[Somatic]

I am now also cnc’ing some silver dc dave inlets so if future buyers want it silver in the next batch it will be an option.

Oh damn. Hehe. Silver would be nice but I’m happy either way.

 

[MvRBE10]

Is yours already shipped? You can turn the glands out the alu plate and keep them on the wire and just take some wheelspray silver. Tape everything and give it a few sprays. Will be pretty nice as if you want it silver.

 

[801evan]

My point was that Golden doesn't have anything to do with this discussion, even though he does like Holo stuff.

Goldensound's measurements with the OOR.

That may be so but measurements are measurements lol.

You first brought up Golden and his measurements with the OOR, which implies comparing it to the measurements he had with the Dave as a form of argument that it correlates with your experience when there is no correlation and I mentioned he is not credible.

I have the Hypsos and it's a very underwhelming psu that's hazy and not that clear nor black nor linear vs a much cheaper Ifi Elite. I have modded the Hypsos with silver internals and silver dc cable and while that helped it, it also made it more apparent how the Hypsos lacks the performance and bandwidth. It also can't handle load variation where it gets noisy and have poor blacks. To have that power the OOR...pass.

Now the OOR, just see the thread and everyone is doing high gain on the Susvara....which has higher distortion and weaker blacks. Many have said Susvara lacks bass and sub-bass on it.

Now back to my Dave setup, I get deep bass, deep blacks and really good sub bass extension. Zero distortion. Zero clipping. Zero edge or etch after 24 hours warm up. I have HF ON and crossfeed on + mqa and it's freaking magnificent. Just stock psu with line conditioner.

For the amount you're gonna pay, just get the Farad stack or dc4.

 

[adrianm]

You first brought up Golden and his measurements with the OOR, which implies comparing it to the measurements he had with the Dave as a form of argument that it correlates with your experience when there is no correlation and I mentioned he is not credible.

I have the Hypsos and it's a very underwhelming psu that's hazy and not that clear nor black nor linear vs a much cheaper Ifi Elite. I have modded the Hypsos with silver internals and silver dc cable and while that helped it, it also made it more apparent how the Hypsos lacks the performance and bandwidth. It also can't handle load variation where it gets noisy and have poor blacks. To have that power the OOR...pass.

Now the OOR, just see the thread and everyone is doing high gain on the Susvara....which has higher distortion and weaker blacks. Many have said Susvara lacks bass and sub-bass on it.

Now back to my Dave setup, I get deep bass, deep blacks and really good sub bass extension. Zero distortion. Zero clipping. Zero edge or etch after 24 hours warm up. I have HF ON and crossfeed on and it's freaking magnificent. Just stock psu with line conditioner.

For the amount you're gonna pay, just get the Farad stack or dc4.

Well i'm clearly not going to change your mind with facts, but Dave's HP out has 1% distortion (so clearly not zero) vs 0.0004% on the Oor. As for the Hypsos, i liked it in combination with the Oor and wouldn't have bought the amp without it. Or without the xlr and power cables i used to test.
I get it, you like direct Dave. I do too. I just find it lacking in several areas compared to any decent headphone amp. Tested the Burson 3x GT as well. That had much poorer blacks than the OOR + Hypsos but still better than non filtered Dave. The filter/generator help You can put as many horses as you want in front of a carriage, you still won't make it a car.
I've tested everything myself and I have no interest in the current flavor of the month. I know people enjoy messing around and any changes they can call improvements, but I've wasted enough time chasing the latest " Pro tips ".
You need to accept that just because you like something, doesn't make it the absolute truth. Just like you say the Susvara/ Stealth are driven great by Dave and everyone disagrees. I was tentatively inclined to believe you before listening to them myself. Susvara sounded literally broken from Dave, and almost as bad with the OOR in SE. It was with 4x the power in balanced mode that they actually started to sound good. And I hated Susvara out of TT2 as well when i first listened to them.
It has nothing to do with clipping or etc. There is just considerably better soundstage, 3d imaging, separation and dynamics from a better amp.
If keeping the Dave on will overcome that, I'll gladly return the OOR but i doubt it. Listening now after keeping it on for 24 hours, I don't detect any difference.

 

[Somatic]

Does Dave lose transparency with a power amp? I just went with more sensitive headphones Sol P and LCD5 out of direct Dave.

Well i'm clearly not going to change your mind with facts, but Dave's HP out has 1% distortion (so clearly not zero) vs 0.0004% on the Oor. As for the Hypsos, i liked it in combination with the Oor and wouldn't have bought the amp without it. Or without the xlr and power cables i used to test.
I get it, you like direct Dave. I do too. I just find it lacking in several areas compared to any decent headphone amp. Tested the Burson 3x GT as well. That had much poorer blacks than the OOR + Hypsos but still better than non filtered Dave. The filter/generator help You can put as many horses as you want in front of a carriage, you still won't make it a car.
I've tested everything myself and I have no interest in the current flavor of the month. I know people enjoy messing around and any changes they can call improvements, but I've wasted enough time chasing the latest " Pro tips ".
You need to accept that just because you like something, doesn't make it the absolute truth. Just like you say the Susvara/ Stealth are driven great by Dave and everyone disagrees. I was tentatively inclined to believe you before listening to them myself. Susvara sounded literally broken from Dave, and almost as bad with the OOR in SE. It was with 4x the power in balanced mode that they actually started to sound good. And I hated Susvara out of TT2 as well when i first listened to them.
It has nothing to do with clipping or etc. There is just considerably better soundstage, 3d imaging, separation and dynamics from a better amp.
If keeping the Dave on will overcome that, I'll gladly return the OOR but i doubt it. Listening now after keeping it on for 24 hours, I don't detect any difference.

 

[adrianm]

Does Dave lose transparency with a power amp? I just went with more sensitive headphones Sol P and LCD5 out of direct Dave.

It depends on the amp I guess, this is the reason why I avoided buying a separate amp until now. On a short audition, there's a lot to gain and nothing immediately apparent that was lost. I'll come back to you with impressions after my amp + cables arrive and I get more time with them. The improvements I've heard were consistent across HPA4, OOR and Burson 3x GT, with the very sensitive Elites scaling well with more power from the OOR in balanced mode. Subjectively, they each imparted a bit of their own character, but I feel like I'm getting 80% out of the Elites going direct Dave.
I would audition an amp with some good cables (they matter) and decide for myself. Since the Elites benefit, I'm sure the LCD5 would , having almost bought them. Dave drove the Elites much better than the LCD5. Also using a Lavricables Grand btw.

 

[801evan]

but the other modified psu clearly hadn't. It sounded better than my stock Dave on a high end speaker rig, but fell apart with direct headphone listening. It was much worse. Then again it was never tested for this during development.

If we were to observe your experience and of other's impressions in where they prefer external amp vs direct HP out, through inductive reasoning we can reasonably claim that the psu mod you speak of is still quite inadequate and is the cause of the seemingly poor performance of Dave's HP out and has nothing to do with the Dave.

The Dave sounded good on the speaker rig because the amplifier is using its own psu and not that of the Dave. The HP out of the Dave is using the psu of the Dave and hence why it sounds bad still.

Which means, the ability to have a good performance out of Dave's HP OUT is very possible, is very much adequate as Rob claims, and is a barometer of the whole chain. And if an external amp sounds better than the Dave HP OUT, it just means the psu of that amp is better and has nothing to do with 'headroom'.

 

[adrianm]

If we were to observe your experience and of other's impressions in where they prefer external amp vs direct HP out, through inductive reasoning we can reasonably claim that the psu mod you speak of is still quite inadequate and is the cause of the seemingly poor performance of Dave's HP out and has nothing to do with the Dave.

The Dave sounded good on the speaker rig because the amplifier is using its own psu and not that of the Dave.

Agreed so far.

he HP out of the Dave is using the psu of the Dave and hence why it sounds bad still.

Which means, the ability to have a good performance out of Dave's HP OUT is very possible, is very much adequate as Rob claims, and is a barometer of the whole chain. And if an external amp sounds better than the Dave HP OUT, it just means the psu of that amp is better and has nothing to do with 'headroom'.

This is where our conclusions diverge. There's more to an amp than the PSU. The HPA4 was very transparent, but ultimately a very slight improvement over Dave in terms of dynamics and soundstage.
The fact that the OOR sounds so much better using a balanced connection(8w into 60ohms) instead of single ended(2w into 60ohms) disproves that. The only difference is more power. I wouldn't have bought it based on the SE performance. Direct Dave was 90% there.

 

[801evan]

Agreed so far.

This is where our conclusions diverge. There's more to an amp than the PSU. The HPA4 was very transparent, but ultimately a very slight improvement over Dave in terms of dynamics and soundstage.
The fact that the OOR sounds so much better using a balanced connection(8w into 60ohms) instead of single ended(2w into 60ohms) disproves that. The only difference is more power. I wouldn't have bought it based on the SE performance. Direct Dave was 90% there.

What's the brand of the rca vs xlr cables and conductor quality? And what are the brands of the plugs?

And you aren't going down a gain setting on xlr? And what gain setting is ur pref on xlr?

 

[adrianm]

What's the brand of the rca vs xlr cables and conductor quality? And what are the brands of the plugs?

Used some QED XLR's which resulted in a clear loss of transparency, and some Crystal Cable Micro Diamond XLR cables, which were great. And I'm not a cable fan btw, but some clearly sound better, and the only way I liked the OOR was with these + a Crystal micro diamond power cable. Tried a printer cable initially and it made it sound like crap even out of my Aquarius's high current sockets (that's how i tested the oor+ hypsos). Will audition a few others when the stuff gets here.
Headphone cables were different, but i compared using the upgraded silver plated Meze cable vs a cheaper custom copper cable, nothing too fancy. I ordered some Furutech plugs (mini xlr and xlr) and will modify my Lavricables Grand to use with the Elites and expect it to be an improvement over what i've previously heard.

 

[chesebert]

You all understand when Chord does their Dave/TT/mscaler demos for clients they use the dollar store cables, correct?

 

[801evan]

Used some QED XLR's which resulted in a clear loss of transparency, and some Crystal Cable Micro Diamond XLR cables, which were great. And I'm not a cable fan btw, but some clearly sound better, and the only way I liked the OOR was with these + a Crystal micro diamond power cable. Tried a printer cable initially and it made it sound like crap even out of my Aquarius's high current sockets (that's how i tested the oor+ hypsos). Will audition a few others when the stuff gets here.
Headphone cables were different, but i compared using the upgraded silver plated Meze cable vs a cheaper custom copper cable, nothing too fancy. I ordered some Furutech plugs (mini xlr and xlr) and will modify my Lavricables Grand to use with the Elites and expect it to be an improvement over what i've previously heard.

Hmm you didn't mention the rca cables but.... Different cable quality and plugs can shift that difference between SE vs balanced compared to SE being seemingly broken vs balanced.

You all understand when Chord does their Dave/TT/mscaler demos for clients they use the dollar store cables, correct?

It's 2022. That may work when it was 2 yrs old and also why such approach is making other brands seemingly catch up.

 

[chesebert]

Hmm you didn't mention the rca cables but.... Different cable quality and plugs can shift that difference between SE vs balanced compared to SE being seemingly broken vs balanced.



It's 2022. That may work when it was 2 yrs old and also why such approach is making other brands seemingly catch up.

Chord continues to demo their the gear the same way - yes even in 2022. I think they had better cables in prior years but this year they really put on their dollar store persona.

 

[801evan]

Chord continues to demo their the gear the same way - yes even in 2022. I think they had better cables in prior years but this year they really put on their dollar store persona.

Well...ppl shouldn't wonder about my claims then since they are aware of my stance on the matter.

 

[adrianm]

You all understand when Chord does their Dave/TT/mscaler demos for clients they use the dollar store cables, correct?

Chord continues to demo their the gear the same way - yes even in 2022. I think they had better cables in prior years but this year they really put on their dollar store persona.

Clearly Chord is terrible at designing stuff since every part of Dave needs upgrading

I do, and i tried to believe it for years, but they just don't sound the same to me Some are better, some are worse, but they do sound different. Whether it's the plugs, the soldering, the unicorn tear infused cables, or just not adhering to standards .
I know the high-school drop-outs turned internet evangelists at ASR like to yell "science" at everyone, but that's not how it works. And while i don't have the explanation, or interest in doing so, @WaveTheory has put a lot of effort in a recent series which explains some things a lot of "non zealots" had gut feelings about very well :




Now I'm not saying you should take anything as Gospel, but I've been saying for years what he's saying in the intro. Whether he's right or not, as someone who's lost way too much time testing what I've read here (both sides of the coin), it's clear that it's a discussion worth having and extremist views on don't do anyone any favors.