CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[LucyWu]

That was a good watch, even if Sandhu was a bit eager to jump in before Rob finished making certain points. I like Sandhu, a genuine and enthusiastic chap.

 

[ecwl]

Yes, @m-i-c-k-e-y thanks for sharing.
Although my heart skipped a beat when I heard that whenever the Ultima DAC will be released in the future when it’s ready, it will cost what it costs depending on the final design, e.g. £20,000 or £30,000 or £40,000. There was a part of me that was sort of expecting this. But to hear it said out loud still feels a bit weird. I’m hoping John Franks would be generous and keep the prices low, hahaha…

 

[Mediahound]

That was a good watch, even if Sandhu was a bit eager to jump in before Rob finished making certain points. I like Sandhu, a genuine and enthusiastic chap.

I found his interviewing style a bit odd as well. It's like like Rob speak instead of say, 'yeah i know that' about everything.

 

[ecwl]

I found his interviewing style a bit odd as well. It's like like Rob speak instead of say, 'yeah i know that' about everything.

Haha... I listen to many podcasts and "watch" YouTube videos at 2x speed and mentally check out with content that doesn't interest me. So I barely listened to the interviewer but only to Rob Watts. But yes, I did catch the interviewer seems convinced that battery and linear power supply are better, I2S connection is better, having a CD transport with a great clock to transmit to the DAC is better. But I definitely didn't watch the video for the interviewer.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

The first question I would have asked if I had been there is, why do you put your speakers SO close together that there is only room for one person to sit within that very narrow soundstage ?
I guess those hard chairs were there to avoid having people sitting down too long.
I keep my electrostatic speakers roughly 4,5 metres apart in my listening room.
I could extend their distance 1/2 a metre on each side . But that would lead to getting too close to the corners of the room.Or put them each side of my fireplace and get 6 metres between them. But I prefer to have almost that distance to my nice and comfy recliner instead.
Cheers Christer

The speakers were set up by the Sonus Faber representative, he is supposed to know how to set them up.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I listened to this system yesterday, over $80k speakers and MSB DAC and system, I wasn't impressed, I heard what @Rob Watts talks about, the bass was muddy and there was no snap or edge to instruments that should have that, I remember MSB sounding a lot better, but that was before I had Chord. Can't say I like it as I used to. Getting the transients and timing correctly is the way to go!

I have to agree about the transients (M-DAVE). For a while I wouldn't listen to anything but Audirvana optimized to take over the whole computer bla bla. But after critical listening, I just wanted to stream some playlists off YouTube while I work and even at whatever 128k .mp3 compression they're using or whatever, it sounds INSANELY good. I can tell the difference between it and the lossless bit-perfect stream, but that difference has to do with things like texture and space and nothing to do with the musicality, which (when you get the transients right) grooves its ass off even with a low-res audio format.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

I have to agree about the transients (M-DAVE). For a while I wouldn't listen to anything but Audirvana optimized to take over the whole computer bla bla. But after critical listening, I just wanted to stream some playlists off YouTube while I work and even at whatever 128k .mp3 compression they're using or whatever, it sounds INSANELY good. I can tell the difference between it and the lossless bit-perfect stream, but that difference has to do with things like texture and space and nothing to do with the musicality, which (when you get the transients right) grooves its ass off even with a low-res audio format.

Yes the transients are critical, Rob was right all along. Many sites have been ridiculing him, this weekend I was laughing from ear to ear as Rob was right 100%

 

[569424]

Yes, @m-i-c-k-e-y thanks for sharing.
Although my heart skipped a beat when I heard that whenever the Ultima DAC will be released in the future when it’s ready, it will cost what it costs depending on the final design, e.g. £20,000 or £30,000 or £40,000. There was a part of me that was sort of expecting this. But to hear it said out loud still feels a bit weird. I’m hoping John Franks would be generous and keep the prices low, hahaha…

!! GG chord, GG. topping other dacs I hope

 

[Christer]

The speakers were set up by the Sonus Faber representative, he is supposed to know how to set them up.

Hmm, so what music did they play?Judging from your good photo and the size of those "comfy" chairs and those two quite beefy Mackintosh amps on the floor a taller person than me would still fit in, head to toe, between those speakers with a bit of "headroom".
Pun intended ".
But with speakers so close together they would NOT deliver the soundstage WIDTH I personally want from my speaker listening with the kind of music I tend to listen to, which is generally more than one performer on stage. Each to his own though. But if they played the usual safe," always sounding nice on any system basically " demo stuff a " guy or gal with a guitar" I guess it would have sounded ok for the listener seated on that cosy middle chair.
But a bit "off piste" for everyone else
Good amps, definitely.
Both Wagner and Mahler-tauglich amps.
I am not really familiar with the rest of the system.




Cheers Christer

 

[chesebert]

I listened to this system yesterday, over $80k speakers and MSB DAC and system, I wasn't impressed, I heard what @Rob Watts talks about, the bass was muddy and there was no snap or edge to instruments that should have that, I remember MSB sounding a lot better, but that was before I had Chord. Can't say I like it as I used to. Getting the transients and timing correctly is the way to go!

It looks like a set up issue.

The first question I would have asked if I had been there is, why do you put your speakers SO close together that there is only room for one person to sit within that very narrow soundstage ?
I guess those hard chairs were there to avoid having people sitting down too long.
I keep my electrostatic speakers roughly 4,5 metres apart in my listening room.
I could extend their distance 1/2 a metre on each side . But that would lead to getting too close to the corners of the room.Or put them each side of my fireplace and get 6 metres between them. But I prefer to have almost that distance to my nice and comfy recliner instead.
Cheers Christer

I agree the placement looked odd to me for such a large speaker. Also, did they really need to toe in to lock the center image? I remember firing SF Amati straight ahead the last few times I heard them.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

Hmm, so what music did they play?Judging from your good photo and the size of those "comfy" chairs and those two quite beefy Mackintosh amps on the floor a taller person than me would still fit in, head to toe, between those speakers with a bit of "headroom".
Pun intended ".
But with speakers so close together they would NOT deliver the soundstage WIDTH I personally want from my speaker listening with the kind of music I tend to listen to, which is generally more than one performer on stage. Each to his own though. But if they played the usual safe," always sounding nice on any system basically " demo stuff a " guy or gal with a guitar" I guess it would have sounded ok for the listener seated on that cosy middle chair.
But a bit "off piste" for everyone else
Good amps, definitely.
Both Wagner and Mahler-tauglich amps.
I am not really familiar with the rest of the system.




Cheers Christer

That depends on the room, I've listened to speakers in that room in different positions, the room is actually very good and well treated. The Pictures don't do it justice. They played a bunch of "audiophile" songs.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

It looks like a set up issue.

I agree the placement looked odd to me for such a large speaker. Also, did they really need to toe in to lock the center image? I remember firing SF Amati straight ahead the last few times I heard them.

They imaged very well actually, it was a nice laid back sound, but it lacked the snap and impact, the music was soft and mellow, liquidy, not for me.

 

[STR-1]

Soundnews (Sandu) interview with Rob Watts

I often watch Rob Watts interviews when I see them highlighted, even though without much technical knowledge a lot of what he says goes right over my head. He did seem to me to be less committal on the superiority of smps over lps in the context of the DAVE. While I wouldn’t expect him to comment on a particular brand of lps I was waiting for him to say, but didn’t hear him say, that he had listened to the performance of some of the high end lps designed for the DAVE and found them wanting. So it might still be only theory-based opposition to their use with that dac.

 

[Jawed]

Yes, @m-i-c-k-e-y thanks for sharing.
Although my heart skipped a beat when I heard that whenever the Ultima DAC will be released in the future when it’s ready, it will cost what it costs depending on the final design, e.g. £20,000 or £30,000 or £40,000. There was a part of me that was sort of expecting this. But to hear it said out loud still feels a bit weird. I’m hoping John Franks would be generous and keep the prices low, hahaha…

If Ultima DAC costs more than HMS+DAVE how is it going to sell? Unless it has a built in M Scaler it will be "worse" sounding.

DAVE production would have to stop to make it sell. Or it would only sell if the buyer owns/buys an M Scaler, in which case its price is "even more worrying" to the market at large.

Sure, there's lots of HMS+DAVE customers who will replace DAVE with Ultima DAC, but on its own it's not going to attract new customers to Chord when there's a better sounding and cheaper option. So that seems to be quite a problem for Chord...

Anyway, I know nothing about running a hi-fi company, so others can pitch in.

 

[chesebert]

Dave is getting pretty old now and a bad value based on sound quality, IMO. I believe this is the 2022 list from Stereo.