Chord Electronics Qutest DAC - Official Thread

[TSAVAlan]

I am finding that Qutest has amazing synergy with anything I plug it into.

It most certainly does. Recently the Qutest has been a bit more popular than usual from what I have been seeing.

 

[Gibson59]

It most certainly does. Recently the Qutest has been a bit more popular than usual from what I have been seeing.

I’ve had the chance to listen to a lot of the high-end DACs now and I really think that Qutest is an incredible value. It easily competes with Yggy and punches way above it’s price point in general. I would have to be absolutely blown away at this point to spend anymore money to upgrade from Qutest.

 

[Arniesb]

I’ve had the chance to listen to a lot of the high-end DACs now and I really think that Qutest is an incredible value. It easily competes with Yggy and punches way above it’s price point in general. I would have to be absolutely blown away at this point to spend anymore money to upgrade from Qutest.

Ye Qutest and Hugo tt2 looks like great value no doubt. Cant imagine how good Dave 2 will be.

 

[Roybenz]

I’ve had the chance to listen to a lot of the high-end DACs now and I really think that Qutest is an incredible value. It easily competes with Yggy and punches way above it’s price point in general. I would have to be absolutely blown away at this point to spend anymore money to upgrade from Qutest.

Agreed, i feel the same. It really pulls out all the details and gives you amazing vocals. Any Next step up is little value for money imho. As you would have to spend double or more for about the same performance.

 

[turbomustang84]

Compared to other companies Chord seems to rarely support balanced Headphones.

Even the Dave has Balanced outputs but the Headphone output is just 1/4".

Any idea why ?

 

[x RELIC x]

Compared to other companies Chord seems to rarely support balanced Headphones.

Even the Dave has Balanced outputs but the Headphone output is just 1/4".

Any idea why ?

The DAVE’s balanced output does not have enough Current to drive headphones (it’s very low) and is there for convenience for adding balanced amps. The answer from the designer in the DAVE thread regarding balanced in general...

Component count is very important for transparency. Doubling the number of parts in the direct signal path does degrade depth perception and detail resolution.

But there is another problem with balanced operation. Imagine a balanced differential in, differential out amplifier. The input stage is normally a differential pair (maybe cascoded) with a constant current source. Now the input stage is free to move up and down to accommodate the common mode voltage - but the input stage common mode impedance is non linear, and if the common mode voltage has a signal component (it always will have due to component tolerances) then this will create a signal dependent error current, thereby generating distortion. Unfortunately, the negative feedback loop of the amplifier can't correct for this distortion as it can't see the error on the summing nodes. So there will always be a limit to the performance. With SE operation, this problem does not occur, as the differential input stage is clamped to ground.

Now DAC designers are well aware of this - that's why all high performance DAC's use two single ended I to V converters from the current OP of the DAC's, then use a differential to SE converter to create the voltage OP. There are other reasons for doing this as well, as the DAC requires a very low impedance virtual ground for low distortion, and you can only get this using dual SE amps - another problem is RF and its much easier to decouple SE than differentially - this in turn creates a lot more noise floor modulation, making it sound less smooth.

But for me the most important is transparency. I had an amp that had two modes - differential or SE - listening in balanced mode flattened the sound stage depth dramatically,and it sounded harder, less smooth. That said, there are circumstances when balanced operation can be better than SE, for example when you are looking at connecting a pre-amp to a power amp, and what is best depends upon particular circumstances. In short, if SE operation is noisy, try balanced.

Rob

 

[turbomustang84]

The DAVE’s balanced output does not have enough Current to drive headphones (it’s very low) and is there for convenience for adding balanced amps. The answer from the designer in the DAVE thread regarding balanced in general...

Thanks

 

[Joe-Siow]

I’ve had the chance to listen to a lot of the high-end DACs now and I really think that Qutest is an incredible value. It easily competes with Yggy and punches way above it’s price point in general. I would have to be absolutely blown away at this point to spend anymore money to upgrade from Qutest.

Funny that u should bring up the Yggy. I have one on loan from a friend at the moment and I have been listening and comparing it to the Qutest

Personally I find Yggy sounds very slightly better overall
They are 2 different sounding DACs
Yggy is more laid-back and relaxed sounding while Qutest excels in imaging and details retrieval

Where the Qutest truly has an edge over Yggy is the price; Qutest is available here for around USD $1,630 while I reckon Yggy retails for around USD $2,599

 

[jwbrent]

We were talking about $30-60.000 cables. That's way too much even for a $200.000 system. I do believe cables bring subtle differences, but IMO they shouldn't worth more than 10% of all your system. $60.000 cables also bring up ethical questions in my eyes.

Actually, 15-20% of the system value is budgeted for cables at the very high end.

 

[jbarrentine]

Except Yggdrasil apparently measures like complete junk (crap. let's say it) and Qutest measures exceptionally well. The modi 3 is really the most competent dac schiit makes according to people who talk measurements.

Schiit got away for a very long time making JUNK they weren't even measuring. What we learned was that distortion is pleasing in a way to a lot of people.

But it doesn't sound better than competent design.

 

[Joe-Siow]

Except Yggdrasil measures like complete junk (****. let's say it) and Qutest measures exceptionally well. The modi 3 is really the most competent dac schiit makes.

Maybe that's y I own a Qutest and not Yggy. In any case, measurements mean nothing to me, since I do enjoy how the Yggy sounds

 

[odessamarin]

apart of measurement which i am personally don't care, more important how it's sound .. if one really can do A/B between Yggy and Qutest. I have strong feeling which will rest at the end!


I have fun doing this A/B.. last days. To be short.. yggy not going anywhere from my set in the near future!
Sure, it so hard to stop listening to each of this DAC. But the level of price-tag where Yggy can compete is very respectful. Qutest was go away after 1,5 week, probably not my taste.

 

[OctavianH]

I would say let's not jump in the truck of "mine is the best, crappy are the rest" because it is not a proper way to judge. I am sure both are great DACs for the price and Qutest is one of the best offerings of the hi-fi market in the latest years. And it is very scalable when improving cables and power supply. More than this, it pairs well with a lot of amplifiers and this is a very important thing. To bring a proof of what I say I will show you that I paired it successfully with both a tube and a SS amp and both sound great:

A2 has a great feature of Output being hard-wired with Input 1, this means a passive link, even if A2 is unplugged the Output can be used so I have cascaded my tube amp on it.
After some hours of interconnect matching, because I needed 2 RCA-RCA cables and pairing was not so simple to obtain the sound I am used to and I like, I can say I have both amps sounding fabulous. So Qutest is a DAC which can be used with almost everything and provides outstanding results. But big improvements were obtained by a linear power supply, interconnect cables and also power conditioning the amps. The weakest link in my chain remains the USB inpus which, honestly, is not on the same level as optical, but the root cause is the PC which is used as a source and it is very noisy. So I am using an ISO Regen for it, which unfortunately has other problems like it is not seen by the PC from time to time. I hope soon I'll try a iUSB3.0 and this weakness will disappear. In conclusion, what someone said about pairing of Qutest with almost eveything was definitely true.

 

[jbarrentine]

It helps that qutest isn't as big as an engine block too.

 

[odessamarin]

It helps that qutest isn't as big as an engine block too.

this is so true!.. and don't need to be ON 24/7 to sound good