perspective for you to consider.  As someone who seems to really love HQPlayer and DSD, I'm assuming you've seen Michael Lavorgna's recent review of the T+A DAC 8 DSD:
 
http://www.audiostream.com/content/ta-dac-8#bvfTd64tcbAuVrwb.97
 
 
This DAC has obviously been very popular for many because of its more modest price and its ability to play DSD512.  In the review, he used a $16k SGM 2015 server to feed the T+A DAC 8 an upsampled DSD512 signal and claimed it was superior to most everything he had previously heard except his own TotalDac d1-Six and the dCS Rossini, which he felt were still better.  Well, if you recall, I used to own an even better TotalDac d1-monobloc and also directly compared DAVE to dCS' best Vivaldi DAC combined with dCS' Vivaldi Upsampler and very expensive dCS Master Clock and DAVE was better than both of these setups.  With the M-scaler, that gap grows even more.
 
The point is that much of what is happening with HQPlayer doesn't apply to the DAVE.  The rest of the world is trying to play catch up.
 
As to Ted, if you are referring to Ted Brady, yes, he's a good guy and a fan of Chord but to my knowledge, he has not heard/compared DAVE against what he has now.  As to his claim that upsampling through software is better?   Maybe better than their non-Chord DACs in stock form but as far as I have heard, it isn't better with the DAVE.  Is it cheaper?  Maybe if you have modest upsampling ambitions but if you have to buy a $16K SGR 2015 music server, then it's not.  In fact, once you hear Hugo 2 for yourself, you'll see because when I heard it for myself at CES, my first thoughts were "OMG, I'm listening to DAVE!" and it was only after a direct A/B at the Chord booth was I able to convince myself that DAVE was still noticeably better but this gap has definitely narrowed.  I would be willing to bet Hugo 2 by itself can outperform the combination of SGM 2015 and T+A 8.  At this point, I would consider Hugo 2 as the 2nd best DAC I've ever heard.
 
With Blu Mk 2, you seem to be blinded by the "obsolete rbcd player" that it contains as you completely ignore the M-scaler that can be used with other sources including a cheap Mac Mini. Despite its high cost, it is still considerably less expensive than an SGM 2015 music server and even when combined with the Hugo you already own will likely blow away even the best system that Miska can put together.

Thanks a lot for your initiated response to my questions romaz.
I was merely wondering and asking some hopefully in this context, legitimate  questions .Not stating any facts at all. And your insightful response puts things in a  clearer perspective!
Regarding HUGO 2 what kind of music and recordings/resolutions, where you listening to during that comparison with DAVE?
The typical audio showroom stuff Nora Jones/ Diana Krall and such is imho simply NOT good enough material to really  sort "the wheat from the chaff".
To come to any meaningful conclusions about actual SQ I absolutely need to hear some of my own  large scale symphonic reference material. The standard showfare  sounds similar enough on any decent DAC to me.
I hope both your "bold statement" on HUGO 2  will be as accurate as your views on DAVE even for me and my needs and listening habits in the long run.
But there seem to be some posts on the actual HUGO 2 thread that suggest that HUGO 2 might be just as sensitive to jitter /RF and such as HUGO without adding an external galvanic isolator to the equation. And considering all the problems I have had with HUGO in my home system particularly, that has  made me more than a bit worried that it won't do the job without some  imho unneccessary drawbacks.
For me it needs to perform close to SOTA, BOTH as a portable DAC via highend headphones directly and equally importantly back home via my  very power-hungry large  electrostatic speakers.
Priced around 2200 dollars, I actually very much expected HUGO 2 to include galvanic isolation which makes a huge difference in consistency between for example my admittedly  less resolving  Benchmark DAC 2 and  my very erratic/moody and unreliable HUGO in my home system.
I even discussed the obvious shortcomings of HUGO with Rob in Singapore when I had become more  aware of HUGO's not quite" perfect sound forever" both regarding  it being too low-powered and very sensitive to jitter/RF groundloops  and such problems. I got the impression he was well aware of those problems and  very kindly explained the reasons behind what I was experiencing. I actually asumed that Mark 2 would solve them without one having to buy external "problem solvers" from Audioquest/ Intona or any other company that specializes in sorting out such  problems when the manufacturer has not done so.
One of the most surprising posts I read here was when Rob recommended Jitterbug  even with DAVE under certain conditions.
And I am not ignoring M-scaler , far from it. What bothers me is why they chose to hide it in a largely obsolete product like a rbcd player.
As someone here said along the lines of:" I don´t mind buying an Ferrari, but I don´t want it with a steam engine."
Anyway cheers and thanks again Chris

 

[analogmusic]

for upscaling there is the WTA filter that Rob Invented and then every other method out there....?  Otherwise anyone with programming & Maths skills would be able to build such an upscaler in a short while, but it took Rob Watts 20 years to refine his WTA filter.

 

[romaz]

 
Thanks a lot for your initiated response to my questions romaz.
I was merely wondering and asking some hopefully in this context, legitimate  questions .Not stating any facts at all. And your insightful response puts things in a  clearer perspective!
Regarding HUGO 2 what kind of music and recordings/resolutions, where you listening to during that comparison with DAVE?
The typical audio showroom stuff Nora Jones/ Diana Krall and such is imho simply NOT good enough material to really  sort "the wheat from the chaff".
To come to any meaningful conclusions about actual SQ I absolutely need to hear some of my own  large scale symphonic reference material. The standard showfare  sounds similar enough on any decent DAC to me.
I hope both your "bold statement" on HUGO 2  will be as accurate as your views on DAVE even for me and my needs and listening habits in the long run.
But there seem to be some posts on the actual HUGO 2 thread that suggest that HUGO 2 might be just as sensitive to jitter /RF and such as HUGO without adding an external galvanic isolator to the equation. And considering all the problems I have had with HUGO in my home system particularly, that has  made me more than a bit worried that it won't do the job without some  imho unneccessary drawbacks.
For me it needs to perform close to SOTA, BOTH as a portable DAC via highend headphones directly and equally importantly back home via my  very power-hungry large  electrostatic speakers.
Priced around 2200 dollars, I actually very much expected HUGO 2 to include galvanic isolation which makes a huge difference in consistency between for example my admittedly  less resolving  Benchmark DAC 2 and  my very erratic/moody and unreliable HUGO in my home system.
I even discussed the obvious shortcomings of HUGO with Rob in Singapore when I had become more  aware of HUGO's not quite" perfect sound forever" both regarding  it being too low-powered and very sensitive to jitter/RF groundloops  and such problems. I got the impression he was well aware of those problems and  very kindly explained the reasons behind what I was experiencing. I actually asumed that Mark 2 would solve them without one having to buy external "problem solvers" from Audioquest/ Intona or any other company that specializes in sorting out such  problems when the manufacturer has not done so.
One of the most surprising posts I read here was when Rob recommended Jitterbug  even with DAVE under certain conditions.
And I am not ignoring M-scaler , far from it. What bothers me is why they chose to hide it in a largely obsolete product like a rbcd player.
As someone here said along the lines of:" I don´t mind buying an Ferrari, but I don´t want it with a steam engine."
Anyway cheers and thanks again Chris

 
The questions you ask are fair.  I believe we are all looking for value in our purchases and so it would seem foolish to have to buy the M-scaler bundled with another component we may never use but none of us have control over these marketing decisions.  I suppose if enough noise is made here on Head-Fi and other forums, John Franks could be persuaded to change his mind but as far as I recall being told, there are no plans to release a stand-alone M-scaler in the foreseeable future.  
 
I will say, however, that once you hear how good a Redbook CD sounds on Blu 2, you may continue to question the inconvenience of spinning CDs but I assure you that you won't question how good it sounds.  It will probably sound better than your high-res version of the same tracks played without the M-scaler.
 
As to the high price of the Blu 2, my gut tells me that even if Chord came out with a standalone M-scaler that it wouldn't be much cheaper and this may be for political reasons rather than because of high component costs.  Imagine what a cheap M-scaler would mean to the rest of the DAC world.  Remember, Chord DACs are unique and I believe this isn't because people don't believe the path Rob is on isn't the right path, it's because no one else knows how to do what Rob is doing.  Even Miska admitted he didn't know what a pulse array DAC is.  It seems everyone else's answer is to upsample to DSD, add more resistors, overbuild their PSUs or put tubes in the output stage to cover up for how compromised their digital conversion is and while there are other really good sounding DACs because of well-implemented analog stages, as far as fidelity to the recording, I have yet to hear anything as truthful to the recording as Rob's DACs.  I believe your ears told you the same thing when you heard the DAVE and so the broad availability of the M-scaler all of a sudden allows all DAC owners to benefit from Rob's decades of knowledge and experience.  But to give these folks access to 500k taps when a $13k Chord DAVE only has 164,000 taps, surely this cannot come cheaply without upsetting the many who own a DAVE.  
 
As for my reference music when evaluating a DAC, if you have read my recent comparison posts, then you would know how critical I am of the types of music that most rooms play at audio shows.  Studio recordings of Nora Jones, Diana Krall, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steely Dan, Daft Punk, etc.  Great music which I enjoy but child's play for most DACs and so it's hard if not impossible to draw any conclusions about DAC performance in these rooms.  Not to say it's not playing at other times when I'm not in those rooms but it amazes me how rarely I hear it and so I will let people draw their own conclusions about this.
 
As for Hugo 2, Rob has learned much since the original Hugo and I believe you will easily hear its merits once you get a chance to experience it for yourself regardless of what genre of music you throw at it.  I suspect it will hurt sales of the DAVE and if people can get over its small size and intended portable application, I am willing to bet it will cause people to question whether there's any reason at all to spend more for any DAC, even in a million dollar system.  I believe it is that good.

 

[analogmusic]

Hi Roy
 
Very nice post. Thank you for your clarifications.

 

[TokenGesture]

   
 
 
As for Hugo 2, Rob has learned much since the original Hugo and I believe you will easily hear its merits once you get a chance to experience it for yourself regardless of what genre of music you throw at it.  I suspect it will hurt sales of the DAVE and if people can get over its small size and intended portable application, I am willing to bet it will cause people to question whether there's any reason at all to spend more for any DAC, even in a million dollar system.  I believe it is that good.

 
Wow! 

 

[analogmusic]

Hi Roy
 
About Mscaler with other non-chord Dac, I am not convinced they will benefit much, as 50 % of the magic of a Chord DAC is the Pulse Array which gives the resolution of the small signals.
 
I think the only way to enjoy the benefits of the Mscaler million taps and what they can do for music is to first own DAVE and then use Mscaler. Why settle for 500,000 taps, when 1,000,000 was always the magic number mentioned by Rob to perfectly recreate the analog signal before the ADC.
 
Even Hugo 2 won't be able to use million taps, and can only use 500,000 maximum

 

[romaz]

  Hi Roy
 
About Mscaler with other non-chord Dac, I am not convinced they will benefit much, as 50 % of the magic of a Chord DAC is the Pulse Array which gives the resolution of the small signals.
 
I think the only way to enjoy the benefits of the Mscaler million taps and what they can do for music is to first own DAVE and then use Mscaler. Why settle for 500,000 taps, when 1,000,000 was always the magic number mentioned by Rob to perfectly recreate the analog signal before the ADC.
 
Even Hugo 2 won't be able to use million taps, and can only use 500,000 maximum

 
I am inclined to agree.  I don't think 500k taps absolves all sins but I believe it could have the potential to transform any DAC.  Imagine the $10k Blu Mk 2 with M-scaler that consumes no more than 30 watts and can upscale almost any DAC to 500k taps vs the $16k SGM 2015 that consumes hundreds of watts that upscales to DSD512 via HQPlayer.  I think the comparison is hilarious.
 
I also agree that the difference from 500k to 1M taps was no trivial matter to my ears and this remains a very strong argument for the DAVE.  Don't get me wrong, the difference from Hugo 2 to DAVE (without M-scaler) was still significant and instantly apparent but I do believe that Hugo 2 has now crossed that threshold where it is now much closer to DAVE than to Mojo.

 

[dmance]

  ... Remember, Chord DACs are unique and I believe this isn't because people don't believe the path Rob is on isn't the right path, it's because no one else knows how to do what Rob is doing.  

 
Roy,
I think you may have nailed it here...
 
I can recite all RW's posts from memory and discuss his DAC technology at dinner parties.  But I don't have a clue as to what is really going on.  I  'know' how a top-tier dac is supposed to look like with the lid off the box.  But I am aghast when topless DAVE photos reveals only a simple switching PSU, no toroid coil, no rows of fat capacitors; just mostly a single elegant FPGA under a heatsink.  And I am used to complex gadget filled playback chains that make demands on my money and patience to achieve top sound.  Wait, what?  I just plug my playback device into a DAVE to beat the competition? And now the Hugo2 - world class sound that you say is the 2nd best DAC you've heard (after DAVE).
 
These are devastating observations for Chord's competitors.  Regardless of price or market segment, it now seems to me that not choosing a RW dac is backing the wrong horse.  I've sold my other DACs and have a Hugo2 on order (for speaker playback in my main listening room).  If Chord's product onslaught continues to incorporate RW's designs then I can see more reasons to fully adopt a Chord stack - as expensive as that may be.
 
Thanks for your continued access to Rob Watts and insight into Chord's products. 
 
Dan

 

[bmichels]

  ... If the Mojo/Poly combo wasn't so darn convenient, I would feel compelled to sell my Mojo and get the Hugo 2....

 
So let's hope a "Super Poly" designed for HUGO 2 will come around.

 

[Mojo ideas]

The questions you ask are fair.  I believe we are all looking for value in our purchases and so it would seem foolish to have to buy the M-scaler bundled with another component we may never use but none of us have control over these marketing decisions.  I suppose if enough noise is made here on Head-Fi and other forums, John Franks could be persuaded to change his mind but as far as I recall being told, there are no plans to release a stand-alone M-scaler in the foreseeable future.  

I will say, however, that once you hear how good a Redbook CD sounds on Blu 2, you may continue to question the inconvenience of spinning CDs but I assure you that you won't question how good it sounds.  It will probably sound better than your high-res version of the same tracks played without the M-scaler.

As to the high price of the Blu 2, my gut tells me that even if Chord came out with a standalone M-scaler that it wouldn't be much cheaper and this may be for political reasons rather than because of high component costs.  Imagine what a cheap M-scaler would mean to the rest of the DAC world.  Remember, Chord DACs are unique and I believe this isn't because people don't believe the path Rob is on isn't the right path, it's because no one else knows how to do what Rob is doing.  Even Miska admitted he didn't know what a pulse array DAC is.  It seems everyone else's answer is to upsample to DSD, add more resistors, overbuild their PSUs or put tubes in the output stage to cover up for how compromised their digital conversion is and while there are other really good sounding DACs because of well-implemented analog stages, as far as fidelity to the recording, I have yet to hear anything as truthful to the recording as Rob's DACs.  I believe your ears told you the same thing when you heard the DAVE and so the broad availability of the M-scaler all of a sudden allows all DAC owners to benefit from Rob's decades of knowledge and experience.  But to give these folks access to 500k taps when a $13k Chord DAVE only has 164,000 taps, surely this cannot come cheaply without upsetting the many who own a DAVE.  

As for my reference music when evaluating a DAC, if you have read my recent comparison posts, then you would know how critical I am of the types of music that most rooms play at audio shows.  Studio recordings of Nora Jones, Diana Krall, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steely Dan, Daft Punk, etc.  Great music which I enjoy but child's play for most DACs and so it's hard if not impossible to draw any conclusions about DAC performance in these rooms.  Not to say it's not playing at other times when I'm not in those rooms but it amazes me how rarely I hear it and so I will let people draw their own conclusions about this.

As for Hugo 2, Rob has learned much since the original Hugo and I believe you will easily hear its merits once you get a chance to experience it for yourself regardless of what genre of music you throw at it.  I suspect it will hurt sales of the DAVE and if people can get over its small size and intended portable application, I am willing to bet it will cause people to question whether there's any reason at all to spend more for any DAC, even in a million dollar system.  I believe it is that good.

I must pick you up on one point sorry but Robs Dac design are not sensitive to jitter in fact they are intrinsically all highly insensitive to jittery signals by virtue of their design and all are far less sensitive than virtually all other Dacs

 

[romaz]

I must pick you up on one point sorry but Robs Dac design are not sensitive to jitter in fact they are intrinsically all highly insensitive to jittery signals by virtue of their design and all are far less sensitive than virtually all other Dacs

I agree with you, John.  That comment came from somone else.

 

[Mojo ideas]

I agree with you, John.  That comment came from somone else.

I thought it must have