[Powersquat]

I mostly agree,
You know, I'm not here to defend anyone. Are that advanced noise shapers needed? Rob thinks yes, other designers can think otherwise, it's a designer call.
Indeed we should focus more on transducers (improving their performance) and their relation with our room (if speakers) or our head/seal (if talking about headphones) as they are the weakest link.

ps. I also believe that advanced DSP processing is the future of our home audio. For example something like Kii are doing with their Kii Three to improve speakers response within the room, or spatial/3d audio like BACCH

Being not at all technical, DSP is still something of a mystery to me, hence I took a different route. Having a dedicated listening room that was not particularly acoustically friendly, some acoustic treatment appeared to be worth a try.

Bass traps. in the room corners and a mixture of absorption and diffusion panels, after a lot of experimentation I achieved some remarkable improvements to the overall sound of the system.

I realise that acoustic panels may not be a suitable solution for a mixed living area, but for a relatively modest expenditure it could well be a more cost effective upgrade than swapping out Dave's PSU, of course YMMV.

 

[Kentajalli]

I find it amazing, that people are ready to pay for a Dave at 1000's of pounds, because they know it is well made, well designed, it performs at the top of its game, then they rip its heart out, replacing vital parts and circuitry to make it sound better!
What gives?
It has been proven by listening tests and objective tests in labs, that a well made SMPS is superior to LPS in just about every situation.
Hell on other forums, DIYers are replacing poweramp PSU's with equivalent SMPS , and the amp not only sounds better, but measures far better too.
There are independent measurement results available from multiple sources, proving that Dave's SMPS is working and behaving better that fine, but yet for some, LPS rules the day.
Amazing.

 

[Mediahound]

I find it amazing, that people are ready to pay for a Dave at 1000's of pounds, because they know it is well made, well designed, it performs at the top of its game, then they rip its heart out, replacing vital parts and circuitry to make it sound better!
What gives?
It has been proven by listening tests and objective tests in labs, that a well made SMPS is superior to LPS in just about every situation.
Hell on other forums, DIYers are replacing poweramp PSU's with equivalent SMPS , and the amp not only sounds better, but measures far better too.
There are independent measurement results available from multiple sources, proving that Dave's SMPS is working and behaving better that fine, but yet for some, LPS rules the day.
Amazing.

Over in the TT2 thread, I've heard of probably at least 5 people frying their units due to hooking in to the balanced jacks incorrectly. Some people really have more money than sense.

 

[esmit]

I realise that acoustic panels may not be a suitable solution for a mixed living area, but for a relatively modest expenditure it could well be a more cost effective upgrade than swapping out Dave's PSU, of course YMMV.

Or just replace for around €50,- of capacitors (see reactcore's thread: https://www.head-fi.org/posts/17425418/)

Over in the TT2 thread, I've heard of probably at least 5 people frying their units due to hooking in to the balanced jacks incorrectly. Some people really have more money than sense.

Even if you wire correctly the load can be too much, as was my experience.

 

[Mediahound]

Even if you wire correctly the load can be too much, as was my experience.

Ugh, sorry to hear. I decided I'm not going to plug anything in to the balanced outs of my TT2 out of an abundance of caution. Not that I need to anyways.

 

[Spawn300Z]

If you’re connecting an amp with regular XLR cables you won’t have any issues. It’s only been people trying to drive speakers or headphones from the connection having issues

 

[569424]

Transient timing reconstruction is a huge issue for digital - but it's also an issue for analogue. Reel to reel use HF bias on the recording heads, set to around 100kHz and this has the effect of distorting the timing of transients. I have often thought that perhaps that is why people like the sound of reel to reel, that it's not just down to 2nd harmonic distortion which of course does fatten up the sound for bass. Also, any out of band distortion will degrade transient timing too; I should imagine that vinyl and reel to reel has pretty horrendous linearity at 1MHz... Anyway, people may like vinyl, but it sounds nothing like real acoustic instruments.

Does not Direct-to-Disc vinyl recording technique solve this speculation entirely?

 

[Reactcore]

It has been proven by listening tests and objective tests in labs, that a well made SMPS is superior to LPS in just about every situation.

I have to agree with you in some aspects.. and its why i keep the original SMPS in.

After all my PSU experimenting which started after i heard what a positive change a Farad PSU made on a stock Dave i came to the insight that its all about stabilizing the voltage on the OP stage with capacitor buffering. Not being a LPS or having more power on tap, but being better immune to audio related varying current draw.

Its the final power feed arrangement to Dave's analog circuit that needed the attention. It became clear to me that the design of using 2 parallel capacitors per 12v power rails is what was congesting Dave's brilliant internal DAC output.

I noticed this most when i was intensively comparing to TT2.. why TT2 was just more mature and full sounding in comparison.. ok Dave kept the edge in transparency, resolvement and depth but in direct comparison it sounded thin.. specially with my headphones directly driven.

After my first adding capacitors on the regulator output it became worse.. the bass was just gone.. then i moved the caps to the input.. this improved the bass immensely and came on par with TT2.. but the low mids stayed behind

Later i exchanged the 2 original parallel caps per output rails for 'heavier' ones but then the high end of the frequency spectrum got retracted.. i was puzzled how could this be.

But now i changed from using two to one cap per rails it suddenly became all in balance.. full, meaty and transparent in the same time..
Dave is not cold sounding anymore but real..
Also the Mscaler is doing so much better now.. the sense of depth improved cause of the fuller and textured mids.

I know its just words.. but really must be heard to be understood.. i just enjoy my music more than ever.. and .. these damn emotions.. tears sometimes.. sorry must get back to listening

 

[Powersquat]

Or just replace for around €50,- of capacitors (see reactcore's thread: https://www.head-fi.org/posts/17425418/)

I did mention in my post, I'm not very technical and I'm certainly not capable of digging around inside my Dave, hats off to those who are capable of doing so, but I think I'll stick to hanging acoustic panels on the wall.

 

[chesebert]

I find it amazing, that people are ready to pay for a Dave at 1000's of pounds, because they know it is well made, well designed, it performs at the top of its game, then they rip its heart out, replacing vital parts and circuitry to make it sound better!
What gives?
It has been proven by listening tests and objective tests in labs, that a well made SMPS is superior to LPS in just about every situation.
Hell on other forums, DIYers are replacing poweramp PSU's with equivalent SMPS , and the amp not only sounds better, but measures far better too.
There are independent measurement results available from multiple sources, proving that Dave's SMPS is working and behaving better that fine, but yet for some, LPS rules the day.
Amazing.

You know what they say, buy it nice or buy it twice. The uncomfortable truth is that Dave doesn't sound all that great technically or all that musical. People bought it based on "reviews", "sentiment" and forum "impressions" or they for some reason lacked the knowledge or experience of what "good sound" actually is - they eventually figure it out. Some have taken the step of getting rid of their Dave to buy something that sounds good. Others go down the rabbit hole of adding more boxes, "fixes" and tweaks to Dave hoping it would sound good.

 

[skootb]

You know what they say, buy it nice or buy it twice. The uncomfortable truth is that Dave doesn't sound all that great technically or all that musical. People bought it based on "reviews", "sentiment" and forum "impressions" or they for some reason lacked the knowledge or experience of what "good sound" actually is - they eventually figure it out. Some have taken the step of getting rid of their Dave to buy something that sounds good. Others go down the rabbit hole of adding more boxes, "fixes" and tweaks to Dave hoping it would sound good.

or 95%+ of Dave owners actually, you know, think it sounds good

 

[Mediahound]

You know what they say, buy it nice or buy it twice. The uncomfortable truth is that Dave doesn't sound all that great technically or all that musical. People bought it based on "reviews", "sentiment" and forum "impressions" or they for some reason lacked the knowledge or experience of what "good sound" actually is - they eventually figure it out. Some have taken the step of getting rid of their Dave to buy something that sounds good. Others go down the rabbit hole of adding more boxes, "fixes" and tweaks to Dave hoping it would sound good.

Many experiences with the DAVE here simply doesn't support your statement at all.

But everyone hears differently, so be it. It is however clear you like posting anti-Chord content in Chord threads.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

DAVE sounds amazing, I just leave it way it is, Rob Watts knows what he's doing. I mess with the Qutest by using batteries, that's about it. When you go down the rabbit hole it just makes you go nuts. To me it's not worth it.

 

[jlbrach]

or 95%+ of Dave owners actually, you know, think it sounds good

the point of going into the dave thread to post over and over that the dave is no good to a bunch of happy owners and others who think it is terrific is what exactly?...I have had my dave for years now and love it and heard nothing appreciably better in any price range within reason...

 

[jlbrach]

DAVE sounds amazing, I just leave it way it is, Rob Watts knows what he's doing. I mess with the Qutest by using batteries, that's about it. When you go down the rabbit hole it just makes you go nuts. To me it's not worth it.

I tend to agree