I appreciate that Rob Watts has long development cycles and he does not design dishonest products with planned obsolescence. I have long said Chord needs to explore firmware/small component upgrades for their DAVE rather than releasing a successor ahead of a major recession. The upgrade strategy has been successful for dCS, PS Audio, Schiit and many others. Lets consider Mike Moffat’s flagship Yggdrasil which was released nearly 10 years ago as an example, it is not thought of as an aging product, they rarely appear for sale, and have strong resale values— all that has everything to do with the upgrades. The promise of upgrades is the very reason dCS has gained momentum and they just followed through with 2.0 and Apex.Dave was launched in May 2015 and 7 years is a very long time indeed in terms of developments in digital technology. Dave has been surpassed nowadays, but the fact that people still think so highly of it is testament to what a ground breaking achievement it was at the time. And it’s performance per price point was staggering back then. I was an early adopter and, whilst I no longer have one, I have only fond memories - well apart from the clunky ferrite bound dual umbilical connections!
It will be very interesting to see what Rob does next when he feels ready to leapfrog his own design. No doubt the hoopla will start all over again but hopefully with less argument about the best way to connect.
I don’t feel the DAVE is due for an update anytime soon but hopefully Rob Watts and Chord use the time to iron out an upgrade program and start printing return shipping labels.
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