Hi
@Rob Watts
What is the story behind this SMA reservation near Dave's display header..
Was there once a Bluetooth function planned for Dave?
I can't remember if there ever was a BT function envisioned for Dave as it's a feature I would have strongly reacted against. And I can't remember why an SMA connector was put down on the prototype; but I left the SMA in in case I wanted to add another clock or have a port for testing purposes. Remember Dave took nearly 3 years to develop with plenty of prototypes on the way. You always add just in case extra functionality, with plenty of redundant bit switches and spare IO.
The measured results of the DAVE seems to vary a lot throughout the past 7ish years and between reviewers, particularly over the recent years with APx555 rigs. ASR measured the Qutest to be equivalent if not better than DAVE. The question is what does Rob think about this?
I honestly don't know why other reviewers do not get the same results as I do - and every Dave I have tested measured the same. I once was very perplexed with the Stereophile review of Dave, as some measurements looked fatally wrong. When I got the unit back it measured perfectly, with a DR of 127dB (A Wt with the reference set to the max 1% OP level of 6.75v) and the measurement of 16 bit levels absolutely perfect. John Atkinson 16 bit plot gave awful results - and I never got to the bottom of why.
Yeh fair enough, i would never critique someobody's personal preference.
At the end of the day it is still good performance (ignoring price, even 2nd hand).
But i think the days of saying best DAC in the world are long over.
Rob is not the only person with an APx555 anymore and Dave is not 'bottoming out' APx555 in most measurements.
And other DACs measure better. This can't be argued anymore.
Sure other DACs have managed to get closer to Dave over the last 7 years and some measurements are better (noise for example).
Noise is irrelevant if it's inaudible and fixed - which will be the case for Dave.
But - and this is a big but, it depends what you measure and how you interpret the importance of those measurements - in terms of noise floor modulation (nobody else measures for) Dave I firmly expect to be still the no 1. And interpolation filters that are min phase, NOS or show slow roll off (all of the filters in all other DACs) to me are fundamentally broken and not fit for purpose.
Yes, sure? It's a company? A "it."
Not a person.
Noticed you have a M-scaler and Dave.
So yeah, you have been duped. Those two items are next to trash in performance.
M-Scaler is actually producing distortion to your source and gear. It is actually making everything worse.
DAVE is performing at a $150 level. That's a disgrace.
I am an it then? Dave (excepting the metalwork) is my baby.
And on the same week-end that ASR was published, What Hi-Fi (a magazine which Chord do not advertise with) published their list of 16 best DACs. Chord had five of them - all of Chord's DAC product range. And Dave has continued to achieve countless awards in respectable professional websites and magazines. Have all of these journalists been duped too?
You are wrong. Bit depth represents max dynamic range of a signal. Dave has about 110db of max dynamic range therefore the max bit depth it is able to resolve is 18 bits. You are thinking of input bit depth which is different from what the dac is able to actually resolve.
You have been in this hobby as long/longer than I have. I’m shocked you didn’t know this.
My Dave measurements are -127dB Awt referenced to the 6.75v max output level. That would make it 21 bits.
I honestly think Rob is BSing us with his “timing transient” claims. Did he invent this term?
Given that transients are an essential cue for the brain to create the audible illusion, it's no great leap of faith to state that a DAC must reconstruct transients to eliminate timing errors - that is ensuring that transients are reconstructed without being seemingly randomly too early or too late. It is also obvious that interpolation filters will modulate the timing of transients and create these kind of errors. The only contentious aspect is the level of transient timing reconstruction accuracy that is needed, and how the interpolation filter is optimised. And that depends upon huge amounts of listening tests, something that filter designers do not do at all.
Well after you and I have left this mortal coil, I am convinced that in the future it will be de rigour to design high end interpolation filters with transient reconstruction accuracy being the no 1 priority. Just because I am the only one to talk about it or realise the importance of it does not make it wrong.
Frankly, I'm amused by ALL these CLOWNS. Some may be genuine objectivists. Some may be genuine subjectivists. Some may be genuine trolls.
After all, like the 90s cliche noted: "This is the internet."
Anyway, what confuses me most about Rob Watt's presentations is that he seems to be the one-rat subjective tester ("testee") for Chord digital. In his RMAF presentations, the subjective tests he notes are always from the singular-pronoun perspective. "I" listened ... "I" tested. To "me" it sound as if .... Etc. Never have I heard Mr. Watts mention some sort of PANEL or GROUP subjective analysis, say in a Chord HQ listening room. Hell, even getting a group of Joe -6 packs off the street to come into Chord HQ ... free beer and vape ... and let's do some fun tests to see if y'all can heard this [A: 100 taps] or this [B: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 taps] on this latest n' greatest DAC playin' "Me So Horny" by The 2-Live Crew.
My designs are about making the performance as accurate and transparent as possible to the original performance
as I hear it. If others do not perceive as I do then so be it, I am not bothered. Thankfully there are very many people who agree with me and are prepared to spend their own money on it - something that I am grateful for, which is why I spend so much time on these threads.
Another aspect is that often thousands of specific and detailed listening tests are involved, that is simply not possible with a panel.
And I am not a testee for Chord - I am entirely independent and own all of the IP that goes into my designs.
I think the Dave owes its success and sound quality to a balancing act between the different and sometimes conflicting design parameters and consequent measurements when putting together the total package to get the best sound. A ‘review’ such as ASR does not take this into account because they focus on simplistic headline measurements such as SINAD which are easy to present in a league table.
However such a league table does not produce a correct ranking for sound quality. It is a bit like ranking cars based on maximum speed and 0 to 60 times. It is interesting and a bit of fun but ultimately it really doesn’t say which is the better car. I have heard many of the DACs in that SINAD league table and the unpalatable truth for ASR is that they simply do not sound anywhere near as good as Dave. ASR doesn’t ’do’ proper listening and in any case his perfunctory listening with Dave was all headphones which is of no relevance for me because I do not own any.
SINAD ranking is OK for a bit of Primary School playground banter (my Dad’s car has a higher top speed than your Dad’s car, My Dad’s DAC has a better SINAD rating than your Dad’s DAC, etc) but it is no way to choose which DAC to buy.
The only thing I would add to what you say is that to my ears Dave still stands up to and beats the sound quality of many DACs which are quite a bit more expensive.
Measurements are interesting up to a point but it appears that they still cannot predict which DAC sounds better than another. I had personal experience of this a couple of months back when I wanted a DAC for a second system and thought I could rely on the excellent measurements for the Holo May DAC and bought a L2 version. I tried everything I could to make it sound good and in the end I sold it and bought a second hand Dave instead.
Actually SINAD is worthless as a useful measurement parameter - at least 0 to 60 does give you one important idea for a car. It's more like measuring the length of a vehicle, as a two seat sports car is much better than a long truck, and then ranking cars solely on their length.
The reason why it's useless is that a DAC with a completely fixed noise level of say -100dB (giving SINAD of 100dB) measured in the context of the way it's being used, would give inaudible noise in reality. If this DAC was perfect in every other regard (no distortion etc) and was compared to a DAC at -120dB noise (giving 120 SINAD), and also perfect in every other regard, the listener would not be able to hear any difference whatsoever. But a DAC that had SINAD of 120 dB but with copious amounts of higher order and anharmonic distortion, noise floor modulation and poor reconstruction filters, would sound terrible by comparison to the lowly 100dB SINAD DAC.
