[Reactcore]

I have noticed based on the posts here that it seems like about 1 in 20 purchasers of M-Scaler can't hear the improvements from the M-Scaler. To me, the primary improvement is transient accuracy, e.g. drum strikes, guitar plucks which are the easiest thing to hear and once you get used to the improved transient accuracy, your ears adjust and notice other improvements too. I know others find the primary improvement is to the bass.

But the question is whether there is a way for people to test themselves before purchasing M-Scaler to try (as some people just can't demo M-Scaler at their local stores). Hence, I wonder for owners of TT2/Qutest/Hugo 2, whether their ability to hear the difference between the white vs orange or green vs red filter (incisive neutral vs warm filter) is a good surrogate to determine if people are sufficiently sensitive to transient accuracy. I have to admit, the difference between these filters (WTA2 vs no-WTA2) is a lot more subtle compared to the effect of M-Scaler. After all, changing the WTA2 would have a much less dramatic mathematical effect on transient accuracy compared to increasing the tap length to 1 million. But obviously, if one can hear the difference for WTA2, I suspect they are highly likely to be able to hear the difference M-Scaler makes.

I was wondering for those who found M-Scaler disappointing or amazing if they mind reporting whether they hear a difference between the filters.

I had a hard time hearing the differences between those filters on my Qutest.. actually only when i played a track which is sharp sounding by nature i find the filters smoothing things out for the better.. but on other well recorded tracks i just can't hear it.

As for HMS its REALLY source dependant.
Its the way its mixed and processed in the studio that makes it obvious or subtile.
If theres any Dolby like (noise) suppression applied it distroys the HMS 3D transparency.. that "i'm in the recording room" feeling.

Thats why after Rob noted that records made before end of the 60's were all free of this..
i started hunting for those.. and Wow HMS benefits were so obvious and easy to hear.

Also on newer creations i instant hear if a record has any overkill filter tampering or anti-aliasing.

Now with my Dave the right masterings are even more breathtaking.. glueing my headphones on my ears..

In the past i tried asking Rob if he can give us a list of records(labels) he likes in technical terms.. records he hears they're properly mixed/mastered/ADC'ed.

Too bad he did'nt replied to this..

Perhaps we HMS owners can start our own
"HMS best masterings list" thread ourself
I'm sure even Rob would check them out

 

[ZappaMan]

I had a hard time hearing the differences between those filters on my Qutest.. actually only when i played a track which is sharp sounding by nature i find the filters smoothing things out for the better.. but on other well recorded tracks i just can't hear it.

As for HMS its REALLY source dependant.
Its the way its mixed and processed in the studio that makes it obvious or subtile.
If theres any Dolby like (noise) suppression applied it distroys the HMS 3D transparency.. that "i'm in the recording room" feeling.

Thats why after Rob noted that records made before end of the 60's were all free of this..
i started hunting for those.. and Wow HMS benefits were so obvious and easy to hear.

Also on newer creations i instant hear if a record has any overkill filter tampering or anti-aliasing.

Now with my Dave the right masterings are even more breathtaking.. glueing my headphones on my ears..

In the past i tried asking Rob if he can give us a list of records(labels) he likes in technical terms.. records he hears they're properly mixed/mastered/ADC'ed.

Too bad he did'nt replied to this..

Perhaps we HMS owners can start our own
"HMS best masterings list" thread ourself
I'm sure even Rob would check them out

I was listening to this last night, it was just immense the subtle sound stage nuance I was picking up. Im thinking also turning the volume down removed some of the room impact, and just listening quietly set me up to become very attentive of what was coming out of the speakers. Best night yet with my setup.

 

[Reactcore]

I was listening to this last night, it was just immense the subtle sound stage nuance I was picking up. Im thinking also turning the volume down removed some of the room impact, and just listening quietly set me up to become very attentive of what was coming out of the speakers. Best night yet with my setup.

Nice intimate play!
If you like piano solo's i had fun listening to Keith Jarrett 1975 the koln concert another day..

 

[ecwl]

I had a hard time hearing the differences between those filters on my Qutest.. actually only when i played a track which is sharp sounding by nature i find the filters smoothing things out for the better.. but on other well recorded tracks i just can't hear it.

As for HMS its REALLY source dependant.
Its the way its mixed and processed in the studio that makes it obvious or subtile.
If theres any Dolby like (noise) suppression applied it distroys the HMS 3D transparency.. that "i'm in the recording room" feeling.

Thank you for answering my question.

The reason why I wrote my most recent post was because I was at a Powerpoint presentation/lecture by Zoom at my office. I decided to plug in my Hugo 2 and Aeon Flow Closed to listen to the lecture. I got bored and switched between the Green filter (which I normally use) and the Red filter which I never used and I can easily hear the worsening transient response of the speaker's speech.

After reading what you wrote, I just randomly put on 3 recordings at home, including some terribly compressed pop music, and I can easily hear the difference between bypass to DAVE's 164000 taps vs 1 million taps. I have never found HMS to be source dependent at all. Except what I am listening for is not 3D transparency. What I was listening for was transient accuracy. One track just has people clapping, another is just piano playing and when I go to bypass, everything just sounds super soft whereas once I switch back to 1 million taps, the piano strike sounds more realistic, the clapping sounds more dynamic. Essentially, the overall feel is that the music has more PRaT. And the crappy pop that I put on, the singer's vocals are more realistic with more precise breath sounds (not artificially brightened trebles/noise floor modulation sound) and every poorly recorded instrument from piano to drums still had better transient response.

I remember when Chord DAVE came out, there were some people who said DAVE sounds like every other well-made DAC chip DAC. And I was kind of surprised because coming from Chord QBD76, I can't stand the noise floor modulation digital brightness of DAC chip DACs, which I find is still audible when you feed them through tube amps. But it was very clear to me that some people are so used to noise floor modulation in their music since it's prevalent in so many DACs, that they have mostly tuned it out, making it difficult for them to appreciate this quality of Chord DACs. I mean, I still use wireless IEMs or just play stuff on my iPhone/iPad speakers so I would always tune out the noise floor modulation.

I think tap length/upsampling filter accuracy (compared to sinc) is another thing that some people have tuned out. I've said in the past when Rob Watts explained why Chord DAVE's 164,000 taps are far superior to Mojo for transient accuracy, I didn't know what he was talking about for 1.5 years and it wasn't until I went to Boston and went to the symphony, it suddenly clicked and now, I always hear the difference in transient accuracy that's upsampling/tap length related. But I was able to tune out transient accuracy for 1.5 years even though I own DAVE & Mojo.

I think the issue once again is like with noise floor modulation. Most DACs and even software upsamples have such poor transient reconstruction, a lot of people have learnt to just ignore the transient accuracy in their music. If it sounds about right, it's good enough. Moreover, as you said, there are so many poor recordings out there, people were hoping their DACs would make their bad recordings sound better (which of course is a different objective than accurately reproducing the original analog waveform from the original recording). Lately I've run into this quite a bit with people using convolution filters for digital room correction and when I pointed out to them that aggressive correction significantly worsens transient accuracy, they just told me they don't know what I'm talking about and that the digital simulation of the convolution filter looks fine to them.

I'm more and more convinced that if someone owns Qutest/Hugo 2/TT2, and they can easily hear the difference with/without WTA2 filter, they should definitely get an M-Scaler if they can afford it as they would 100% appreciate the improvements in transient accuracy. But if people find the WTA2 filter subtle, it becomes more difficult to know if someone would like what the M-Scaler can do.

 

[Reactcore]

Thank you for answering my question.

The reason why I wrote my most recent post was because I was at a Powerpoint presentation/lecture by Zoom at my office. I decided to plug in my Hugo 2 and Aeon Flow Closed to listen to the lecture. I got bored and switched between the Green filter (which I normally use) and the Red .

I'm more and more convinced that if someone owns Qutest/Hugo 2/TT2, and they can easily hear the difference with/without WTA2 filter, they should definitely get an M-Scaler if they can afford it as they would 100% appreciate the improvements in transient accuracy. But if people find the WTA2 filter subtle, it becomes more difficult to know if someone would like what the M-Scaler can do.

I never read anyone saying switching the filters is night and day difference.. actually most don't hear.. and to be honest i actually never tried hard to hear it. Just left my Qutest on white.. only when i had a sharp sounding record i used to choose a filter.

But a good or bad mastered recording must reveal or cloak the scaler's effect.. thats how i hear it.. on bad ones the scaler sounds like softening things only.

The signal chain is longer than our audio rigs offcourse.. Rob placed so few components in the analog section.. while who knows the path and losses the signal got in the mixing studio before it got ADC'ed.
It might went through long mic. cables..many EQ stages.. volume attenuators.. interlinks etc. HMS can't restore those 'lost' dynamics.

Its the reverb and snappyness of recorings i hear MS effect the easyest.. if not masked by studio applied filters.

Now with Dave i noticed for the first time i could understand what some artists are telling in their songs.. i mean.. i'm a sucker always having trouble filtering the words correctly and find myself listening to sound colours and tones/rythm while i have no clue What they sing about unless i look up the lyrics.
The articulation is much more pronounced.
And this has nothing to do with 3D transparency..

On my Qutest i did'nt notice this.. so i think its Dave's noise shapers and small signal accuracy thats doing it.. cause both Dave and Qutest were Mscaled in my case.

 

[Christer]

I never read anyone saying switching the filters is night and day difference.. actually most don't hear.. and to be honest i actually never tried hard to hear it. Just left my Qutest on white.. only when i had a sharp sounding record i used to choose a filter.

But a good or bad mastered recording must reveal or cloak the scaler's effect.. thats how i hear it.. on bad ones the scaler sounds like softening things only.

The signal chain is longer than our audio rigs offcourse.. Rob placed so few components in the analog section.. while who knows the path and losses the signal got in the mixing studio before it got ADC'ed.
It might went through long mic. cables..many EQ stages.. volume attenuators.. interlinks etc. HMS can't restore those 'lost' dynamics.

Its the reverb and snappyness of recorings i hear MS effect the easyest.. if not masked by studio applied filters.

Now with Dave i noticed for the first time i could understand what some artists are telling in their songs.. i mean.. i'm a sucker always having trouble filtering the words correctly and find myself listening to sound colours and tones/rythm while i have no clue What they sing about unless i look up the lyrics.
The articulation is much more pronounced.
And this has nothing to do with 3D transparency..

On my Qutest i did'nt notice this.. so i think its Dave's noise shapers and small signal accuracy thats doing it.. cause both Dave and Qutest were Mscaled in my case.

Where Dave clearly outperforms both Qutest and TT2 imho, is its ability ot reveal small timbral details and even the sounds bouncing off the walls of the venue with well recorded acoustic material that has not been massacred by a Studio post production. And with even more depth.Small signal accuracy as you say.
As a photographer would say even higher resolution.
That said I still chose Qutest /Mscaler over Dave on its own.
A compromise yes, but one that still gives me lots of musical enjoyment on a daily basis, and did not let this fool part with all his GOLD.


Cheers CC

 

[Reactcore]

Where Dave clearly outperforms both Qutest and TT2 imho, is its ability ot reveal small timbral details and even the sounds bouncing off the walls of the venue with well recorded acoustic material that has not been massacred by a Studio post production. And with even more depth.Small signal accuracy as you say.
As a photographer would say even higher resolution.
That said I still chose Qutest /Mscaler over Dave on its own.
A compromise yes, but one that still gives me lots of musical enjoyment on a daily basis, and did not let this fool part with all his GOLD.


Cheers CC

True Qutest is a marvelous piece i enjoyed inmensely.. especially driven my HP directly without amp i really hear the HMS effect.

Its only cause i suddenly got the pennies and could easily afford a new Dave i went for it.. But i did bought a used one for half the new price.. which makes the price-performance ratio a lot more satisfying. (And the WAF ofc)

 

[bpcans]

@Reactcore, how happy are you now that you have a Chord DAVE and M Scaler, and what BNC cables do you use to connect them? I looked at your profile and saw that you have some Bose 901 speakers. I had the 901’s when I was in college many decades ago.

 

[dcp10]

I was wondering for those who found M-Scaler disappointing or amazing if they mind reporting whether they hear a difference between the filters.

As I understand it, the filters have greatest effect for high bitrate recordings (e.g., 24-bit 192 kHz) and minimal effect on CD-quality recordings. Conversely, the M-Scaler is expected to have greatest effect on lower-bitrate (e.g., CD-quality) recordings...

Anyway, for what it's worth:-

(a) I find the M Scaler can sound amazing (but is highly source dependent - see below).
(b) Call me "cloth eared", but I've never been able to hear any difference between any of the filters!

OK, back to the amazing M Scaler. My audio dealer is shut for refurbishment, and so has kindly loaned me the Holy Trinity: TT2, M Scaler and Dave. I've started off the week by listening in great detail to the M Scaler/TT2 combo. (I shall contrast with the Dave over the weekend, pending a possible change to my earlier - and backlogged - order of a "bare" TT2).

As others have noted, the effect of the M Scaler depends critically on the source material. In my tests - all with "classical" music - I found that well-engineered recordings with superior microphone placement (e.g., Decca and EMI) improved the most; less-well-engineered recordings reliant on multi-miking (e.g., Deutsche Grammophon) improved the least.

• For orchestral music (e.g., the lovely Decca/Kondrashin Dvorak 9) the sound became creamier, more natural, more flowing, with less "glare" - more "musical" or "analogue", if you will.

• For vocal music, the differences were much starker. I found that the M Scaler transformed the perceived "depth" of sound, making the voices and instruments almost "holographic": soloists appeared in front of me, rather than arranged in a line from left ear to right ear. Such was the effect, I had to keep checking that I hadn't turned the cross feed on (no, I hadn't). Switching to "pass through" mode caused the "hologram" to collapse and I heard regular stereo again, with the soloists seemingly flat on my face, instead of offset in space.

In my listening examples I found the most magic with early stereo recordings:-

1. Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila: see "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix" (Callas a Paris I: Callas Remastered - EMI/Warner Classics) - early stereo (16-bit/44 kHz)
2. Puccini - Tosca (Callas, 1964) - see "Vissi d'arte" (Callas Remastered - EMI/Warner Classics) - 24bit/96 kHz
3. Puccini - Turandot (Sutherland/Mehta 1972): see "In Questa Reggia" (Decca) - 24bit/96 kHz (less dramatic than the first two)
4. Puccini - Turandot (Ricciarelli/Karajan 1980): see "In Questa Reggia" (DGG - not the best sound, but helped reduce Ricciarelli's - miscast - steely tone).

Sadly, I found absolutely no effect on earlier, mono recordings (i.e., most of Maria Callas' recorded output This suggests that - for my ears, anyway - the M Scaler is enhancing the depth perception proffered by good stereo sources, leading to the "holographic" depth; and to a lesser degree, it is "filling in the spaces" between instruments, making the sound appear less hard-edged, less "jaggy", and the resulting tone creamier and more flowing: the "musicality" mentioned by Rob Watts.

As the old Maxell tape cassette ads went, "Listen and you'll see".

I think that many will find the effects subtle - but they do add up and not only will there be great revelations: creamier sound, holographic depth, but also less "listening fatigue". I was impressed - but will continue my aural odyssey into the weekend to see what other insights I might discover from Chord's electronic magic.

 

[bpcans]

@dcp10, at least you’re listening to good music for your brief period of time with the Chord triumvirate. I was trying to enjoy Callas’s 1953 Tosca again for the umpteenth time last night. After awhile the sound becomes tedious unless I EQ it to bring the treble range more in line. I prefer Leontyne Price’s von Karajan conducted recording from 1962 as I think I’ve mentioned to you before. I find that the filters and crossfeed functions are quite useful when trying to get a particular recording to sound listenable, as is the case when I listen to monographic records from the before good engineered stereo was available. I’m jealous that you have a DAVE to play with and compare to your TT2. I’m sure though that you’ll find the M Scaler indispensable from now on.

 

[dcp10]

I was trying to enjoy Callas’s 1953 Tosca again for the umpteenth time last night. After awhile the sound becomes tedious unless I EQ it to bring the treble range more in line.

Well, that's the "definitive" performance - with Callas at the height of her powers. I'm Ok with the sound - it's mono, but has some "depth" to it - and it's infinitely better than most of the "Live" recordings. However, I do prefer listening to the 1964 stereo recording: the voice is a bit unstable in places, but I think Callas shows a greater maturity in interpretation - and of course, one benefits from the sheer luxury (!) of stereophonic recording!!!

 

[Reactcore]

@Reactcore, how happy are you now that you have a Chord DAVE and M Scaler, and what BNC cables do you use to connect them? I looked at your profile and saw that you have some Bose 901 speakers. I had the 901’s when I was in college many decades ago.

Oh i just started my journey through my music collection once again.. i take a different approach to cables.. my opinion is the shorter the less losses or picking interferrences so i made two 20cm Coax ones. Same as my HP cable its less than 1m (was 3m)

Cable length thats not there can't degrade anything..

I used 1970's made Bose drivers to make my own speakers.. but theyre already 10 years unused in the basement together with my POA S10 Denon mono amps.
Because my wife not liking them in the room.. its why i came into HP listening

 

[dcp10]

Well, after last night's epiphany, the M Scaler just wasn't doing it for me this evening (sadly), so out came the Dave and in came the comparisons. But I have a problem, which maybe one of you Chord veterans might be able to answer please?

• for the same rated decibel level, headphone output from my (loaned) Dave seems louder than the same decibel level on the Hugo TT2
• I'm using -30 dB on the Dave, and this seems closer to about -26 dB on the TT2 (set to its High Gain setting, for maximum sound quality).

This difference makes comparing the two devices quite difficult as one's perception tends to be "louder = better" (certainly better bass, which is an obvious advantage of the Dave, in any case).

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[SoundeScapes]

Well, after last night's epiphany, the M Scaler just wasn't doing it for me this evening (sadly), so out came the Dave and in came the comparisons. But I have a problem, which maybe one of you Chord veterans might be able to answer please?

• for the same rated decibel level, headphone output from my (loaned) Dave seems louder than the same decibel level on the Hugo TT2
• I'm using -30 dB on the Dave, and this seems closer to about -26 dB on the TT2 (set to its High Gain setting, for maximum sound quality).

This difference makes comparing the two devices quite difficult as one's perception tends to be "louder = better" (certainly better bass, which is an obvious advantage of the Dave, in any case).

Thanks for any feedback!

The M scaler lowers output approx. 3dB if I remember correctly so if you went from mTT2 directly to Dave that might be the reason.

 

[DJJEZ]

The M scaler lowers output approx. 3dB if I remember correctly so if you went from mTT2 directly to Dave that might be the reason.

This is correct ^