[rayl]

On a different note, I just received a message that my DAVE should be with me the coming weekend...
No need to explain you guys how I feel right?

V. exciting I am sure....

Credit where credit is due -- for both my DAVE order last fall and my Blu2 order early this year, the units shipped out from Bluebird pretty much exactly 1.5 wks earlier than the initial estimates (in weeks) provided. One reads about rumors of case work issues with black, etc., but my experience has been that such talk were rumors only and the lead times were accurately provided with a slight bit of slack.

The 12 wk wait (10.5 actually) for Blu2 was trying, but hey, I know someone who waited much longer for a Lampi Pacific -- and the wait meaningfully exceeded the initial estimate.... Though those have a ton of customization options so ea unit is made-to-order.

 

[elviscaprice]

Nice! You upgraded to DAVE. I got the feeling you were going to stick to Hugo/Hugo 2.

Was there really any other choice? I waited it out with a 2Qute looking for a cost effective upgrade. Was never happy about Hugo 2 and it's batteries. Waited for Quest to see if it received any further desired features, it did not. So now what? Remain with 2Qute deficiencies? I don't think there is going to be another TT, and even if there is it's still going to be pricey, almost as much as a discounted DAVE. So DAVE was it, only took me over 2 years to realize it was my ONLY Chord viable option. The good thing is, my system doesn't require anything more powerful than what DAVE amp can provide. So there won't be any further upgrade from DAVE. Just an additional add on with m-scaler, which I said would be out by the end of the year. Now, I'm thinking much sooner. Smart move by Chord.

They work. The USPCB you're using perfectly transmits all the RF noise that your spaghetti generates and feeds it into DAVE, spoiling the sound. A USB cable with 20 ferrites will be better as it'll filter the noise made by your spaghetti.

You got that correct, the USPCB is perfectly neutral, no new outside RF being picked up. The good thing is that the signal the USPCB is passing along has already been isolated and cleansed of RF with the sCLK-EX server. Couldn't ask for a better connection instead of some voodoo approach with beads. I sure hope Rob fixes this with the new m-scaler, knowing him here, I'm sure he is motivated to do just that.

Try an optical cable (and disconnect USB) into DAVE, if you have a source with optical output.

Optical has it's format limitations, not an option. Plus it does require a good source still with good clocking/power, which optical still doesn't preclude from passing along and thus influencing SQ from the DAC. Like the USPCB, optical is neutral.

 

[Deftone]

Just thinking that people are going to great lengths to get USB to sound like optical with ferrites etc then why not just use optical? Unless your listening to very high sample rate music which I didn’t know there was much of if any? and that’s true high res not upscaled by HDTracks.

As we all know as chord owners, chord DACs make the most of redbook CD and it sounds exceptional. I’m happy with 44.1khz so optical maxing out at 192khz is more than enough and we know the very cheap kabeldirek is reliable.

 

[flyte3333]

Just thinking that people are going to great lengths to get USB to sound like optical with ferrites etc then why not just use optical? Unless your listening to very high sample rate music which I didn’t know there was much of if any? and that’s true high res not upscaled by HDTracks.

There may be a variety of reasons, on an individual basis. But as per the last few pages of this thread, getting >24/96 to work with Dave's Toslink input isn't as straight forward/fuss-free as with Mojo and Hugo2, and it's not just about the cable, the source is really important too.

There are also a limited number of TOSlink sources confirmed working at 192kHz with Dave available. There are plenty more USB sources and people love to try different USB sources out there.

Assuming you can even get 24/192 working (I got there in the end), DXD (352kHz) and DSD128 (or higher) sample rates won't work over TOSlink.

But for me 192kHz covers me nicely for 99.9% of my music.

Plus I've paid good money for Rob's top class DPLL jitter eliminator, so why not make it sweat a little !

 

[flyte3333]

My observations aren't too dissimilar to Roy's last month, except my TX179 source (Pi2Design 502DAC with NDK clocks powered by LT3042) is much cheaper than Roy's very nicely modified Oppo player:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rev...phile-vortex-box.787020/page-79#post-14120423

I struggle with hearing differences in depth, using the same DAC's different inputs. I can hear it comparing different DACs and different headphones, but it's harder with my music and my ears to hear the differences between the inputs of the same DAC. With headphones that is.

But what is much easier for me to describe (with headphones) is the presence of any listening fatigue over 1 hour and more of listening, and even easier to describe, the desire to turn up the volume or wanting to turn down the volume for extended listening. TOSLink and a battery based USB source (disconnected from mains power) wins out for me in these 2 areas.

@romaz isn't around these forums anymore it seems but based on his comments above there about his Oppo optical source, it would be interesting to know if he would describe his observations similarly.

 

[tunes]

On a different note, I just received a message that my DAVE should be with me the coming weekend...
No need to explain you guys how I feel right?

I bought an Aurender N100 as it seemed to be the ideal music server for the DAVE in terms of wireless flexibility both to stream music and storage with solid state memory playback to eliminate any noise generated by a spinning hard drive. The wireless interface uses an iPad to select and search music library. All seemed good but mains supplied and no optical out, only usb.

So now I am looking for a battery transport and storage device to connect to DAVE via optical since can still get a 15 foot Toslink cable that will work across the room and eliminate all the fuss over EMI noise, ferrites and mains issues.

I currently have a Questyle QP1R that doubles as a portable dap for use with IEMs on the go and has two slots for SD cards so plenty of storage and optical out! It as several disadvantages as a transport:

1. No WiFi so cannot use a music streaming service.

2. Software is limited for searching music library and often very frustrating UI.

So does anyone know of a better solution for feeding DAVE with optical that solves the above limitations??!

 

[maxh22]

I bought an Aurender N100 as it seemed to be the ideal music server for the DAVE in terms of wireless flexibility both to stream music and storage with solid state memory playback to eliminate any noise generated by a spinning hard drive. The wireless interface uses an iPad to select and search music library. All seemed good but mains supplied and no optical out, only usb.

So now I am looking for a battery transport and storage device to connect to DAVE via optical since can still get a 15 foot Toslink cable that will work across the room and eliminate all the fuss over EMI noise, ferrites and mains issues.

I currently have a Questyle QP1R that doubles as a portable dap for use with IEMs on the go and has two slots for SD cards so plenty of storage and optical out! It as several disadvantages as a transport:

1. No WiFi so cannot use a music streaming service.

2. Software is limited for searching music library and often very frustrating UI.

So does anyone know of a better solution for feeding DAVE with optical that solves the above limitations??!

Any modern MSI laptop (unplugged from mains with background processes disabled and peripherals unplugged will sound excellent via optical).

 

[jrfmd]

Jeff, I did a pretty comprehensive review of the Blu2 and tried to explain what it was doing over and above what is already being done in DAVE and Hugo2. See link below. Please PM or post if you have questions and I'm happy to try and help.

thanks for the article
do I have it right?
they have developed a new algorithm for converting digital to analogue that encompasses more points of adjustment over a longer time domain and this transformation is added to the d/a chain to improve the sound over the source-->dave-->earphone chain.
thanks
Jeff

 

[tunes]

Any modern MSI laptop (unplugged from mains with background processes disabled and peripherals unplugged will sound excellent via optical).

Understood but the whole purpose of getting a DAP to use as transport is to get away from needing a laptop just for this purpose.

 

[ray-dude]

thanks for the article
do I have it right?
they have developed a new algorithm for converting digital to analogue that encompasses more points of adjustment over a longer time domain and this transformation is added to the d/a chain to improve the sound over the source-->dave-->earphone chain.
thanks
Jeff

In spirit yes. A big part of the Chord "secret sauce" is their algorithm to reconstruct as closely as possible the original analog wave form from digital data. As you go up the Chord product line from Mojo to Hugo to Hugo2 to DAVE, the sophistication of that filter goes up (as represented by "taps"...at a 100k' level more taps == better reconstruction)

The Blu2 takes the secret sauce algorithm which is built into the DAVE/Mojo/Hugo/etc. and executes it in a separate box. It is many times more powerful than even what's in the DAVE natively (1 million taps vs 150k taps) Chord has branded the 1M tap processing as "mScaler". mScaler applies to both digital data from the Blu2 CD player, as well as the USB and other digital inputs to the Blu2.

When connected to the DAVE, it essentially transforms the DAVE from a 150k tap device (which is already world class) to a 1M tap device (which at least to my ears, is completely transformational)

 

[maxh22]

Understood but the whole purpose of getting a DAP to use as transport is to get away from needing a laptop just for this purpose.

Hmmm.. I thought you said you were looking for a new battery powered transport since your DAP cannot stream music?

"So now I am looking for a battery transport and storage device to connect to DAVE via optical since can still get a 15 foot Toslink cable that will work across the room and eliminate all the fuss over EMI noise, ferrites and mains issues."

The MSI laptop happens to fit the bill but I understand it's not for everyone.

For convienence purposes one would be able to install an application such as Team Viewer or similar and wirelessly change their tracks.

 

[rayl]

thanks for the article
do I have it right?
they have developed a new algorithm for converting digital to analogue that encompasses more points of adjustment over a longer time domain and this transformation is added to the d/a chain to improve the sound over the source-->dave-->earphone chain.
thanks
Jeff

I would phrase it differently. See if this is helpful:

What does a digital PCM file give you? Essentially amplitudes (heights of the waveform) at fixed intervals, say 44,100 times a second.
If you draw this out, you won't get the original waveform back. You get a series of rectangles, 44,100 of them per second.

To render this into a waveform, you need filtering -- to smooth out the rectangles if you will.
This can be done entirely in analog (and NOS DACs do this), but getting high precision out of analog is hard.
So most designs upsample to a higher rate -- i.e. get more rectangles per second -- to make the final analog stage easier.

But how to do this upsampling? From Whittaker-Shannon interpolation, we know that at any point in the timeline can be calculated, assuming the original waveform that was sampled was < 1/2 the sampling rate (known as the Nyquist rate). This calculation requires convolution with an infinite sinc function. That's the challenge -- it is hard to do a calculation to infinity (except as a mathematical expression on paper)!

So inevitably, every actual realized upsampling process uses an approximation. And every approximation has some sort of error -- sometimes people trade off one type of filter for another bec they prefer the sound of one type of error over another.

The approach of DAVE, Blu2, etc. is to try to approximate the sinc function as closely as possible by using longer and longer filters. As the filter gets longer, it gets closer to the ideal infinite filter. The contribution of the Blu2 M-scaler is to add a really big 1 million tap length filter compared to the state-of-the-art before the M-scaler. The M-scaler outputs a 705.6/768kHz upsampled stream calculated with the 1MM tap filter.

 

[Jiffi32]

Just an additional add on with m-scaler, which I said would be out by the end of the year. Now, I'm thinking much sooner. Smart move by Chord.

What makes you say it will arrive much sooner? has there been some news somewhere?

 

[Triode User]

What makes you say it will arrive much sooner? has there been some news somewhere?

I think he is just trying to wind me up. I have a large bet placed on there there not even being a named prototype by the end of the year.

 

[Jawed]

Was there really any other choice? I waited it out with a 2Qute looking for a cost effective upgrade. Was never happy about Hugo 2 and it's batteries. Waited for Quest to see if it received any further desired features, it did not. So now what? Remain with 2Qute deficiencies? I don't think there is going to be another TT, and even if there is it's still going to be pricey, almost as much as a discounted DAVE. So DAVE was it, only took me over 2 years to realize it was my ONLY Chord viable option. The good thing is, my system doesn't require anything more powerful than what DAVE amp can provide. So there won't be any further upgrade from DAVE. Just an additional add on with m-scaler, which I said would be out by the end of the year. Now, I'm thinking much sooner. Smart move by Chord.

I doubt there'll be another TT, too. DAVE should easily last you for decades. The LCD screen might be the first thing to go, but LCD screens seem to be able to run for decades too.

Eventually there'll be a $500 Chord DAC that sounds better than DAVE, but not so fast!

You got that correct, the USPCB is perfectly neutral, no new outside RF being picked up. The good thing is that the signal the USPCB is passing along has already been isolated and cleansed of RF with the sCLK-EX server.

Until the spaghetti companies come out with new stuff that "sounds even better"...

Couldn't ask for a better connection instead of some voodoo approach with beads.

Ironic that you call this voodoo, since it's very simple electronics. It puzzles me immensely when people reject the best solution. RF filtering with ferrites isn't just a fad on a few Chord threads, it's a technique that's used widely in all sorts of industries and products where noise would otherwise cause problems. There are ferrites for RF filtering inside many hi-fi components, including Chord's.

But the electrical inputs on DAVE need extra help with RF, sadly. Rob really needs to get a catastrophically noisy RF source to test with his future designs...

Now playing: Lucy Dacus - Dream State...