CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[JaZZ]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[sarcasm mode on]

And, my gosh, can you believe there are people who go one step further and have the temerity to actually use the DAVE to drive transducers! The most colored components in our systems are our speakers and headphones - and yet there are people who buy a DAVE just to have a suboptimal experience of listening through these things? I can only guess these people who pollute the DAVE this way would hate listening to live performances too.

[/sarcasm mode off]

Measurements of the HD 800S here: http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800S.pdf

I think it would be really hard to find a modern preamp that does this much harm to the signal.

A headphone and a DAC/amp have different kinds of distortion and colorations. With that said yes a SOTA preamp will probably contribute the least of all gear in most setups.  

 
Exactly! The HD 800's curved frequency curve can easily be equalized – many users do, and even Sennheiser themselves approach doing so with the «S» variant –, but the colorations of electronics components consisting of harmonic distortion and other components can't be removed from the signal. Having the DAVE drive high-efficiency speakers is a splendid idea in my book, ideally combined with an active subwoofer – for people who can live without excessive loudness levels. At least until Chord's digital class A amp is available, which promises to sound like a wire with gain according to Rob.

 

[kennyb123]

   

With that said yes a SOTA preamp will probably contribute the least of all gear in most setups.  

 
No, the preamp need not be SOTA to contribute the less coloration than the transducers in our systems.  
 
I just think folks should be mindful of the plank in their own eye (use of headphones or speakers that are far more colored than just about every high-end preamp) than with the speck that may be in someone else's eye (their use of a high-end preamp or amp after the DAVE). 

 

[drbobbybones]

   
Yeah, I was just referring to drbobbyjones' statement that he likes «tube sound». It's not that all tube amps sound the same, but there's certainly a characteristic difference to solid-state gear, although not uniformly pronounced. BTW, I don't belong to those who think tube amps are generally less honest than solid-state amps. And BTW (2), I had acoustic musical instruments in mind when I was talking of a live event.

  That said, if you like tube sound, more power to you. It's just that you don't know what you miss until you go the puristic route systematically.

 
It's drbobbyBONES, thank you 

 
My chain is as "pure" or as "impure" as I choose it to be.  I sometimes run the HD800 or the Eikons straight out of the DAVE, but I prefer the HD800 out of the WA22, fed from the DAVE.  I just think it sounds better TO ME, especially with my current tube setup in the WA22.  I also sometimes EQ my HD800s to make them more "neutral", sometimes through the DAVE, and sometimes through the WA22.  My point is, I have heard what you call "pure" and it doesn't sound as good to me as when I add a little "salt" to the dish.  But, let's agree to agree that we hear and enjoy audio differently 

 

 

[JaZZ]

 

   
Yeah, I was just referring to drbobbyjones' statement that he likes «tube sound». It's not that all tube amps sound the same, but there's certainly a characteristic difference to solid-state gear, although not uniformly pronounced. BTW, I don't belong to those who think tube amps are generally less honest than solid-state amps. And BTW (2), I had acoustic musical instruments in mind when I was talking of a live event.

  That said, if you like tube sound, more power to you. It's just that you don't know what you miss until you go the puristic route systematically.

 
It's drbobbyBONES, thank you 

 
My chain is as "pure" or as "impure" as I choose it to be.  I sometimes run the HD800 or the Eikons straight out of the DAVE, but I prefer the HD800 out of the WA22, fed from the DAVE.  I just think it sounds better TO ME, especially with my current tube setup in the WA22.  I also sometimes EQ my HD800s to make them more "neutral", sometimes through the DAVE, and sometimes through the WA22.  My point is, I have heard what you call "pure" and it doesn't sound as good to me as when I add a little "salt" to the dish.  But, let's agree to agree that we hear and enjoy audio differently 

 

 
Sorry for the misspelling you! And I hope you haven't interpreted my previous post as a criticism on your listening habits. I can live with them. I'm just curious why some people need a sound (colorations) from their setup and others don't. And particularly about one point: If your sound transducers and your source electronics were 100% perfect, would you still feel the need to switch a tube amp into the chain? And if you attend a classical concert, do you ever feel the need to make the sound somewhat «tubier»?

 

[kennyb123]

   
Exactly! The HD 800's curved frequency curve can easily be equalized – many users do, and even Sennheiser themselves approach doing so with the «S» variant –, but the colorations of electronics components consisting of harmonic distortion and other components can't be removed from the signal. 

Equalizing a signal is the path of purity while passing the signal through a high-end preamp or amp is the pursuit of coloration?  Makes perfect sense.
 
How does equalization correct colorations caused by phase issues?  I would think there might be the potential to make things worse in that area by applying EQ.  I could be wrong.
 
I can see issues introduced in both cases (EQ vs adding a preamp).  Neither side should be mocking the other by saying that "it seems you like the sound of coloration".  None of us are hearing uncolored sound through our gear.   Most of us are just trying our best just to arrive at something we enjoy within the practical constraints we are under.

 

[drbobbybones]

Sorry for the misspelling you! And I hope you haven't interpreted my previous post as a criticism on your listening habits. I can live with them. I'm just curious why some people need a sound (colorations) from their setup and others don't. And particularly about one point: If your sound transducers and your source electronics were 100% perfect, would you still feel the need to switch a tube amp into the chain? And if you attend a classical concert, do you ever feel the need to make the sound somewhat «tubier»?

I'm not necessarily looking for colorations per se. I actually think sometimes tubes make music seem more lifelike.

With your classical concert analogy--I can tell you that seeing a classical performance in the Philadelphia Academy of Music sounds entirely different than seeing the same concert at the Hollywood Bowl. And both are lifelike and real, so to speak.

The same with tubes. My perception of reality depends on a host of factors, with tube amplification being only one part of that. As mentioned before, I hear far more difference by changing my end transducer (speaker, headphone) than I do by choosing a tube amp or not. I'm shooting for transparency as well, tubes or not. To me, it's just a different flavor of transparent.

 

[JaZZ]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

  Exactly! The HD 800's curved frequency curve can easily be equalized – many users do, and even Sennheiser themselves approach doing so with the «S» variant –, but the colorations of electronics components consisting of harmonic distortion and other components can't be removed from the signal. 

 

Equalizing a signal is the path of purity while passing the signal through a high-end preamp or amp is the pursuit of coloration?  Makes perfect sense.
 
How does equalization correct colorations caused by phase issues?  I would think there might be the potential to make things worse in that area by applying EQ.  I could be wrong.
 
I can see issues introduced in both cases (EQ vs adding a preamp).  Neither side should be mocking the other by saying that "it seems you like the sound of coloration".  None of us are hearing uncolored sound through our gear.   Most of us are just trying our best just to arrive at something we enjoy within the practical constraints we are under.

 

Equalizing a signal is the path of purity while passing the signal through a high-end preamp or amp is the pursuit of coloration?

 
Exactly, yes. Although Rob has his reservations in view of small-signal integrity (based on his experience with ultra-low-level noise modulation), he absolutely advocates equalizing, too, instead of electronics colorations. Equalizing doesn't introduce any sort of harmonic or intermodulation distortion (save for cases of clipping, which should be taken care of).
 

How does equalization correct colorations caused by phase issues? I would think there might be the potential to make things worse in that area by applying EQ.

 
Equalizing causes phase distortion – that's a fact. If you have a linear signal and distort its amplitude response, the phase response gets distorted accordingly. But there's something only few people are aware of: The same applies to sound transducers. A distorted amplitude response goes hand in hand with a distorted phase response. Hence equalizing a nonlinear amplitude response to flat means linearizing the phase response as well. So equalizing has a double merit which is largely underestimated around here. Of course equalizing carelessly makes things worse in both repects. That's why you can't say: «I've tried equalizing and still clearly prefer the HD 800 with a beefy tube amp.» It takes a lot of time and patience to do it right. And most notably: perfectly linearizing a sound transducer is an unrealistic dream. However, you can get quite far.
 

I can see issues introduced in both cases (EQ vs adding a preamp). Neither side should be mocking the other by saying that "it seems you like the sound of coloration". None of us are hearing uncolored sound through our gear. Most of us are just trying our best just to arrive at something we enjoy within the practical constraints we are under.

 
Of course so far all of us have to content ourself with a colored sound. But there are solid argument against certain configurations if you want as little coloration as possible, and a preamp (instead of a wire without gain) is definitely a relic of the vinyl era and a guarantee to not reach this goal. The sound may be pleasing to the ears of its owner nonetheless, but it's not as accurate and neutral as it gets. Maybe it corrects for some tonal-balance issues within the chain or manages to make the sound more forgiving to other issues (e.g. within the recordings), but that's it.

 

[EVOLVIST]

   
 
Exactly, yes. Although Rob has its reservations in view of small-signal integrity (based on his experience with ultra-low-level noise modulation), he absolutely advocates equalizing, too, instead of electronics colorations. Equalizing doesn't introduce any sort of harmonic or intermodulation distortion (save for cases of clipping, which should be taken care of).
 
 
Equalizing causes phase distortion – that's a fact. If you have a linear signal and distort its amplitude response, the phase response gets distorted accordingly. But there's something only few people are aware of: The same applies to sound transducers. A distorted amplitude response goes hand in hand with a distorted phase response. Hence equalizing a nonlinear amplitude response to flat means linearizing the phase response as well. So equalizing has a double merit which is largely underestimated around here. Of course equalizing carelessly makes things worse in both repects. That's why you can't say: «I've tried equalizing and still clearly prefer the HD 800 with a beefy tube amp.» It takes a lot of time and patience to do it right. And most notably: perfectly linearizing a sound transducer is an unrealistic dream. However, you can get quite far.
 
 

 
Sooooooo....How about digital room correction, with products like the Lyngdorf RP-1, the McIntosh MEN220, or some of the older Accuphase products? We're talking about EQ, but also correcting phase problems, reflections, and sundry other issues that jack with room problems that effect loudspeaker listening. The Lyngdorf/McIntosh solution is actually based upon your own speakers, so it's pretty exact from my understanding.
 
However, just like your own EQ (which I presume happens in the digital domain) how would a room correction module effect the signal coming from the DAVE? I mean, what's your best guess, given that I'm only regurgitating what I've read and know little about EQ.

 

[JaZZ]

 

  Exactly, yes. Although Rob has its reservations in view of small-signal integrity (based on his experience with ultra-low-level noise modulation), he absolutely advocates equalizing, too, instead of electronics colorations. Equalizing doesn't introduce any sort of harmonic or intermodulation distortion (save for cases of clipping, which should be taken care of).
 
Equalizing causes phase distortion – that's a fact. If you have a linear signal and distort its amplitude response, the phase response gets distorted accordingly. But there's something only few people are aware of: The same applies to sound transducers. A distorted amplitude response goes hand in hand with a distorted phase response. Hence equalizing a nonlinear amplitude response to flat means linearizing the phase response as well. So equalizing has a double merit which is largely underestimated around here. Of course equalizing carelessly makes things worse in both repects. That's why you can't say: «I've tried equalizing and still clearly prefer the HD 800 with a beefy tube amp.» It takes a lot of time and patience to do it right. And most notably: perfectly linearizing a sound transducer is an unrealistic dream. However, you can get quite far.

 
Sooooooo....How about digital room correction, with products like the Lyngdorf RP-1, the McIntosh MEN220, or some of the older Accuphase products? We're talking about EQ, but also correcting phase problems, reflections, and sundry other issues that jack with room problems that effect loudspeaker listening. The Lyngdorf/McIntosh solution is actually based upon your own speakers, so it's pretty exact from my understanding.
 
However, just like your own EQ (which I presume happens in the digital domain) how would a room correction module effect the signal coming from the DAVE? I mean, what's your best guess, given that I'm only regurgitating what I've read and know little about EQ.

 
Hi Nick. I must confess that I have no experience with digital room correction at all. The closest thing to it was helping my son calibrating his multichannel speaker setup, which was actually done automatically by the receiver.
 
Certainly the phase-autocorrection scenario doesn't apply in a multi-source system like above. With multi-source I'm also addressing the reflecting walls. The problem with digital room correction is that it inevitably corrupts the frequency response of the direct sound from the speakers. It's as if you would alter the timbre of a violin playing in your reflective room just to get a flatter over-all response (thus including reflected sound). So I'm really helpless with respect to digital room correction and highly skeptical in terms of its functionality, but it nevertheless seems indispenible for a decent speaker sound – if you haven't built your house around your music reproduction system. So all I can say is that I'm glad I'm exclusively into headphones these days (not entirely voluntarily, though) – and this from a former fanatic speaker builder!

 

[7ryder]

   
Sooooooo....How about digital room correction, with products like the Lyngdorf RP-1, the McIntosh MEN220, or some of the older Accuphase products? We're talking about EQ, but also correcting phase problems, reflections, and sundry other issues that jack with room problems that effect loudspeaker listening. The Lyngdorf/McIntosh solution is actually based upon your own speakers, so it's pretty exact from my understanding.
 
However, just like your own EQ (which I presume happens in the digital domain) how would a room correction module effect the signal coming from the DAVE? I mean, what's your best guess, given that I'm only regurgitating what I've read and know little about EQ.

If anyone is concerned about putting something between their DAVE and amp and reducing transparency/neutrality/etc., the last thing you want to do is insert any products like the ones mentioned above which do DSP.

All of these have their own A/D/A conversion in them and, regardless on your view of preamps, etc., I think we can all agree that we don't want more analog-digital-analog conversion after DAVE sends its analog signal to an amp or preamp.
 
The solution to digital room correction now is doing it in your computer before it goes to DAVE. Software from DIRAC, for example, can do what you're looking to do as can Roon, to a lesser extent. 

 

[kennyb123]

Of course so far all of us have to content ourself with a colored sound. But there are solid argument against certain configurations if you want as little coloration as possible, and a preamp (instead of a wire without gain) is definitely a relic of the vinyl era and a guarantee to not reach this goal. The sound may be pleasing to the ears of its owner nonetheless, but it's not as accurate and neutral as it gets. Maybe it corrects for some tonal-balance issues within the chain or manages to make the sound more forgiving to other issues (e.g. within the recordings), but that's it.

Fair point. My objection is simply with how the argument is often made. I find the insinuation that a person must "prefer their sound colored" to be insulting. That is one possible reason but there are certainly others. Maybe the preamp or amp make up for a deficiency elsewhere and is serving the same end as your application of EQ. Like you, their goal may be a flatter frequency curve - but unlike you, they've chosen a different path to get there. There are some here who are too quick to pounce and play the "you must prefer coloration" card and I don't see how that futhers the investigation into the reason why the listener feels that way. We should start by assuming the best motives in others - especially given how badly these colored these transducers can be. Maybe the person who truly aims to flatten out the frequency curve would appreciate being guided to a better solution and it's just that they don't yet understand that there are better ways to get there than placing other components after the DAVE. But to lead off with "you like what that amp does because you prefer coloration" won't be very helpful. Instead maybe lead off with "by proper application of EQ you can make up for the recessed mids you hear with your headphones and EQ could likely achieve better transparency than you are getting with that tube amp. You should give it a try and report back."

There are certainly many listeners who aren't in pursuit of transparency. They usually know this about themselves and will freely admit that they are simply out to achieve a sound of their liking. Those who aren't as self-aware should be allowed to arrive at that conclusion on their own.

I use a preamp as I have two sources and am willing to accept a loss in transparency for that convenience. When the digital I'm able to afford gets me to the point where I'm able to dump that other source, I will likely dump the preamp.

 

[Jawed]

[sarcasm mode on][/sarcasm mode off]

In your rush to be sarcastic, you entirely missed the point.

As an example, I've spent a few hours listening to a couple of Cavalli headphone amps (one solid state, one tube) running off a Hugo. The experience was marred by an excess of lushness, which totally gets in the way of the music. This is an example of supposedly good gear that is anything but transparent. You don't need the world's best headphones to be able to hear that the amp's character is getting in the way.

When a component hides the differences amongst pieces of music because of its overt character, that's when I would trash it. So when I read people choosing gear that is overtly characterful, it indicates their choices won't be sympathetic to mine and so they can be safely ignored.

For me, changing from TT to DAVE is a great demonstration that transparency, and nothing but transparency, is the right upgrade to make.

Back to what I was saying originally: It's impossible to connect a hi-fi component between two other components transparently. Merely adding a pair of RCA connectors and a very short interconnect made from unobtanium will sound worse. So a power amp that needs a pre-amp to "sound right" tells you that the design of both is a fail: it's forcing you to insert an RCA interconnect and the unobtanium interconnect isn't even available to buy, so solely on that basis it's a fail, let alone all the shenanigans that the pre-amp is performing in its own right. Lotsa profit though...

People with analogue sources generally don't have the freedom to explore pre-amp-less systems. So their perspective is going to be skewed.

Now playing: Bernstein - NYPO - Mahler 2nd Symphony

 

[EVOLVIST]

The solution to digital room correction now is doing it in your computer before it goes to DAVE. Software from DIRAC, for example, can do what you're looking to do as can Roon, to a lesser extent. 

Wait. Hold up. Did I say I was going after such a thing? I posted an extreme case of EQ in some of those devices. That is all.

 

[EVOLVIST]

Well, I guess that settles it. Not everybody is after as much transparency as they can get. I find that fan-*******-tastic!

Every since I got into the whole transparency/neutral trip, it's been blowing my friggin' mind. Before, I used to just enjoy the music, but now I ask questions I never thought of asking and my obsessiveness for knowledge has sucked the joy from it. Yeah, that's my fault.

I go to other audiophile's cribs and listen to their systems, and yes, some of them sound like turds, but then there are a few, which cost a fraction of mine, where I'm like, "Man, that just sounds musical!" Implementation, implementation, implementation.

I should make that my new mantra.

The thing is, in this quest for transparency, I get the DAVE and it's out of sight! But then like any drug, you want to get higher. Only "higher" with the DAVE is that whatever you do, don't futz too much with the sound or you'll ruin the tech. I get that. Still, it's a bit like saying, "Here, I'll give you 250 million dollars; I'll make you a millionaire right now, but if I give this to you, you can never leave your house, get on the internet, or have contact with anybody, save for those who bring you food and clothing." So sure, you eat like a king, and your clothes are swank, yet your stuck right there.

Not only that, but I'm still waiting on the god damn jetpack they promised me when I was a kid.

 

[EVOLVIST]

/kill thread