CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[mtoc]

Not much people have seen this level of going-naked
 

 

[miketlse]

  Not much people have seen this level of going-naked
 

The 4 fasteners at the corners of the lid, do not align with any fastener holes in the base. Are they used to attach the display board or something similar?

 

[EVOLVIST]

Evolvist
The room in which you heard your friends great setup, did it have much acoustic treatment?

Zero. None. Plaster walls and a plaster ceiling. Indeed, I've just arrived here and we're going to crudely A/B the Mytek vs. DAVE. What kills me isn't the DAC, though; it's how he's getting away with a D-Sonic amp that sounds as transparent as any high-end SS amp I've ever heard.

EDIT: From my understanding, though, there's no way that the switching mechanism in a class D is going to keep up with the DAVE. Therefore, what might be a pleasing sound, nevertheless, kills the some of DAVE's benefit? I think perhaps so, with my limited knowledge of how thingys operate.

 

[ecwl]

Not much people have seen this level of going-naked

When I upgraded from QBD76 to QBD76HDSD, my local dealer opened the unit up and did the upgrade in front of me so I did have the pleasure of seeing it up close. It was fascinating. Especially since my dealer has opened up other DACs for inspection/repair/upgrade. Doubt I'd do that with our DAVEs for quite some time.

 

[analogmusic]

Hello all,
 
what interconnects are you using with your Dave's and what is their cost?

 

[raypin]

Mm..for optical, I borrowed my Aurender Flow's optical cable (so it is free) . For USB, Audioquest Diamond (retail 550 usd) . For balanced, I use Atlas Asimi Silver XLR 1.0 m (retail Gbp 3,200.00).

 

[highfell]

The internal workings of Chord DACs (in terms of functional activity blocks) have been well explained by Rob Watts in several posts in the Mojo, DAVE, and possibly the Blu2 threads.
These posts will be interesting reading for you - sadly I do not have the links to hand.

However in very simple terms, the black box that everyone buys as a DAC:

1. starts by taking the input signal (usb, optical, coax etc) and ensures that the jitter and other 'noise' is removed
2. upscales the input signal using several stages (to achieve the 164,000 taps in the DAVE)
3. performs the conversion of the upscaled digital signal to analogue
4. outputs the analogue signal to the headphone or amplifier ports

DAVE normally performs all this single handedly.
The picture changes slightly now that the M Scalar is available. In the Blu2, the M Scalar takes the standard RBCD signal, and upscales it to a far greater amount (500,000 taps). This signal can then be fed to the DAVE (and soon the Hugo 2), where it is used to bypass the initial DAVE upscaling stages, and the DAVE just performs the last stage of upscaling (to achieve 1,000,000 taps), followed by the conversion to analogue as before. This means that the initial upscaling stages in DAVE are redundant if you also have a Blu2 or MScaler, but at present only Rob Watts or Chord possess any of those.


Overall this does mean that future DACs could be split into two discrete modules - the plug-in upscalar, plus the final DAC unit.
In principle you could keep the final DAC unit for many years, but periodically upgrade the upscalar unit.    

At the Bristol show yesterday, a Chord employee said that the M Scaler in the Blu2 upscales using 1M taps (not 500K) and then passes that digital signal to Dave and Dave's 164K taps

 

[Triode User]

RCA and XLR audio outputs I make up my own solid silver. By that I mean I literally make them with silversmith wire, not just terminating shop bought cut lengths of cable.
 
USB in I can't remember, nothing special, certainly not over 30 UKP. 
 
.

 

[Mojo ideas]

What is the price of the mega-scaler? It doesn't exist! You have chosen to package it with a cd mechanism in an elaborate case, which must put it's price up substantially and has clearly reduced it's appeal, so meaning each unit has to bear a bigger proportion of the development costs, putting the price up even more. There is a huge demand from DAVE owners for a stand alone M Scaler. Such a product would benefit not only DAVE owners who play back music from their hard drives or streamers, but people who already have a perfectly decent CD mechanism - they could just slot it between their CD mech and their DAVE. Indeed it would help this latter group to cleanly transition to computer based playback if they wished, leaving them their old mechanism to sell when and if they make the move. Win Win for your customers. And Sell Sell for Chord.

please try to understand our pricing policy is always fair. When We at Chord and Rob decide to make a product that has never existed before and often involves years of design and programming. We are often unsure if a design will be a sortafter success or not. This is purely because we have nothing to measure it against as the new design has no piers or competitors. So to take something like the mega scaler and to try to recover the costs by gearing up to produce very large numbers at a marginal cost would just be foolish as there would be too much risk. It's far more advisable to recover the developement cost over a limited but higher valuable number of premium products and then perhaps at a later time carry out a marketing exercise to see if a cost reduced design is possible and is worth doing.

 

[EVOLVIST]

Zero. None. Plaster walls and a plaster ceiling. Indeed, I've just arrived here and we're going to crudely A/B the Mytek vs. DAVE. What kills me isn't the DAC, though; it's how he's getting away with a D-Sonic amp that sounds as transparent as any high-end SS amp I've ever heard.

EDIT: From my understanding, though, there's no way that the switching mechanism in a class D is going to keep up with the DAVE. Therefore, what might be a pleasing sound, nevertheless, kills the some of DAVE's benefit? I think perhaps so, with my limited knowledge of how thingys operate.

Okay, so after this deep dive listening session, yes, the Eggleston speakers are, indeed, special. The D-Sonic amp mated much better with the Mytek, to where I would say it was a very musical combination. However, enter DAVE.

We all agreed that the ability to sperate more complex passages was the DAVE's forte, as well as giving more of a sense of depth. The Mytek Brooklyn had this "analog sheen," but in the end its realism was largely based upon just a few instruments playing at one time. Any polyphony was muddied and smeared. It sounded good, but not near as clear as DAVE. And yes, I got the feeling that the D-Sonic amp was holding it back, or perhaps "keeping up" is the right phrase.

In short, if I had never heard the DAVE this would be the most beautiful rig I had ever heard. Putting the DAVE in the chain amplified the rig's shortcomings (and this is not the first time I've heard DAVE do this).

If we had had an amp worthy of DAVE's powers I have a feeling it would have been a near orgasmic experience.

Now I continue to wait for my Omega CAMs.

 

[maxh22]

Okay, so after this deep dive listening session, yes, the Eggleston speakers are, indeed, special. The D-Sonic amp mated much better with the Mytek, to where I would say it was a very musical combination. However, enter DAVE.

We all agreed that the ability to sperate more complex passages was the DAVE's forte, as well as giving more of a sense of depth. The Mytek Brooklyn had this "analog sheen," but in the end its realism was largely based upon just a few instruments playing at one time. Any polyphony was muddied and smeared. It sounded good, but not near as clear as DAVE. And yes, I got the feeling that the D-Sonic amp was holding it back, or perhaps "keeping up" is the right phrase.

In short, if I had never heard the DAVE this would be the most beautiful rig I had ever heard. Putting the DAVE in the chain amplified the rig's shortcomings (and this is not the first time I've heard DAVE do this).

If we had had an amp worthy of DAVE's powers I have a feeling it would have been a near orgasmic experience.

Now I continue to wait for my Omega CAMs.

So given what you heard would you prefer the Dave or Mytek in that system?

 

[EVOLVIST]

So given what you heard would you prefer the Dave or Mytek in that system?

The DAVE. By far the DAVE. Even being held back/colored by what I perceive to be the amp, the DAVE was still able to provide more depth and instrument seperation. The DAVE simply provides all of those missing percentages of sound that once heard, no matter how fun the other DAC is, like the Mytek, you can't unhear the DAVE, and neither would you want to.

Like I said, the Mytek when fed just a few instruments and voice sounds just about as good as anything, which to me means that it fights above it's class. Yet, as soon as you add a little more to the mix (and it doesn't take much) the Mytek, compared to the DAVE, begins to smear, and the DAVE doesn't.

 

[adyc]

The DAVE. By far the DAVE. Even being held back/colored by what I perceive to be the amp, the DAVE was still able to provide more depth and instrument seperation. The DAVE simply provides all of those missing percentages of sound that once heard, no matter how fun the other DAC is, like the Mytek, you can't unhear the DAVE, and neither would you want to.

Like I said, the Mytek when fed just a few instruments and voice sounds just about as good as anything, which to me means that it fights above it's class. Yet, as soon as you add a little more to the mix (and it doesn't take much) the Mytek, compared to the DAVE, begins to smear, and the DAVE doesn't.

This is usually the case. Complex music is what separates men from boys.

Like video, 480 and 4K are not much different for simple picture. Once one go to complex details pictures, 4K is much superior.

 

[Christer]

This is usually the case. Complex music is what separates men from boys.

Like video, 480 and 4K are not much different for simple picture. Once one go to complex details pictures, 4K is much superior.

And still, most reviewers use simple electronica or pop rock  material when reviewing  anything from DACs to highend speakers and amps.
A sad state of affairs imho.
Crap in= crap out.

 

[lovethatsound]

And still, most reviewers use simple electronica or pop rock  material when reviewing  anything from DACs to highend speakers and amps.
A sad state of affairs imho.
Crap in= crap out.

What's crap to you,might not be crap to someone else . I'm lucky i like lots of different types of music.christer I'm sure you love the type of music you listen to,BUT remember people love their type of music,just as much as you love yours☺