[koven]

I have love for all colours, except for a black dave.

That sounds like a... systemic bias. Just kidding.

 

[seaice]

I'll tell you what's tragic.

A Black Dave!

A black dave should be listed in the Geneva Convention and or the Hague as a war crime.

So finally, you are not interested in trading your black TT2 for my black Dave for free. Very good news to me!

 

[Amberlamps]

So finally, you are not interested in trading your black TT2 for my black Dave for free. Very good news to me!

I can make an exception in your case.

 

[xiaobao0707]

Hi guys, I'm sure this must have been asked before. But it is just too much to dig in all the messages.

I right now am using Dave + M Scaler, right out of Dave's headphone jacket. I personally find this amazing, with incredible amount of details and the timbers are just right. But somehow will a good quality amp make it better? I generally enjoy classics and jazz. Thank you!

 

[ecwl]

Hi guys, I'm sure this must have been asked before. But it is just too much to dig in all the messages.

I right now am using Dave + M Scaler, right out of Dave's headphone jacket. I personally find this amazing, with incredible amount of details and the timbers are just right. But somehow will a good quality amp make it better? I generally enjoy classics and jazz. Thank you!

IMHO, no. Because I mostly listen to speaker systems, I have not been able to find an amplifier that is as transparent as the DAVE headphone jack. My Chord Etude is very close and the best I’ve tried and heard though. I think unless your headphones have low sensitivity and need more power, you’re always going to get the most transparent sound off the headphone jack. However, there are definitely some on this thread that disagrees with me. While I personally think their headphone amplifier are adding some euphonic distortions and sacrificing some transparency and accuracy, I actually don’t really know what I’m talking about since I don’t own other headphone amplifiers to compare. So my suggestion is that if you have money lying around and time, try some headphone amps? If you don’t, just enjoy the music. Like I’m doing right now with my Focal Utopia headphones (because I don’t want to disturb my neighbours in my apartment)

 

[vellocetplus]

Hi guys, I'm sure this must have been asked before. But it is just too much to dig in all the messages.

I right now am using Dave + M Scaler, right out of Dave's headphone jacket. I personally find this amazing, with incredible amount of details and the timbers are just right. But somehow will a good quality amp make it better? I generally enjoy classics and jazz. Thank you!

IMHO, no. Because I mostly listen to speaker systems, I have not been able to find an amplifier that is as transparent as the DAVE headphone jack. My Chord Etude is very close and the best I’ve tried and heard though. I think unless your headphones have low sensitivity and need more power, you’re always going to get the most transparent sound off the headphone jack. However, there are definitely some on this thread that disagrees with me. While I personally think their headphone amplifier are adding some euphonic distortions and sacrificing some transparency and accuracy, I actually don’t really know what I’m talking about since I don’t own other headphone amplifiers to compare. So my suggestion is that if you have money lying around and time, try some headphone amps? If you don’t, just enjoy the music. Like I’m doing right now with my Focal Utopia headphones (because I don’t want to disturb my neighbours in my apartment)

I agree. I have an LCD-4 (200 Ohm) and compared driving it directly out of Dave vs out of Violectric HPA V280 (with Dave as the DAC): Dave direct was clearly better in all aspects, including bass handling, so I sold the amp.

I'm guessing that only for the Susvara/HE-6 and perhaps the Abyss you need a amp in order to drive them properly. For all other headphones, adding an amp just adds distortion and coloration in my opinion, which of course isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[JTbbb]

Hello, I have a Dave on demo for a couple of weeks and I’ve pretty much got my head around the menu system. But for the life of me I cannot find how to change the gain (volume) range, high/low. I am in Amp mode. I guess I’m missing something simple!

 

[ecwl]

So I first noticed this with my Mojo. When I listen to headphones, I always use Crossfeed 3 with the Focal Utopia. I tried to mimic this with Mojo by using the same crossfeed setting in Roon (700Hz 4.5dB) and I noticed a loss in transparency with that setup but I don’t know how much is Roon and how much is the crossfeed simply changing the sonic signature and frequency response.
Since I have my headphones on, I tested this with DAVE (and M-Scaler). And indeed, doing the crossfeed with Roon does lead to a very subtle loss in low-level detail and the sound of instruments just seemed minimally less realistic presumably because of that subtle low-level detail loss. Now, I used to term very subtle because if I were to give a grade of sound quality of DAVE crossfeed as 100%, I would give the Roon crossfeed as 98%. I don’t know whether the reason is that Roon executes the crossfeed at 44.1kHz whereas DAVE does it at 705.6kHz. Or whether it’s because Roon’s dithering is inferior to DAVE. I suspect it’s likely both.
The reason why I brought it up is that I’ve always known in my speaker system that because I have to use room correction (after optimally setting up the speakers and seating without turning my living room into a studio or a hi-fi shop), I’m losing some transparency with the DSP. That’s why I try to keep the DSP to a minimum. Ultimately for me, not having the DSP causes a bit of bass overloading that sounds worse than enabling the subtle parametric EQs even accepting the slight loss in transparency. Your mileage might vary in your system.

 

[ecwl]

Hello, I have a Dave on demo for a couple of weeks and I’ve pretty much got my head around the menu system. But for the life of me I cannot find how to change the gain (volume) range, high/low. I am in Amp mode. I guess I’m missing something simple!

DAVE only has DAC mode vs Digital Pre mode so I presume when you say Amp mode, you mean DAC mode? I didn’t actually think anyone puts DAVE in Amp/DAC mode. Mostly because if you want DAC mode, you can just set the volume at -3dB because they’re 100% identical. DAVE would give 3V output. And if your pre-amp/amp actually clips at 3V, you can set DAVE to -7dB for 2V or -13dB for 1V. It just makes using DAVE much more convenient instead of locking it at 3V. To turn off DAC mode, you just press the Left and Right button at the same time until DAVE says Chord DAVE Digital Pre at the bottom of the screen. Or you should be able to just turn off and then on the DAC again as I think it always defaults to Digital Pre mode. DAVE clips at 3-4dB in Digital Pre mode and I think it gives about 6-7V? So bottom line is that you just change the volume by turning the knob or using the remote.

 

[Triode User]

DAVE only has DAC mode vs Digital Pre mode so I presume when you say Amp mode, you mean DAC mode? I didn’t actually think anyone puts DAVE in Amp/DAC mode. Mostly because if you want DAC mode, you can just set the volume at -3dB because they’re 100% identical. DAVE would give 3V output. And if your pre-amp/amp actually clips at 3V, you can set DAVE to -7dB for 2V or -13dB for 1V. It just makes using DAVE much more convenient instead of locking it at 3V. To turn off DAC mode, you just press the Left and Right button at the same time until DAVE says Chord DAVE Digital Pre at the bottom of the screen. Or you should be able to just turn off and then on the DAC again as I think it always defaults to Digital Pre mode. DAVE clips at 3-4dB in Digital Pre mode and I think it gives about 6-7V? So bottom line is that you just change the volume by turning the knob or using the remote.

Yep, agreed, a spot on summary. Also to add that unlike TT2, Dave does not have a high/low gain setting.

 

[xiaobao0707]

IMHO, no. Because I mostly listen to speaker systems, I have not been able to find an amplifier that is as transparent as the DAVE headphone jack. My Chord Etude is very close and the best I’ve tried and heard though. I think unless your headphones have low sensitivity and need more power, you’re always going to get the most transparent sound off the headphone jack. However, there are definitely some on this thread that disagrees with me. While I personally think their headphone amplifier are adding some euphonic distortions and sacrificing some transparency and accuracy, I actually don’t really know what I’m talking about since I don’t own other headphone amplifiers to compare. So my suggestion is that if you have money lying around and time, try some headphone amps? If you don’t, just enjoy the music. Like I’m doing right now with my Focal Utopia headphones (because I don’t want to disturb my neighbours in my apartment)

Thank you ecwl for your words. Your words actually matches exactly my feeling years ago while I just acquired Dave. I should just sit back and enjoy the music. Too bad my utopia's left driver is broken, for a second time...

 

[JTbbb]

DAVE only has DAC mode vs Digital Pre mode so I presume when you say Amp mode, you mean DAC mode? I didn’t actually think anyone puts DAVE in Amp/DAC mode. Mostly because if you want DAC mode, you can just set the volume at -3dB because they’re 100% identical. DAVE would give 3V output. And if your pre-amp/amp actually clips at 3V, you can set DAVE to -7dB for 2V or -13dB for 1V. It just makes using DAVE much more convenient instead of locking it at 3V. To turn off DAC mode, you just press the Left and Right button at the same time until DAVE says Chord DAVE Digital Pre at the bottom of the screen. Or you should be able to just turn off and then on the DAC again as I think it always defaults to Digital Pre mode. DAVE clips at 3-4dB in Digital Pre mode and I think it gives about 6-7V? So bottom line is that you just change the volume by turning the knob or using the remote.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I am already in Digital Pre (Feeding an Etude like yourself) and from my understanding of the manual that is Amp mode whereby you adjust volume with the remote or volume knob. But in the quick start manual Sect. 9, it talks about switching between a low/high gain mode in a very similar fashion to TT2. It’s a bit academic really as the volume is fine, but it states it is available and I can’t find it.

 

[xiaobao0707]

I agree. I have an LCD-4 (200 Ohm) and compared driving it directly out of Dave vs out of Violectric HPA V280 (with Dave as the DAC): Dave direct was clearly better in all aspects, including bass handling, so I sold the amp.

I'm guessing that only for the Susvara/HE-6 and perhaps the Abyss you need a amp in order to drive them properly. For all other headphones, adding an amp just adds distortion and coloration in my opinion, which of course isn't necessarily a bad thing.

With my HD800 -16db served it really well so I guess you are right, adding an amp only adds distortion. As of my taste, I should stay away from splurging money that way. Thank you.

 

[JTbbb]

Yep, agreed, a spot on summary. Also to add that unlike TT2, Dave does not have a high/low gain setting.

Hi TU, yes I believe you are correct. Dave does not have a high/low gain setting.

 

[TheAttorney]

... And indeed, doing the crossfeed with Roon does lead to a very subtle loss in low-level detail and the sound of instruments just seemed minimally less realistic presumably because of that subtle low-level detail loss. Now, I used to term very subtle because if I were to give a grade of sound quality of DAVE crossfeed as 100%, I would give the Roon crossfeed as 98%.

I think Roon's crossfeed does indeed lose transparency, but I would give it a much lower score than 98%. I'm not impressed with the SQ aspects of Roon's DSP in general - especially the volume control and auto levelling, so it's a general Roon DSP issue rather than specific to crossfeed. All in IMO of course and there are plenty of users who don't have a problem with Roon's DSP.

As it happens, I think that DAVE's XF also has a slight loss of transparency, but at a much lower level and I find the benefits far outweigh the losses. I posted about this a while back - the 3 aspects of the perceived effect of DAVE's XF transparency (the more natural soundstage presentation (good), the bass boost (good or bad depending on headphone's FR), and a genuine loss in transparency (bad)).