[miketlse]

 
Interesting to hear but I will probably be on a  flight to Colombo Sri Lanka on the 4th of February.
Hopefully there will be HUGO2s available for sale  in Singapore or KL before that date.
Or if not, at least when I get back again from Colombo at the end of February.
What about Bangkok? Are there any Chord reps there at all?

 
I think that the Chord statements, for the new products, have been small levels of production in Feb, ramping up to full production rates in March.
This aligns with Robs statement - if the initial production starts during Feb, then they will have the first units available for shipping, at the end of Feb or start of March.
 
Based on this, I think it will be unlikely that any dealers anywhere, will have units in their stores before the start of March. So if you want to demo the units, you probably only have the opportunity at trade shows or canjams. I am sure that many dealers will accept pre-orders, but you will be buying 'unheard'.

 

[Christer]

   
I think that the Chord statements, for the new products, have been small levels of production in Feb, ramping up to full production rates in March.
This aligns with Robs statement - if the initial production starts during Feb, then they will have the first units available for shipping, at the end of Feb or start of March.
 
Based on this, I think it will be unlikely that any dealers anywhere, will have units in their stores before the start of March. So if you want to demo the units, you probably only have the opportunity at trade shows or canjams. I am sure that many dealers will accept pre-orders, but you will be buying 'unheard'.

I would not buy "unheard ".
I trust only my own ears/brain when it comes to how close any piece of equipment comes to the holy grail live acoustic music.Nor are trade shows/canjams  really any  good for anything more than meeting people and seeing new products imho.
They are noisy and tend to play only crap music  anyway.
Well, well something similar happened when HUGO was released. I was able to audition one in Singapore in March that year. But they had no units for sale until much later so I bought my HUGO back home in Sweden in May that year.
But I must admit that I am very curious to hear how HUGO 2 performs with  my hi res classical reference files.
If it delivers as promised I will sell both HUGO and my Benchmark DAC2 asap and possibly get a HUGO 2 without having to pay any cash at all. 
 Yours  sincerely Mr Cheap.
 PS. Who by the way would  never ever buy a cd only  capable disc  player ever again. CDs are distant  history as far as I am concerned.

 

[Rob Watts]

  Hi Rob Watts, 
I have a question about connection of steamer-blu2-dave, It is Steamer - usb/bnc convertor - blu2 - dual bnc - dave ?
Does blu2 accept both pcm and dsd signal from steamer?
Danny

Yes it will accept DoP DSD64 and DSD128 but no more as the SPDIF is limited to 384 kHz.
 
Rob

 

[Rob Watts]

 

  I believe Blu 2 and Davina are supposed to cost the same.

Why should they cost the same? Rob has recently said that:
 

   
I have already looked into that, and its possible that eliminating the ADC won't actually make a great deal of difference. The majority of the BOM cost is metalwork, FPGA, PCB and power supply. The ADC savings (analogue integrators and pulse array) is actually quite small and would probably be outweighed by the costs of producing two products.
 
I want as many people as possible to enjoy the benefits of M scaler tech, so we are trying our best to reduce costs.
 
Rob
 

 
 
in which case the Davina should be substantially less. It won't need the expensive casework of the Blu2 since there will be no fancy hinged lid or cd compartment, it won't have a cd mechanism and associated logic, which I reckon means that a stand-alone M Scaler should be a lot cheaper than the Blu 2. So if adding an ADC to the M Scaler "won't actually make a great deal of difference" then I would have thought that the Davina should cost significantly less than the Blu 2. 

We don't know for sure what Davina will cost at all at this stage, as no BOM costing has been done. I would not like to suggest a price and then see people disappointed, as it will be what it will be. Now I can't comment on Chord's behalf - they set the price - but I can say I will do everything I can to make M scaler technology available to as many people as possible, as I think the M scaler will prove to have immense importance.
 
Rob

 

[JaZZ]

 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Quote:

 

  I believe Blu 2 and Davina are supposed to cost the same.

Why should they cost the same? Rob has recently said that:
 

   
I have already looked into that, and its possible that eliminating the ADC won't actually make a great deal of difference. The majority of the BOM cost is metalwork, FPGA, PCB and power supply. The ADC savings (analogue integrators and pulse array) is actually quite small and would probably be outweighed by the costs of producing two products.
 
I want as many people as possible to enjoy the benefits of M scaler tech, so we are trying our best to reduce costs.
 
Rob

 
in which case the Davina should be substantially less. It won't need the expensive casework of the Blu2 since there will be no fancy hinged lid or cd compartment, it won't have a cd mechanism and associated logic, which I reckon means that a stand-alone M Scaler should be a lot cheaper than the Blu 2. So if adding an ADC to the M Scaler "won't actually make a great deal of difference" then I would have thought that the Davina should cost significantly less than the Blu 2.

 
We don't know for sure what Davina will cost at all at this stage, as no BOM costing has been done. I would not like to suggest a price and then see people disappointed, as it will be what it will be. Now I can't comment on Chord's behalf - they set the price - but I can say I will do everything I can to make M scaler technology available to as many people as possible, as I think the M scaler will prove to have immense importance.
 
Rob

 
Hi Rob
 
Many thanks and congratulations on the 1 million achievement! I really want an M scaler for my DAVE... but sadly the Blu 2 is no option, and the upcoming Davina won't be either most likely. The 10 ampère figure is insane. I know it was inevitable and it's not your fault, but I hope some future processor developments will enable 1.4 million taps with just 3.2 ampère current consumption. My ears will be quite a bit older then, so it's questionable if I will be able to benefit from the progress at all, unfortunately.
 
There's one thing I wanted to ask you since quite a while: As I understand it, the high tap rate of the WTA filter primarily serves for low sampling rates like 44.1 and 48 kHz. Am I right? What is the benefit from the WTA filter at higher sampling rates, say 192 kHz? Is there any at all? I would think 192 kHz and 384 kHz at the latest could do very well without any low-pass filtering, at least in the sense of «signal reconstruction».

 

[AndrewOld]

We don't know for sure what Davina will cost at all at this stage, as no BOM costing has been done. I would not like to suggest a price and then see people disappointed, as it will be what it will be. Now I can't comment on Chord's behalf - they set the price - but I can say I will do everything I can to make M scaler technology available to as many people as possible, as I think the M scaler will prove to have immense importance.

Rob

Fantastic Rob, thank you very much.

 

[Hubert H]

   
Hi Rob
 
The 10 ampère figure is insane

 
That's at 1V not 230V, Think Rob said 30W for the unit.
 
I think that's correct

 

[JaZZ]

 

  Hi Rob
 
The 10 ampère figure is insane

 
That's at 1V not 230V, Think Rob said 30W for the unit.
 
I think that's correct

 
Really? That would be a great relief. I hope Rob will confirm it.

 

[Hubert H]

I don't if this has been seen before but I believe it is Rob's first FPGA DAC, the DPA SX512 (pic courtesy of http://www.acoustica.org.uk/DPA/deltec.html). There's a really good list of DPA products on that link as well as interviews with Rob and a technical paper for the SX512.
 

 

[Hubert H]

I'm the same, I hate using too much power and 2.5kW would be a step too far regardless of the improvement

 

[Hubert H]

   
Really? That would be a great relief. I hope Rob will confirm it.

 Sorry JaZZ, it was from the @romaz post a couple of days ago, info from Rob - http://www.head-fi.org/t/766517/chord-electronics-dave/6555#post_13150786
 
I must have imagined 30W total...

 

[JaZZ]

Well, as long as the number is passably adequate... Thank you anyway!

 

[izzard1982]

It's 30W, you can see it on Chord website.
 

 

[Rob Watts]

Yes all file formats benefit from WTA filtering, and 44.1 to 384 kHz all have exactly the same amount of processing irrespective of sample rate. Of course, the filter is used differently with 48k and 96k - they run in different modes - but the coefficient bank is the same, and the DSP does exactly the same number of multiply and add, so the output resolution in terms of timing accuracy is identical. Later I will formally try to do some listening tests on different resolution sources and feedback on the results. My superficial impression is that older redbook recordings seem to benefit more - some of the problems from 1960's Decca for example are very much reduced.
 
Yes the 10A peak is at 1V so we are looking at only 10W maximum. What I have always done is to have the core regulator as close as possible to the FPGA, so it is normally mounted directly underneath the FPGA. This means that the PSU inductor and ground loop is kept as small as possible. This means the conversion of noisy signal correlated 10A/1V to clean 2A/5V is constrained to as small an area as possible, so we have the least possible signal correlated noise on the ground plane, which would then upset the pulse array elements. When I used to use linear regulators, I had measured problems due to this, and each place and route on the FPGA would measure and sound different. But since using switchers, and controlling the current loops, I think I have pretty much solved this issue - at least with Mojo/Hugo/Dave as I now see no measurement problems or differences in sound quality with differing place and route. Here is one example of supposedly nasty switching regulators sounding and measuring very much better than linear regulators.
 
The first version of Blu 2 had 6A regulators, and this was with the 512,000 taps. But using the first 1,000,000 taps design meant the regulator collapsed, so it would not work. Now I had expected this, and a 12A regulator version was already being built and arrived soon after the completion o the 1M design.
 
Rob

 

[romaz]

Just to offer some perspective on the high perceived price of Blu Mk 2 and it's M-scaler, here are some competing prices from other products:
 
Esoteric P-02X SACD/CD Transport (no DAC.  This is the latest model that was just released.  Yes, this also does SACD but it has no scaler) - $23,000  
 
dCS Upsampler 2.0 (upsamples to 2x DSD or 24/352.8.  Also has ethernet input and can stream Tidal or Spotify.  Does not include a CD transport at this price) - $22,000
 
Blu Mk 2 incorporates both with a scaler that performs well beyond the capability of the dCS scaler for under $10k USD.  I think Chord has produced a product that easily overachieves at its price point.  Considering MSB's DACs are at about 6,000 TAPS, I'm sure some MSB owners are looking at Blu Mk 2 as the steal of the century given that MSB charges $11,500 for their own Signature CD transport with power base which doesn't include a scaler.  Considering the step upgrade that I heard from DAVE to 1 million taps is greater than what I heard from Hugo to DAVE, I believe the price is very fair.