CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[Sonic77]

The Blue is a CD transport from CHORD.

oh ok

 

[Sonic77]

I meant I would like to see it widely adopted including in Chord Electronics products Sonic77

Me too that would be great, but it was never mentioned.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

For me, any protocol which encourages studios to go back and remaster in a more meticulous manner, significantly reduces file size without degradation of sound quality and (according to the vast majority of pro listeners), leap frogs existing digital and vinyl to deliver something more akin to the clarity of the master tape is a beneficial development for the industry as a whole. People will pay good money for superior quality and everyone benefits.

I hope that all Manufacturers of audiophile products adopt MQA. That would leave the customer as the arbiter of viability and as with vinyl, the customer has proved a worthy custodian.

 

[smial1966]

A heads up for any UK head-fiers interested in auditioning DAVE in a two channel and headphone rig, HiFi Lounge will have two DAVE'S on demonstration throughout Saturday 5th December. 
 
Further details are here - http://hifilounge.tumblr.com/post/133521817158/chord-electronics-open-day-dec-5th-come-and-say
 
I have no affiliation with HiFi Lounge apart from being a customer eager to hear DAVE. Hope to see some thread contributors at this event. 

 

[Duncan]

I would love to see / hear Dave in action, and Hi-Fi Lounge is less than 10 miles from my house, but I have a conference and then my works Xmas party over that weekend

 

[smial1966]

Duncan,
 
Sorry to hear that you can't make the HiFi Lounge event. I'll report back with my listening impressions but they'll be subjective and peculiar to my hearing. Although it should be easy enough to determine whether DAVE wows me or not. 

 
Quote:

I would love to see / hear Dave in action, and Hi-Fi Lounge is less than 10 miles from my house, but I have a conference and then my works Xmas party over that weekend

 

[wisnon]

MQA is for quality streaming. It has NOTHING over a home HD setup where space costs little for the full High rez music. I have heard MQA and didnt find anything special.
 
As for all those who think DSD is flawed, try to get to hear it on a quality DSD Dac that does it right. ..like chipless Lampizator of Jussi's DSD Dac1. Literally nothing else sounds like this in the digital domain.

 

[wisnon]

For me, any protocol which encourages studios to go back and remaster in a more meticulous manner, significantly reduces file size without degradation of sound quality and (according to the vast majority of pro listeners), leap frogs existing digital and vinyl to deliver something more akin to the clarity of the master tape is a beneficial development for the industry as a whole. People will pay good money for superior quality and everyone benefits.

I hope that all Manufacturers of audiophile products adopt MQA. That would leave the customer as the arbiter of viability and as with vinyl, the customer has proved a worthy custodian.

If its so great, then how comes that everytime its demoed, they never do old version vs MQA version?
 
IT is really only for quality streaming. I fear you are setting yourself up for disappointment. There was nothing earth shattering in tmy MQA demo.
 
If you want (relatively) earth shattering, investigate Bughead Emperor playback engine for Digital. My recommendation is to feed it an upconverted DSD256 diet.

 

[Rob Watts]

Because no one are willing to answer my question i have digged out the power spec of the headphone output my self:

It got: 6,75 V RMS with 0,5 A current @ 33 Ohms = 3,3 Watts

Hugo: 5 V RMS with 0,5 A current @ 33 Ohms = 2,5 Watts

Is this correct @Rob Watts ?

No not quite, the 6.75 V is 300 ohms loaded, and the 0.5A RMS is the current limit. I am back home now for a few days, and do some measurements.
 
I sent Chord final code last week, it has been tested, and a few minor control issues need tweaking. Update is happening as I type. So I expect to deliver production code to Chord early next week. Then I am off to Asia with a production Dave for some shows.
 
Rob

 

[Whazzzup]

Might be a little heavy with the trigger finger but in Canada after contacting the distributor and then being referred to retail, I can't get a reply as to price, availability, ordering protocol, etc... I guess I got to chill.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Wisnon
The majority of debate over MQA seems to continually centre on either a) Lack of a/b comparison or b) What Meridian does to the file. In the same way that science said we could not hear beyond a certain frequency both are irrelevant to professional ears that know a significant change when they hear it.

You may not have been impressed by MQA but I would prefer to trust the ears of the vast majority of professionals who say there is a significant difference than somebody I do not know on the Internet. If you prefer DSD then good for you but IMO DSD is fundamentally flawed as a protocol judging by my own ears, so I am unlikely to lean toward your view of MQA.

 

[wisnon]

Dave, I am far from the only person saying this about MQA.
 
It is clearly for improving streaming and other than that, I dont hold out much hope.
 
Feel free to think that DSD is fundamentally flawed, thoufgh I suspsect you may never have heard DSD done right (likely heard DSd in PCM drag). You are certainly very entitled to all your views and it is not my job to convince you of anything.
 
Where I do hold one advantage, is that I have heard ALL these things we speak of here. I have heard the DAVE for a bit in Warsaw, I own an EX, spent quite some hours with Hugo in a critical listedning session, heard MQA for about 20 mins, an own DSD "done right." I also have a VERY extensive DSD library. Very surpising what you can get out of 1 bit streaming!
 
Anyway, I suspect you will not object to my opinion that DAVE sounds very good with PCM and may turn out to be have a very high price/performance ratio!
 
Perhaps Rob will choose to elaborate on what he did different for DSD on teh DAVE as opposed to Hugo. I though Hugo DSd was "horrible", and far below its PCM!

 

[wisnon]

Might be a little heavy with the trigger finger but in Canada after contacting the distributor and then being referred to retail, I can't get a reply as to price, availability, ordering protocol, etc... I guess I got to chill.

Let me guess at $13,500. I am sure it wont be far off….likely a tad less.

 

[Rob Watts]

SW updates - yes there could be ones, but only if I actually get some worthwhile SQ improvements or a new feature becomes available.
 
It is limited to back to Chord, or I can potentially do updates when I visit distributors.
 
AES EBU - the reason its not dual data is because the format is technically poor. Simply use the dual BNC connection. With BNC I have got 768 kHz to work reliably, its impossible to do that with AES EBU.
 
Rob 

 

[Rob Watts]

  Dave, I am far from the only person saying this about MQA.
 
It is clearly for improving streaming and other than that, I dont hold out much hope.
 
Feel free to think that DSD is fundamentally flawed, thoufgh I suspsect you may never have heard DSD done right (likely heard DSd in PCM drag). You are certainly very entitled to all your views and it is not my job to convince you of anything.
 
Where I do hold one advantage, is that I have heard ALL these things we speak of here. I have heard the DAVE for a bit in Warsaw, I own an EX, spent quite some hours with Hugo in a critical listedning session, heard MQA for about 20 mins, an own DSD "done right." I also have a VERY extensive DSD library. Very surpising what you can get out of 1 bit streaming!
 
Anyway, I suspect you will not object to my opinion that DAVE sounds very good with PCM and may turn out to be have a very high price/performance ratio!
 
Perhaps Rob will choose to elaborate on what he did different for DSD on teh DAVE as opposed to Hugo. I though Hugo DSd was "horrible", and far below its PCM!

The DSD filtering is much more complex that with Hugo, simply because I have more space on the FPGA. There is almost no limit to how much filtering you need to do to remove the HF distortion and noise that the DSD noise shaper generates. Out of band noise creates intermodulation distortion with analogue electronics, if the noise is random then the distortion is random, so you then get noise floor modulation. The brain is very sensitive to noise floor modulation, and perceives it as a brightness to the sound, so reducing it makes it sound smoother and darker. There is virtually no limit to how small noise floor modulation needs to be, so any trace of HF and RF noise is audible.
 
Just to give you an idea how sensitive RF/HF noise is, I have a HF filter option with Dave. This is a 60 kHz filter, and is used to remove the ADC noise shaper noise from 192k, DXD and 384k recordings. Now with DXD recordings it works a treat, its much smoother and darker. But oddly, you can hear the benefit with 44.1k - even CD sounds smoother. Now that was very unexpected, as the WTA filter has at worst 120 dB of filtering, and typically (for music sources) is 140dB. So HF noise is below -140 dB for CD, but an extra stage of filtering gives a subjective benefit - and its down to the reduction of HF/RF noise. Just to illustrate the problem DSD64 is -20dB down at 100kHz.    
 
With Dave, I had the freedom to make much more elaborate filters - and ended up with a non decimating design that used 64 DSP cores alone. But it would not fit with the large PCM WTA filters, so Dave has two modes - PCM+ and DSD+. PCM+ is 164k taps, and has Hugo DSD 64/128/256 filter. DSD+ is 82k taps PCM and has the better DSD filter, and also supports DSD512. You can use DSD+ with video, as the group delay is smaller, although most projectors have enough delay to match PCM+ delay.
 
Rob