[smial1966]

Phil,
 
Are you able to divulge how many clients units you've received? As it'd be cool to know how many DAVE's have been released via Custom Cable and are now in the `wild'. 

 
Quote:

I just wish I had a demo unit. All of the DAVEs we have received have all been client's units.

 

[PANURUS]

Panurus,have you tried any other headphones with Dave other them PM3?
Thanks for your words.

Yes. The Sennheizer HD800, the Grado GS1000e and the Stax SRS 3170. With the Stax, I have tested some WireWorld cable: the eclipe Gold and the eclipse silver. In november, I have listen the Grado and the Sennheizer with my Mojo.
So, my purpose the 5 december was not to evaluate the Dave with them.
It was: 1. Has the HD800, with Dave, the little more acidity in voice that i do not like? YES. In january, i can listen the HD800S.
2. Is the Grado,with Dave, a more pleasant product that my PM-3? Yes, but the differences are reduced.
3. Is the low cost Stax, a better way and if Yes, which cable to use?
Yes, with the Stax for the first time i was discovering the quality of the Dave with a cable at 450 euro. It was so much better. After few seconds i change for a 1800 euro/m cable.My direct impression: a little bad feeling has disappeard. And at this moment, i begin to listen music.
Bye bye streamer, cable, headphones, Dave and the rest.

I choose the Vangelis album: China. Directly go back near 1981. Is the DVD better that vinyl? With Dave, Yes for ever.

So i return to music. Now i can totally live the composition. Not a note come from a broken piano.

After that, for me the ultimate test: a vocal test in my language: french.

With Stax and Dave, i enter in the mind of the singer. I listen more that words. I see the pictures in his brain. I feel the word, in me at the good place, if he says: my hart.

So i can live the performance of the artist or the beauty of the notes with my mind in rest. Like meditation. The setup" dave + Stax" do not recall my mind.

 

[lovethatsound]

Yes. The Sennheizer HD800, the Grado GS1000e and the Stax SRS 3170. With the Stax, I have tested some WireWorld cable: the eclipe Gold and the eclipse silver. In november, I have listen the Grado and the Sennheizer with my Mojo.
So, my purpose the 5 december was not to evaluate the Dave with them.
It was: 1. Has the HD800, with Dave, the little more acidity in voice that i do not like? YES. In january, i can listen the HD800S.
2. Is the Grado,with Dave, a more pleasant product that my PM-3? Yes, but the differences are reduced.
3. Is the low cost Stax, a better way and if Yes, which cable to use?
Yes, with the Stax for the first time i was discovering the quality of the Dave with a cable at 450 euro. It was so much better. After few seconds i change for a 1800 euro/m cable.My direct impression: a little bad feeling has disappeard. And at this moment, i begin to listen music.
Bye bye streamer, cable, headphones, Dave and the rest.

I choose the Vangelis album: China. Directly go back near 1981. Is the DVD better that vinyl? With Dave, Yes for ever.

So i return to music. Now i can totally live the composition. Not a note come from a broken piano.

After that, for me the ultimate test: a vocal test in my language: french.

With Stax and Dave, i enter in the mind of the singer. I listen more that words. I see the pictures in his brain. I feel the word, in me at the good place, if he says: my hart.

So i can live the performance of the artist or the beauty of the notes with my mind in rest. Like meditation. The setup" dave + Stax" do not recall my mind.

Try the hd800 with some Cardas clear cable,this really does bring your hd800 to life.

 

[PANURUS]

Thank you for the info.

Have you a link for better cable to use with oppo PM-3?

 

[PhilW]

a number

 

[Jiffi32]

Try the hd800 with some Cardas clear cable,this really does bring your hd800 to life.

​what sort of improvements does the cardas bring? i'm using HD800 with stock cable currently driven by my Hugo. and I don't find it bright

 

[CallMeCynical]

Been following this discussion thread for some time now waiting for feedback on how Dave units sounds. Finally received my Dave unit this week. Sat down in my favourate chair to put in some serious listening hours only to find my amp a developed a fault...Amp will need to back to Chord for repair. Well, it is over 10 years old now and has given many faultless hours of enjoyment! Seems that events are conspiring against me to listen to Dave 1st hand...

I did get to listen to a few tracks before the amp gave up the ghost. Perhaps my expectations for this product were just too high as what I heard was a slight improvement over the QBD76. There are of course many factors here - too numerous to write. One major factor of course being that the unit is brand new and requires some running in. However, now that the amp has entered into protection mode, I'm denied the ability to run the unit in through many listening hours.

However, one thing that had crossed my mind was whether DaveRedRef who was feeding his power amp directly from Dave was really feeling the benefit minimised audio path. My amp is an integrated unit, which may robbing some of the transparency from Dave.

The thing that perplexed me with Dave, which I flagged back Matt at Chord, concerned the indicated input data rate when hooked up my Blu transport unit in dual data mode (connected to BNC1 & 2). I found that Dave was showing 176.4kHz on BNC input 1 and 88.2kHz on BNC input 2. The 'D' symbol was showing on BNC1 which indicates Dual data input. This is counter intuative, in my view. Both inputs should show the same data rate. Also, it would appear that the Blu User Guide is giving misinformed info regarding the data rate out of BNC outputs in dual data mode. The UG states that with the data rate switch set in its bottom most position both channels give 176.4kHz data rate. Apparently, this is not so as 176.4kHz data rate represents the combined stereo data rate. Blu UG is very misleading here...This means that Blu transport actually gives max 88.2kHz dara rate per channel. Thought I share this info for those persons that have a Blu transport and are wondering how Dave responds in dual data mode input.

CallMeCynical

 

[lovethatsound]

​what sort of improvements does the cardas bring? i'm using HD800 with stock cable currently driven by my Hugo. and I don't find it bright

Yes the stock cable is good,ive also been using the ch800s balance cable,and that's good as well.About 3 months ago i got to listen to some cardas clear,and i couldn't believe the difference it made,it's got a more open sound,a wider sound stage,better bass,better vocals,everything just sounds more natural.By the way I'm running the cardas clear balance from a hdvd800,the chord blu transport and the chord QBD76.To put it simply the cardas clear has took my hd800 to a different level,the draw back,it's not cheap and the cable can get a bit tangled up,but it's worth it.

 

[Mython]

In light of Rob's earlier discussion, in the Mojo thread, regarding soundstage depth (see quote below), the remarks about soundstage width in this review of a different DAC make for interesting contrast:
 
http://inearspace.com/2015/04/17/exogal-comet-dac-shooting-for-the-stars/
 
 

 

  To add onto the comments by xtr4:
 
Definitely audition with the music you like cos it's your personal enjoyment.
 
So far I like using the Chord Mojo the most when listening to well-mastered vocalist stuff.
 
I think I get what reviewers and users mean when they remark that the soundstage seems narrower yet deeper when songs are played via the Mojo. I get a similar impression in the sense that the vocals seem more "forward". I don't mean sibilance or harshness, I mean the sense that the voice is being projected.
 
So I am really enjoying various CDs by vocalists. Happy to take a bit more time to now convert some of my fave vocalist albums to FLAC.
 
I also find the increase in detail and timing, especially when it comes to transients and drums, cymbals, hi-hats etc very impressive. But it's no something I want to emphasise too much because when listening to rock bands I wanna enjoy each song rather than concentrate on hearing the transients.
 
But really the Mojo is impressive for its price. Lots of times I get distracted cos I am like "wow! I never heard that detail before?!" and its a bit scary if I am walking on the street!

Perceived width is actually an aberration - so when image focus improves, the sensation of width diminishes. Its akin to looking at an image out of focus, then seeing it suddenly in focus - the size of the image gets smaller but you can see things much more accurately. Another way of looking at is perspective. If an instrument gets deeper into the sound stage, it naturally goes back and apparently decreases in width. So when you improve instrument placement focus in the sound stage, the perception of width will decrease.
 
There is an exception to this rule, in that you can encode sounds to sound wider than the loudspeakers, but this effect (replicating the phase delays and resonances of the earlobes and changing the left right phase) can increase width beyond the loudspeakers - it can also be used to encode height. But these effects are very rare and a bit hit and miss. Its these resonances and phase delays that allow binaural recordings on headphones to work. In this case, when image placement improves, then you get an increase in width and height - but as I said, these effects are very rarely found.
 
Rob

 

[Beolab]

Been following this discussion thread for some time now waiting for feedback on how Dave units sounds. Finally received my Dave unit this week. Sat down in my favourate chair to put in some serious listening hours only to find my amp a developed a fault...Amp will need to back to Chord for repair. Well, it is over 10 years old now and has given many faultless hours of enjoyment! Seems that events are conspiring against me to listen to Dave 1st hand...

I did get to listen to a few tracks before the amp gave up the ghost. Perhaps my expectations for this product were just too high as what I heard was a slight improvement over the QBD76. There are of course many factors here - too numerous to write. One major factor of course being that the unit is brand new and requires some running in. However, now that the amp has entered into protection mode, I'm denied the ability to run the unit in through many listening hours.

However, one thing that had crossed my mind was whether DaveRedRef who was feeding his power amp directly from Dave was really feeling the benefit minimised audio path. My amp is an integrated unit, which may robbing some of the transparency from Dave.

The thing that perplexed me with Dave, which I flagged back Matt at Chord, concerned the indicated input data rate when hooked up my Blu transport unit in dual data mode (connected to BNC1 & 2). I found that Dave was showing 176.4kHz on BNC input 1 and 88.2kHz on BNC input 2. The 'D' symbol was showing on BNC1 which indicates Dual data input. This is counter intuative, in my view. Both inputs should show the same data rate. Also, it would appear that the Blu User Guide is giving misinformed info regarding the data rate out of BNC outputs in dual data mode. The UG states that with the data rate switch set in its bottom most position both channels give 176.4kHz data rate. Apparently, this is not so as 176.4kHz data rate represents the combined stereo data rate. Blu UG is very misleading here...This means that Blu transport actually gives max 88.2kHz dara rate per channel. Thought I share this info for those persons that have a Blu transport and are wondering how Dave responds in dual data mode input.

CallMeCynical

Have Matt responded to your question yet?

You mention just a little bit better than then QBD76HDSD, that is very controversial, but maybe the Blu set the bar with its old interpolating FPGA inside, so the DAVE have some problems to do wounders with an already upsampled signal.

But according to Rob the DAVE should be miles better than the QBD76 , so maybe it was your amp that was near total failure that did not give you the full sound of DAVE is my 50 cents.

 

[ecwl]

Been following this discussion thread for some time now waiting for feedback on how Dave units sounds. Finally received my Dave unit this week. Sat down in my favourate chair to put in some serious listening hours only to find my amp a developed a fault...Amp will need to back to Chord for repair. Well, it is over 10 years old now and has given many faultless hours of enjoyment! Seems that events are conspiring against me to listen to Dave 1st hand...

I did get to listen to a few tracks before the amp gave up the ghost. Perhaps my expectations for this product were just too high as what I heard was a slight improvement over the QBD76. There are of course many factors here - too numerous to write. One major factor of course being that the unit is brand new and requires some running in. However, now that the amp has entered into protection mode, I'm denied the ability to run the unit in through many listening hours.

However, one thing that had crossed my mind was whether DaveRedRef who was feeding his power amp directly from Dave was really feeling the benefit minimised audio path. My amp is an integrated unit, which may robbing some of the transparency from Dave.
, just 
The thing that perplexed me with Dave, which I flagged back Matt at Chord, concerned the indicated input data rate when hooked up my Blu transport unit in dual data mode (connected to BNC1 & 2). I found that Dave was showing 176.4kHz on BNC input 1 and 88.2kHz on BNC input 2. The 'D' symbol was showing on BNC1 which indicates Dual data input. This is counter intuative, in my view. Both inputs should show the same data rate. Also, it would appear that the Blu User Guide is giving misinformed info regarding the data rate out of BNC outputs in dual data mode. The UG states that with the data rate switch set in its bottom most position both channels give 176.4kHz data rate. Apparently, this is not so as 176.4kHz data rate represents the combined stereo data rate. Blu UG is very misleading here...This means that Blu transport actually gives max 88.2kHz dara rate per channel. Thought I share this info for those persons that have a Blu transport and are wondering how Dave responds in dual data mode input.

CallMeCynical

 
In anticipation of the Chord DAVE, I recently removed my Sanders preamplifier which I thought was superbly transparent and fed digitally volume controlled 24-bit signal directly to my Chord QBD76HDSD (which I know is super dangerous because if I screwed up, it'll blow the speakers). The added level of transparency and dynamics was quite astounding so I would not be surprised if the performance of Chord DAVE in any system would be heavily dependent on the transparency of the preamplifier and possibly to a lesser extent the power amplifier, just as Beolab is speculating here.
 
As for the Blu issue, I'm just confused about the angst. There seems to be 2 concerns. So the first concern is what signal is being sent through BNC1 & 2. Well, normally, most modern DACs and transports would just send 176.4kHz stereo digital signal through a single BNC connection. Chord decided way back to use 2 cables for better signal integrity I presume. So either it is sending say the left channel at 176.4kHz with BNC1 & the right channel at 176.4kHz with BNC2 or it is splitting the 176.4kHz stereo digital signal into two 88.2kHz stereo digital signal and it is sending the two 88.2kHz stereo digital signals  through BNC1 & BNC2. You can call the signal on the BNC1 & BNC2 whatever you want, mono 176.4kHz or stereo 88.2kHz. But the bottomline is that proper 176.4kHz stereo digital signals are getting sent through the BNC1 & BNC2 cables into the DAC.
 
The second concern seems to be related to the display. Blu is sending 176.4kHz stereo digital signal to the Chord DAVE via BNC1 & 2 and poster wants it to display BNC1 = 176.4kHz & BNC2 = 176.4kHz with the D? or BNC1 = 88.2kHz & BNC2 = 88.2kHz with the D? and Chord chose to display it as BNC1 = 176.4 kHz & BNC2 = 88.2kHz with the D. There are 3 ways to display the signal transfer, I'm sure every user will have their preference and claim one way to display the signal is superior to another, Chord just picked one way to display dual-channel. Not sure what the issue is if the signal is getting through intact. My strong suspicion is that Chord does not want users to accidentally select BNC2 and get noise because in order to recognize the dual channel signal, the user has to select BNC1. So BNC1 is receiving 88.2kHz stereo/176kHz mono signal and so is BNC2. Combined, they provide a stereo 176.4kHz signal and so when the user selects BNC1, the D is displayed with the 176.4kHz. To make sure the user does not select BNC2, it displays 88.2kHz because it's either a 176.4kHz mono signal or a 88.2kHz stereo signal.

 

[Kakki]

Rob, I have read the user manual of DAVE and have a question on the warning "DAVE MUST BE EARTHED AT ALL TIMES VIA ITS OWN MAINS LEAD.FAILURE TO DO THIS MAY BE HAZARDOUS."
 
In Japan, the standard is type A plug and there is no pin that is connected to the earth. We only have live and neutral pins.
Does DAVE still work correctly in this environment? Also, do we have any impact to the sound quality?
 

 

[Rob Watts]

Yes it needs to be earthed from a safety POV. But the PSU is a medical grade unit.
 
I have used it unearthed on my travels, and it was OK though but this is from the SQ POV only. I agree with Chord unearthed may be hazardous though.
 
Rob 

 

[analogmusic]

interesting, is headphone usage not possible to judge Dave vs QBD76 performance.
 
 
Quote:

Been following this discussion thread for some time now waiting for feedback on how Dave units sounds. Finally received my Dave unit this week. Sat down in my favourate chair to put in some serious listening hours only to find my amp a developed a fault...Amp will need to back to Chord for repair. Well, it is over 10 years old now and has given many faultless hours of enjoyment! Seems that events are conspiring against me to listen to Dave 1st hand...

I did get to listen to a few tracks before the amp gave up the ghost. Perhaps my expectations for this product were just too high as what I heard was a slight improvement over the QBD76. There are of course many factors here - too numerous to write. One major factor of course being that the unit is brand new and requires some running in. However, now that the amp has entered into protection mode, I'm denied the ability to run the unit in through many listening hours.

However, one thing that had crossed my mind was whether DaveRedRef who was feeding his power amp directly from Dave was really feeling the benefit minimised audio path. My amp is an integrated unit, which may robbing some of the transparency from Dave.

The thing that perplexed me with Dave, which I flagged back Matt at Chord, concerned the indicated input data rate when hooked up my Blu transport unit in dual data mode (connected to BNC1 & 2). I found that Dave was showing 176.4kHz on BNC input 1 and 88.2kHz on BNC input 2. The 'D' symbol was showing on BNC1 which indicates Dual data input. This is counter intuative, in my view. Both inputs should show the same data rate. Also, it would appear that the Blu User Guide is giving misinformed info regarding the data rate out of BNC outputs in dual data mode. The UG states that with the data rate switch set in its bottom most position both channels give 176.4kHz data rate. Apparently, this is not so as 176.4kHz data rate represents the combined stereo data rate. Blu UG is very misleading here...This means that Blu transport actually gives max 88.2kHz dara rate per channel. Thought I share this info for those persons that have a Blu transport and are wondering how Dave responds in dual data mode input.

CallMeCynical

 

[lovethatsound]

It could be the user don't use headphones,lots of people will only use loud speakers.