CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[bmichels]

   
The Spartan-7 FPGA family will deliver high I/O ratios in small form factor packages, critical for cost-sensitive markets. The family will provide up to 4X price-performance-per-watt improvement over previous generations for flexible connectivity, interface bridging, and companion chip functionality.
 
I wonder if Rob might be looking at this,

 
 
please, make us an ...HUGO V2 .... 

 

[Beolab]

Dave has one FPGA, the 34 extra cores are custom coded using FPGA fabric (using gates to make DSP cores) - so 132 DSP slices plus 34 fabric = 166.

All the DAC's - Mojo, 2 Qute, Hugo, Hugo TT and Dave have identical source jitter rejection, that is the DAC eliminates it. Any SQ differences in sources is not down to jitter but source RF noise and correlated noise. The galvanic isolation (USB and optical) on Dave eliminates these problems - as far as the DAC is concerned - too.

Rob

Hi Rob!

The most interesting thing is that the source i have used when i have tried the Hugo + W4s Remedy is Optical only, so this is "galvanic" isolated and nevertheless it is a huge step up in SQ performance.
It gets much smoother, deeper , more fluid with less brightness, darker with greater detail than without the Remedy Re-clocker.

So this is strange because if the Hugo / DAVE / Qute2 / Mojo are jitter resistant / immune and we are using optical cable so no RF are injected in the signal path, then i have no clue left on how the sound can get so much better / improved ?

 

[isquirrel]

Joining in on this discussion now, have a new Mojo that was dropped off this morning. Cutting out the expletives etc when I  first turned this thing on except to say it is incredible. 1st piece of music I listened to was Copland, fanfare for the Common Man through LCD-4's with DHC cables. Bit of overkill using an Aurender W20 as the source via Optical - Wow, what weight and texture from the drums. Have to run some more experiments with this thing but makes me wonder whats in store when the DAVE arrives late next week!
 
NO doubt IMHO that it sounds substantially better than the Hugo & TT (have had both). Being brand new with zero hours and using crappy connectors, there is a lot more to come. 
 
Bring on the DAVE !
 
Edit - about to try it out on the wife while its hidden away. This is going to be fun !
 

 

 

 

 

[jarnopp]

Edit - about to try it out on the wife while its hidden away. This is going to be fun !

My wife doesn't believe me...she wants to hear your wife say "this is fun!"

 

[ecwl]

I don't think you're supposed to be charging the Mojo while playing it. Just as the USB is not galvanically isolated, I presume the act of charging it is going to increase the amount of RF that gets into the Mojo.

 

[isquirrel]

My wife doesn't believe me...she wants to hear your wife say "this is fun!"

Well my wife thinks it sounds "fabulous and is far better than her Hugo" that to me sounds like fun, might help if you bought her one 

 

[Beolab]

Going in on this discussion now, have a new Mojo that was dropped off this morning. Cutting out the expletives etc this thing is incredible. 1st piece of music I listened to was Copland, fanfare for the Common Man through LCD-4's with DHC cables. Bit of overkill using an Aurender W20 as the source via Optical - Wow. Have to run some more experiments with this thing but makes me wonder whats in store when the DAVE arrives late next week!

NO doubt IMHO that it sounds substantially better than the Hugo & TT (have had both). Being brand new with zero hours and using crappy connectors, there is a lot more to come. 

Bring on the DAVE !

Edit - about to try it out on the wife while its hidden away. This is going to be fun !

This is very funny Simon!

I was also at my dealers place today, and picked up a Mojo!
And it sounds so good, so i cant belive my ears in comparison to what the Hugo sounded, it was way to briight without the Remedy and so on, but this i pure magic !

I have only connect it to my Active speakers in the livingroom for a brief test, but my wife said she thaught it sounded les bright and metallic, with greater dept was her first impression!

I think this will be a perfect match with JPS Diana when they are released

 

[jarnopp]

Well my wife thinks it sounds "fabulous and is far better than her Hugo" that to me sounds like fun, might help if you bought her one :wink_face:

I could buy her a DAVE but sure she would kill me, whether it was mine or hers!

 

[Rob Watts]

Hi Rob!

The most interesting thing is that the source i have used when i have tried the Hugo + W4s Remedy is Optical only, so this is "galvanic" isolated and nevertheless it is a huge step up in SQ performance.
It gets much smoother, deeper , more fluid with less brightness, darker with greater detail than without the Remedy Re-clocker.

So this is strange because if the Hugo / DAVE / Qute2 / Mojo are jitter resistant / immune and we are using optical cable so no RF are injected in the signal path, then i have no clue left on how the sound can get so much better / improved ?

It appears that the Remedy Re-clocker is a sample rate converter. It converts everything to 96k (or factory adjusted to another sample rate). It uses a standard chip for sample rate conversion.
 
Conventional sample rate converters generate large amounts of THD and noise, in particular slew related noise floor modulation and they sound hard and aggressive as a consequence. Also they completely destroy the timing of transients, as the interpolation filters are very simple.
 
Not a good idea at all with my DAC's. 
 
Rob

 

[Pokemonn]

Rob,　Thank you very much for the info!
I have a question.
I have a sample/bit up converter  Behringer SRC2496 in my chain (before DEQ2496).
Is word length up conversion(from 16bit to 24bit) also not good idea for your DACs(Mojo/Hugo/Dave)?

 

[Skampmeister]

I think people can't come to grips with not using add ons that one uses with other DACs.

If the designer says you don't need anything, how about people just trust him.

 

[Rob Watts]

Anything that changes the data is a very bad idea I am afraid.
 
Rob

 

[Pokemonn]

Thank you very much Rob! I will remove SRC2496. Thank you.

 

[Christer]

  It appears that the Remedy Re-clocker is a sample rate converter. It converts everything to 96k (or factory adjusted to another sample rate). It uses a standard chip for sample rate conversion.
 
Conventional sample rate converters generate large amounts of THD and noise, in particular slew related noise floor modulation and they sound hard and aggressive as a consequence. Also they completely destroy the timing of transients, as the interpolation filters are very simple.
 
Not a good idea at all with my DAC's. 
 
Rob

Thanks.Well that limits my  own query to whether the German Intona galvanic isolator would be a good idea with Hugo or not.
But then again I am getting more and more keen to actually audition both  Mojo and Dave.
Especially with  the recent input here coming from someone who listens to classical ,Copland,and has compared his Hugo to a new Mojo. Moreover if his wife also agrees that Mojo sounds better I suspect that smoother in this case may not be a compromise at all, but rather an improvement in SQ over Hugo.
Women's high frequency  hearing is also  generally less prone to having been damaged by far too loud pop and rock music than most men's.
 
Unfortunately it turned out that the shop here in KL which might have both is way out  in the suburbs of KL and today Thaipusam a big  Hindu festival is taking place here clogging traffic out of town I have heard. So I will have to wait until I get to Singapore again soon and  where I have already held a Mojo in my hand but assumed my  Hugo would be better and didn,'t bother to listen to it when I auditioned HE 1000 the first time. 
My mistake maybe? 

 

[romaz]

I think it's clear Rob won't get involved in any Mojo vs Hugo debate nor do I think it's necessary. We can each make up our own minds on this one. As for a Hugo v2, personally, I think the Mojo is it. To me, it's not really even close which one I like better, at least with headphones. As for those who prefer the Hugo, well, that's a pretty nice problem for Chord to have. They win both ways. At the same time, if I owned a Hugo and then found that the Mojo sounded better, shelling out another $600 for a Mojo wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. I could easily sell my Hugo and buy 2 Mojos (one for the wife).

I'm sure Chord, in their wisdom, contemplated the likelihood that the Mojo would impact future sales of the Hugo which is why I believe there may be weight to the rumor that the future of the Hugo could be in question, but more importantly, I'm sure Chord also considered the likelihood that the Mojo would impact the sales of many other DACs which is probably a more than acceptable trade off for them. I have a colleague who considers his new Mojo more to his liking than the MSB Analog he already owns.

In some ways, given the asking price for the Mojo, I consider it more remarkable than the DAVE.