[Triode User]

In scotland we have a saying, “What”.

It means “sunny with the prospect of showers in the afternoon”.

In Cumbria (my home county) you can often see the Scotland across the Solway Firth and we had a saying "If you can't see Scotland it is raining. If you can see Scotland it is going to rain".

 

[ZappaMan]

To my humble knowledge it’s about the Fpga differences between TT2 and Dave

Simple really....

Did rob not just say, it’s everything but the fpga?

 

[analogmusic]

Where did he say that?

So Hugo tt2 has a -350 dB noise shaper ?

I doubt that very much

It would bring TT2 dangerously close to Dave

But the fpga in TT2 doesn’t have
The capacity for it

 

[Amberlamps]

In Cumbria (my home county) you can often see the Scotland across the Solway Firth and we had a saying "If you can't see Scotland it is raining. If you can see Scotland it is going to rain".

It’s true.

But only on a mon, tue, wed, fri, sat, sun.

Today we get the sun with no rain.

It starts raining all over again on a friday.

 

[ZappaMan]

Where did he say that?

So Hugo tt2 has a -350 dB noise shaper ?

I doubt that very much

It would bring TT2 dangerously close to Dave

But the fpga in TT2 doesn’t have
The capacity for it

My surprise is one of technical understanding, as the transparency improvement does not come from the noise shaping, but the myriad of other factors that goes into a DAC design

 

[analogmusic]

Transparency is not what I am talking about

It’s about small signal resolution and soundstage depth

Anyway it’s sometimes just pointless discussions

 

[Rob Watts]

Rob expected the TT2 lot closer to the Dave than it turned out to be. So we we can safely assume that imitially he intended it to perform much closer to the Dave.
I am not an electronic engineer, but a question arises why he stopped right there?
Why not revamp the design in certain parts to get closer to your initial idea of how the TT2 should have sounded?
Rob seems to be a designer who pours his heart into his devices, how come then that such a man is content with above sound quality?
The only answer I can think of is pressure from the management.

As far as the electronic design goes that's entirely up to me. And I take as long as it takes to get things right.

The constraints - that is the limiting factor in sound quality in this case - is one of cost - and I actually ended up with a BOM cost that was greater than expected, so no wiggle room there. Actually, I am perfectly happy with the SQ difference of TT2 against Dave - I think I have hit the sweet spot of performance against cost. After all, what other product has the flexibility of TT2, and absolutely nothing comes close to it in terms of musicality and transparency from the competition. That's why Chord are building them and M scalers as fast as possible, with huge levels of demand - much bigger demand than they expected.

 

[Tekunda]

To my humble knowledge it’s about the Fpga differences between TT2 and Dave

Simple really....

What are the differences then and how do these differences influence the sound quality?
I think the mistake Chord made is that they have not come out with a Dave 2 yet.
They should have finalized the Dave 2 and the ttt2 should have more or less been Dave 1 plus amp section.
Both buyer camps might end up unhappy: The Dave buyers not getting their Dave 2 update and the TT2 buyers believing their TT2 lacks performance.

 

[analogmusic]

Chord made no mistake

You get what you pay for. Want more performance pay more.

There’s no need for Dave 2.....technically any upgrade to Dave should be via Mscalers...

And later the recordings via Davina....

Dave is the result of 30 plus years of work. It’s not an annual update product like a Samsung galaxy phone

 

[Tekunda]

Chord made no mistake

You get what you pay for. Want more performance pay more.

There’s no need for Dave 2.....technically any upgrade to Dave should be via Mscalers...

And later the recordings via Davina....

Dave is the result of 30 plus years of work. It’s not an annual update product like a Samsung galaxy phone

Chord made no mistake

You get what you pay for. Want more performance pay more.

There’s no need for Dave 2.....technically any upgrade to Dave should be via Mscalers...

And later the recordings via Davina....

Dave is the result of 30 plus years of work. It’s not an annual update product like a Samsung galaxy phone

According to Chord, Dave uses Spartan 6 FPGAs which according to the manufacturer are the most cost effective field arrays and maybe when the Dave was produced even the most advanced.
But we are a couple of years into the future and I am convinced that FPGAs have advanced too.
That is indeed both a blessing and curse for electronic companies.

 

[ZappaMan]

Man walks into Harrods.

Asks to speak to the Master Cheese Maker. He tells him, your cheese is great, it must be from the goats milk.

The cheee maker tells him it’s not, it the pasteurisation process.

The man throws a strop, tells the cheese maker he’s wrong and further more, there’s no point discussing it.

The man leaves Harrods, fuming.

 

[Triode User]

What are the differences then and how do these differences influence the sound quality?
I think the mistake Chord made is that they have not come out with a Dave 2 yet.
They should have finalized the Dave 2 and the ttt2 should have more or less been Dave 1 plus amp section.
Both buyer camps might end up unhappy: The Dave buyers not getting their Dave 2 update and the TT2 buyers believing their TT2 lacks performance.

You seem to be avoiding a little matter of target retail prices based on a BOM cost. Dave plus amp section would not sell for £4k. It might not even sell for the current Dave price.
As it is TT2 owners have the best possible available for £4k and the Dave owners have the best possible available for £8.5k. What is not to like about that?
We have consistently been told by Rob that he is not working on a Dave 2 because it is still the best DAC in the world.
Why are you trying to make trouble where no trouble exists?

@Amberlamps sort of started this off but sometimes he just likes to light the blue touch paper and see what happens.

 

[analogmusic]

Can we have less Chav behavior from some people

You know who you are

lol

 

[Triode User]

According to Chord, Dave uses Spartan 6 FPGAs which according to the manufacturer are the most cost effective field arrays and maybe when the Dave was produced even the most advanced.
But we are a couple of years into the future and I am convinced that FPGAs have advanced too.
That is indeed both a blessing and curse for electronic companies.

But unfortunately although FPGA have advanced the new ones are fearfully (prohibitively?) expensive and nor has the price come down for the existing ones (all from what has been said on here by RW from what I recall).

 

[TheAttorney]

What DAVE owners are dying to know is what amplifier (either a speaker amp or dedicated headphone amp) can be paired with the DAVE (used as a preamp) and a hard to drive headphone such as Hifiman SUSVARA .

Audiobacon has provided some answers to this question, driving an Abyss Phi (which has low efficiency, but not as low as Susvara). In his review, the $15k Wells Audio Headtrip Reference beat DAVE Direct on every level including transparency. This is (primarily) a headphone amp that can output 50W into 8 ohms if needed.

On the same site, the near $6k Eleven XI Audio Formula S with additional power supply, also beat DAVE Direct overall, but not clear if that was on every level. As has been stated before, most external amps will lose transparency even if some users may prefer the overall end result.

Audiobacon typically uses expensive interconnects and power cords, so the cost of these can easily add one or two extra $k to the total cost.
My view is that if you have a DAVE then stop chasing after low efficiency headphones and save yourself a ton of money and space on your hifi rack. And instead put your energy into improving your source, as this will ultimately give you a better sound.