[bacon333]

  I'd really like to thank Bacon's review so far as it inspired me to make more changes to my system.
In the past, I have all my components except amplifier plugged into a Torus isolation transformer/power conditioner. As my system slimmed down, only the Chord DAVE and my computer (CAPS v3 Carbon) which is connected to an HDPlex Linear Power Supply are connected to the Torus. And I had to have the computer plugged into the Torus because if it is not, I find there was degradation to the sound with my previous DAC, probably because the previous DAC uses the computer's USB power so if there's more noise in the computer power supply, it'll get into the USB port into the old DAC.
 
With my current setup, in an attempt to improve the sound from my video system, I had one component (miniDSP nanoDigi 2x8 B) plugged into the HDPlex and I noticed a sonic degradation when I was listening to stereo without the video system connected audio system. The only reason how that can happen is that the noise from the miniDSP is getting through the HDPlex, into the Torus back into the Chord DAVE to degrade the sound. So I abandoned that setup.
 
But then after reading Bacon's review, I asked myself, could the noise from my computer and HDPlex Linear Power Supply but limiting the performance of the Chord DAVE. Since I found the Chord DAVE USB source insensitive, I simply removed the computer from the power setup on the audio side of my system and put it to the video side. That means, Chord DAVE is the only device going into the Torus and indeed, I got a slight improvement in sonic quality. And now, it doesn't matter whether I connect the HDPlex Linear Power Supply to the miniDSP device, the Chord DAVE sound is still the same for the audio system.
 
The reason I decided to share this long-winded experiment and to thank Bacon is that as with all components, it takes time to understand to optimize them in the system. It surely helps that Rob Watts provides a lot of explanations for why things are the way they are. My current take on the Chord DAVE for optimal setup is the following:
1) Unless you truly have a superbly clean RCA/BNC digital source, avoid using it and use Toslink and USB instead because even if the source is turned off, it'll probably be injecting some RF noise into the Chord DAVE and degrading its performance.
2) Since Chord DAVE seems to perform better in an environment with better/cleaner power supply, if you have a computer or other digital devices that are connected to the Chord DAVE, you should try to have their power supplied from a circuit completely separate from the DAVE so that the power noise generated by the computer or switch-mode power supply or digital circuitry are as far away from the DAVE as possible. Your sources not getting the best power supply would not affect DAVE's performance because DAVE is source insensitive to Toslink or USB but by having your sources not polluting DAVE's power supply, you may and probably will be able to squeeze out even more performance out of the DAVE.

Thank you for the compliments and I'm glad the review inspired change and experimentation in your own system.
 
1) The BNC output of the Lumin S1 is superb and worked wonderfully with other DACs (MSB Analog, La Scala, etc). It's only with the DAVE/TT I found the BNC input to be inferior to the optical/USB.
2) Completely agree. From my experience, the P10 did a fantastic job of isolation, even with headphone amps attached to the high-current ports. Some say the P10 sucks the dynamics and low-end out of the sound but after plenty of A/B'ing, it helped my setup enormously. Night & day.

 

[bacon333]

This is almost spooky that i got the the same test winning equipment as you have on test back home just for now in my test rig:

-Black Chord DAVE
-Chord Mojo
-MSB Analog ( Secondary DAC )
-Abyss with standard JPS cable
-DHC Silver Comp4 Headphone Cable
-JPS Labs SC HP Headphone cable
-M o o n 6 0 0 i  Amp
-We lls Au dio Head-Trip
-Aurender W20
-Mac Book Pro running Roon
-Transparent Reference 5 XLR
-All sorts of AQ Diamond digital cables
-W4s Remedy
-Regen
(-BlueSound Node II)

The only big difference is the power products, here i have a Isotek Sirius power conditioner and AQ NRG 1000 DBS power cables.





I highly regard your in depth review, and for your time you have spend on this project.

Much appreciated Beolab! Great ears hear alike! I'll be getting a DHC Complement 4 very soon.

 

[bacon333]

  After Bacons review of power cables with the Dave I loaned a Shunyata Citron Alpha digital as he used in his test. Before I had the same JPS cables that he didn´t like so much.
The difference in my own test was quiet obvious. I never thought it would be so huge. The Shunyata cable has a much richer sound, the deeper mids sound more energetic and warm. The soundstage is a tad wider but has won a lot of depth. Everything is more fluid sounding. More bass! I hear all this improvements even without the P10. But it´s as always - you don´t think it can get much better until you hear something that you never thought was possible.
I began to experiment with the tuning pads for my Ether C before I got the Shunyata because I found them a little thin sounding on the one hand and a little bright in the upper mids on the other hand. Now they just has the sound signature that I always wished they should have. With other words - I am keeping the Shunyata.

Completely agree. The JPS didn't sound quite right but could be fun with some recordings. Still quite detailed and artificially energetic. The Shunyata, just lush and truthful. Personally, I believe the difference in price is worth it. I'm going to have to revisit the Shunyata vs Challenger AE15 in the upcoming months.

 

[rgs9200m]

Just curious Bacon (if you have experience in these) you consider the TT a champ in the under $10K DAC category. (And do others here feel that is true? And not necessarily the best, but up there with them.)

 

[metalboss]

Hope it’s not too much of an off topic to ask our vast community to compare DAVE with Simaudio 780D DAC (http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/951-moon-by-simaudio-evolution-780d-digital-to-analog-converter)

 

[ecwl]

  Hope it’s not too much of an off topic to ask our vast community to compare DAVE with Simaudio 780D DAC (http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/951-moon-by-simaudio-evolution-780d-digital-to-analog-converter)

So my local Simaudio dealer has the 780D hooked up to the 740P preamp and 860A amplifier with Dynaudio Excite X44. I was unable to do any comparisons so feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt. But I can say that, to me, all Sabre DACs has a slight harshness to them that the Chord DACs don't have. That harshness makes certain instruments sound brighter than real-life and affects the timbre of the instruments. Because all products are very high-performing nowadays (even cheaper products like the $350 Resonessence Herus), these subtle differences are often not immediately appreciated and you almost need specific tracks that you're super familiar with to hear the difference at first. But once identified, it's very clear that Chord DACs just produce piano, violin or guitar sounds more realistically with more accurate timbre. So while the 780D has lots of details, a super low noise floor, good dimensionality in the setup I heard, the slightly unnatural timbre and slightly off timing/transients are audible and not comparable to Chord DAVE.
 
I see that you own Simaudio 430HA with a DAC and you also own the Mojo. The problem with Mojo is that if you're not connecting it via Toslink or to a cellphone with LTE off and preferably WiFi off, the injected RF noise from your source's USB/digital coaxial output is going to dramatically lower the performance of the Mojo and mask the advantage that the Mojo has over most Sabre DACs setup. If you get a chance, you should really try to compare the Mojo in its optimal setting (Toslink input) vs the Simaudio 430HA with its internal DAC driving a headphone that Mojo can handle. I think it's much easier to have someone point out what to listen for and then for you to listen to it.

 

[metalboss]

  So my local Simaudio dealer has the 780D hooked up to the 740P preamp and 860A amplifier with Dynaudio Excite X44. I was unable to do any comparisons so feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt. But I can say that, to me, all Sabre DACs has a slight harshness to them that the Chord DACs don't have. That harshness makes certain instruments sound brighter than real-life and affects the timbre of the instruments. Because all products are very high-performing nowadays (even cheaper products like the $350 Resonessence Herus), these subtle differences are often not immediately appreciated and you almost need specific tracks that you're super familiar with to hear the difference at first. But once identified, it's very clear that Chord DACs just produce piano, violin or guitar sounds more realistically with more accurate timbre. So while the 780D has lots of details, a super low noise floor, good dimensionality in the setup I heard, the slightly unnatural timbre and slightly off timing/transients are audible and not comparable to Chord DAVE.
 
I see that you own Simaudio 430HA with a DAC and you also own the Mojo. The problem with Mojo is that if you're not connecting it via Toslink or to a cellphone with LTE off and preferably WiFi off, the injected RF noise from your source's USB/digital coaxial output is going to dramatically lower the performance of the Mojo and mask the advantage that the Mojo has over most Sabre DACs setup. If you get a chance, you should really try to compare the Mojo in its optimal setting (Toslink input) vs the Simaudio 430HA with its internal DAC driving a headphone that Mojo can handle. I think it's much easier to have someone point out what to listen for and then for you to listen to it.

Thanks for the brief input man, appreciated...
 
Anyone has more to share pls...
 

 

[shuttlepod]

Another question for you, Bacon, if you don't mind:
 
I'm a little confused after reading your description of the effect of changing crossfeed settings on DAVE with the Lumin and laptop as sources. First, you state that, using the crossfeed 0 setting, you found the Lumin to be more transparent, more holographic, with a more quiet background. But you still found the laptop's USB feed to DAVE to be more natural and musical. Based on that description, I think I would opt for "natural and musical" (and save a lot of money by using a relatively inexpensive computer vs. a Lumin). 
 
But then you found the following with the crossfeed set at 3: 
 
However, with Crossfeed 3 enabled…the differences were subtle. Almost like the data from the optical and USB is shaped into the same output stream when Crossfeed 3 is activated. I don’t know for sure but this is what I’ve concluded from my listening (I’m sure Rob Watts could chime in). I don’t hear any immediate difference from optical or USB only if Crossfeed 3 is used. To be clear, there are differences, but they aren’t noticeable unlike Crossfeed 0.
 
In Crossfeed 0, the USB just sounds more natural and musical but lacks a bit of depth. It still sounds like it as a deep soundstage until you compare it directly with the Lumin. On Crossfeed 3, the Lumin kills the USB. From a technical standpoint. The Lumin has more of the holographic sound but isn’t really accurate or faithful until Crossfeed 3 is activated. You almost get the best of both worlds in Crossfeed 3 with the Lumin S1.
 
Here's where I'm confused. You first state that differences were "subtle" with crossfeed 3 and you did not hear any immediate difference between optical (Lumin) and USB (laptop). But you follow that up with "On Crossfeed 3, the Lumin kills the USB."  I'm confused. Is the Lumin much better than the laptop on crossfeed 3, or are the differences "subtle"? You seem to articulate completely opposing thoughts in these sentences. Am I missing something or are we just failing to communicate?
 
I guess I'm also surprised, like The Attorney, that a crossfeed setting would make a significant difference with different sources. When I switched crossfeed settings in my own two-week audition of the DAVE, I found the differences to be very subtle (this was using a single source). Not sure why this would change with different sources. 
 
Once again, Bacon, I appreciate all the work you've done here and find your evaluation to be very useful.

 

[ecwl]

Since shuttlepod brought this up, I'm going to add to this some more for Roy (Romaz) and Bacon. As you know, my recent discovery is that if I have something plugged into my BNC input of the DAVE, the RF/ground noise from that source always adversely affect the sonic output from DAVE (to varying degrees), even if I'm playing off USB or Toslink. I'm guessing when Roy and Bacon tested Chord DAVE, when they were comparing USB vs XLR, I presume the XLR and USB cables are both plugged in at the same time so that you can easily switch between the two inputs.
 
But if my theory is correct, there in lies the problem. With that kind of setup, when you're listening to XLR, you're just listening to the XLR signal + possibly the noise pollution from the XLR. But when you're listening to USB, you're listening to the USB + the noise pollution from the XLR. Now how would that affect the sound, obviously, I'm not sure. But I think to genuinely confirm that XLR is superior to USB, you actually need to unplug the XLR cable when you're listening to USB. Otherwise, maybe the performance of the USB is degraded simply by the noise coming from the XLR.

 

[shuttlepod]

Before today, all the music sources I have listened to with the DAVE have been through USB or optical. Even when I had the Aurender N10 around, I never bothered to test the AES/EBU connection mainly because I sold my high quality AES/EBU cables with my TotalDac. A few hours ago, I heard an Aurender N10 again but this time, I connected to my DAVE both with my $400 Curious USB cable (a cable I found to be superior to my TotalDac USB, AQ Diamond, Wireworld Platinum 7, Lightspeed USB and Synergistic Research USB SE) and also with a $4,200 Nordost Valhalla AES/EBU cable. This was the first time I heard my DAVE through the AES/EBU input and while I was expecting it to sound inferior based on Rob's findings, it made USB sound quite compressed in comparison. Without question, to the ears of all that were in the room, the N10 via AES/EBU to my DAVE sounded more open and more dynamic than USB which suggests either the USB port on this particular Aurender is faulty or AES/EBU with a really good cable could sound better than USB on the DAVE. Tomorrow, I will listen to this again with both an Aurender N10 and W20 but it has left me curious about this input which is supposedly very susceptible to noise.

 
Hi Roy--
 
You are really doing some yeoman work, inserting the DAVE into many different systems and comparisons and sharing your findings with us. It is much appreciated as we learn more about DAVE and other dacs. Perhaps your most interesting observation concerns the AES/EBU input of the DAVE. If you can duplicate this with a different Aurender (the W20) at today's show, then it obviously suggests that Rob's position that USB is the best input may not always be true. That would be pretty surprising. If that is the case, then it begs a number of other questions, one of which would be whether you need a very expensive source like an Aurender to achieve this feat or whether a fairly simple conversion device might do the trick. 
 
With the Schiit Yggy, for example, there are people who use a Yellowtec PUC2 Lite to convert a USB signal to AES/EBU for around $500. See http://stereotimes.com/post/yellowtec-puc2-lite-usb-converter/. A device like this might sound inferior to the AES output of an Aurender for any number of reasons, but the price differential alone would demand a comparison. You sounded pretty confident in your statement that USB sounded "quite compressed" to the AES input (and you were corroborated by the other listeners).
 
Looking forward to your further thoughts on this subject, Roy.
 

 

[izzard1982]

Hi Roy--

You are really doing some yeoman work, inserting the DAVE into many different systems and comparisons and sharing your findings with us. It is much appreciated as we learn more about DAVE and other dacs. Perhaps your most interesting observation concerns the AES/EBU input of the DAVE. If you can duplicate this with a different Aurender (the W20) at today's show, then it obviously suggests that Rob's position that USB is the best input may not always be true. That would be pretty surprising. If that is the case, then it begs a number of other questions, one of which would be whether you need a very expensive source like an Aurender to achieve this feat or whether a fairly simple conversion device might do the trick. 

With the Schiit Yggy, for example, there are people who use a Yellowtec PUC2 Lite to convert a USB signal to AES/EBU for around $500. See http://stereotimes.com/post/yellowtec-puc2-lite-usb-converter/. A device like this might sound inferior to the AES output of an Aurender for any number of reasons, but the price differential alone would demand a comparison. You sounded pretty confident in your statement that USB sounded "quite compressed" to the AES input (and you were corroborated by the other listeners).

Looking forward to your further thoughts on this subject, Roy.
 

I still have the Yellowtec which I was using with Yggy before getting DAVE, I did a brief comparison and didn't find it better than USB, I can retest it again in the next couple of days to see if I can find anything new.

 

[shuttlepod]

Much appreciated, izzard.

 

[rkt31]

can't say about Dave as I don't have it but I have found USB input to be better in mojo than coaxial by a good margin. but the difference is apparent after about an hour of playing . I think by then mojo fully warms up. sound through is lot more confident and punchy and less sibilance in vocals ( those recordings having bright vocals already ) may be it is due asynchronous data transfer .

 

[romaz]

 



I have listen to the Devialet D900 driving a pair of Magico S5 – It was okay, but sound kind of “hifi”. They then switched to use the phone in of the Devialet D900 and hooked up a SOTA Kronos turntable. They didn’t play the same records, nevertheless a totally different and IMO much better sound.  

I'm not a Devialet guy so I can't really comment but I am a Magico guy and I very much enjoyed the S5 Mark II that I heard today driven by these tube monobloc monstrosities. I'm always left wondering when I hear something special what the DAVE would add to the mix but since they were using reel to reel, this was not one of those situations where I felt comfortable introducing them to DAVE.

 

[romaz]

Doesn't the Devialet convert all analog input to digital? Thus inserting the Dave, into the Devialet amps you will simply layer the Dave with the Devialet's digital circuits? I would think that in this case the Devialet should in theory sound better.

Yes, you're absolutely right and I just learned this. Like I said, I'm not a Devialet guy and so this is foreign territory for me but I confirmed today that all incoming analog signals are converted by an internal ADC to digital before a Texas Instruments DAC chip converts to analog once again. The process is obviously transparent enough where it was easy to discern the difference between the DAVE, the turntable and the Aurender being fed directly to the internal DAC of the Devialet but to have to go through two D/A conversions makes little sense to me. As it turns out, the Devialet converts all incoming analog signals to 24/192. What I heard yesterday sounded very good but as I stated, they couldn't provide me any real challenging tracks to play. It is physically a very attractive system but probably not the best way to go if you will be using an outboard DAC like the DAVE.