[Reactcore]

I Found a short Munich impression on this Japanese site: https://www.phileweb.com/sp/news/audio/202405/12/25326.html

Ive put it through a translator giving this result:

​

Upscaler aimed at further improving of the transients​

The code featured upscaler and enhanced power supply that further demonstrated the ability of the company's DA converter DAVE. The release is scheduled for this fall and the name of the upscaler is "Quartet".

Robert Watts and his DAVE, upscaler and enhanced power supply

According to development-led Robert Watts: "We have been developing ideas for the development of this product for six years now." It's an upscaler that works functionally like Hugo M Scaler, but it's more powerful, with five FPGAs and over 2,500 audio grade parts."

DAVE (up) and upscaler (lower). Connected by the BNC

In particular, he developed the emphasis on improving "transgent" (transceptive properties) and said, "The human's ears are very sensitive, and just being slightly off time can make the difference." Improving the transients make the positioning relationship clearer, such as drawing the tone when multiple instruments work at the same time and where an instrument is playing in the orchestra."

The four buttons placed at the front are: power at the left, next the function key aside, and the choice can be made with the two buttons on the right. It seems to be possible to set latency, lowpass/hipass filters and brightness of the screen.

You can set things up at the front button.

Underneath it is the upscaler's power source. It has a powerful RF filter, which "enhances" power that can achieve smoother sounds.

I tried it on headphones as a prototype, but Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?" recreates a very lively and reality vocal, giving her a rich sense of unity as a music, with high resolution and details. I am really looking forward to the release of the official.

 

[Reactcore]

In the third decade of the twenty first century when you buy an extremely expensive product which claims to be state of the art it isn’t too much to expect a remote control which controls all the aspects of a product, including direct selection of a source, and expecting that remote to be in a nice case. My original DAVE remote was huge, plastic, and virtually all the buttons didn’t work as labeled. The subsequent small remote was also plastic, the relatively few buttons do work, but I can’t directly select an input. Not very good really. Why can’t I control the volume from Roon via USB? Not everyone uses this stuff on a desktop within arms reach.

Why such hate and complaints about Dave's controls.. they cant ever do it right. I couldnt care less if theyre not labeled, the display is low resolution, it has more inputs than i need. If you dont like it , sell it and never look back.

I like the technical reasoning behind its display, even if i could forget crossfeed when going speakers that it doesnt use a noisy separate CPU but is dot by dot programmed in the FPGA to keep noise out. But being fast responsive. I have the old remote, the 'not working' buttons are freely programmable, i use it for Dave, mscaler, tv top box and tv (yes i must choose the right marked buttons at choice)

Im just addicted to its sound and yes i also like the aesthetics as it is. Heck i even designed my own Choral housing..

 

[thePhones]

Why such hate and complaints about Dave's controls.. they cant ever do it right. I couldnt care less if theyre not labeled, the display is low resolution, it has more inputs than i need. If you dont like it , sell it and never look back.

I like the technical reasoning behind its display, even if i could forget crossfeed when going speakers that it doesnt use a noisy separate CPU but is dot by dot programmed in the FPGA to keep noise out. But being fast responsive. I have the old remote, the 'not working' buttons are freely programmable, i use it for Dave, mscaler, tv top box and tv (yes i must choose the right marked buttons at choice)

Im just addicted to its sound and yes i also like the aesthetics as it is. Heck i even designed my own Choral housing..

The overall looks and display options are awesome imo. But it does not change that the control scheme is bad.
Just an example: Tell me one product where pressing the lower button makes the cursor jump left then up and the upper button lets the cursor jump right then down. And then the remote (I have the new one) does the opposite.
But for me it’s all about sound so I live with it, like every other obstacle I have to jump for great sound quality.
Especially because I love Robs dacs I’m calling this out so it might get improvement on future products. I rather have more options than good overview, but why not have both? That’s all, nobody is selling because of that

 

[AndrewOld]

Why such hate and complaints about Dave's controls..

It’s not remotely “hate”, that’s an absurd exaggeration. It’s perfectly reasonable criticism, that evidently other people share, some with a better sense of humour than me. I hope Chord don’t steal the remote control design that @seaice posted!

If potential users don’t make their feelings and needs known now, before the product is finalised, there is no hope of getting useful functionality incorporated. Rob is only interested in the core design, not more peripheral aspects. When the Blu2 was first announced it didn’t have a USB input - Rob’s pc had an s/pdif output so he had no need. But enough potential users made their feelings known and a USB input got added, and then there was pressure to do a standalone MScaler which was also responded to positively, eventually. (though sadly not without issues).

So say what you want now. Speak up before it’s too late!

 

[Jawed]

The buttons and screen for Quartet should be on the power supply chassis, not the processing chassis.

Sure, that would mean another FPGA is required to work with the screen and controls, and it would mean that a communication channel between the power supply and the processing chassis is required, to act upon the control settings the user makes.

The advantages:

• controls could be more advanced and there would be space on the chassis to label the buttons
• the screen could be larger, which would make the display readable at 10 feet/3 metres away
• the screen could be a colour display and be more friendly with plain text rather than abbreviations
• there could be a volume control, which makes it more friendly to use when it is driving DX amplifiers
• the processing chassis can have more ventilation

 

[Ciggavelli]

Just when I'm about to buy a new dac, Chord announces this. Buying this, even if it's $12k will be cheaper than buying a new high-end dac. Decisions, decisions

 

[jarnopp]

I Found a short Munich impression on this Japanese site: https://www.phileweb.com/sp/news/audio/202405/12/25326.html

Ive put it through a translator giving this result:

​

Upscaler aimed at further improving of the transients​

The code featured upscaler and enhanced power supply that further demonstrated the ability of the company's DA converter DAVE. The release is scheduled for this fall and the name of the upscaler is "Quartet".


Robert Watts and his DAVE, upscaler and enhanced power supply

According to development-led Robert Watts: "We have been developing ideas for the development of this product for six years now." It's an upscaler that works functionally like Hugo M Scaler, but it's more powerful, with five FPGAs and over 2,500 audio grade parts."


DAVE (up) and upscaler (lower). Connected by the BNC

In particular, he developed the emphasis on improving "transgent" (transceptive properties) and said, "The human's ears are very sensitive, and just being slightly off time can make the difference." Improving the transients make the positioning relationship clearer, such as drawing the tone when multiple instruments work at the same time and where an instrument is playing in the orchestra."

The four buttons placed at the front are: power at the left, next the function key aside, and the choice can be made with the two buttons on the right. It seems to be possible to set latency, lowpass/hipass filters and brightness of the screen.


You can set things up at the front button.

Underneath it is the upscaler's power source. It has a powerful RF filter, which "enhances" power that can achieve smoother sounds.

I tried it on headphones as a prototype, but Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?" recreates a very lively and reality vocal, giving her a rich sense of unity as a music, with high resolution and details. I am really looking forward to the release of the official.

Does it have HD DSP, like Mojo2?

 

[Hiyono]

Does it have HD DSP, like Mojo2?

Rob said it does in an older post.

The new Quartet M scaler will have more complex and lossless EQ built in. Oddly enough, I am putting the finishing touches to it right now.

Having EQ that does not mess up sound quality or musicality is a really useful tool.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/watts-up.800264/post-18043230

 

[Mr X]

Minor observation but it looks like you can’t stack this system as it will impede access to the buttons.

Chord may finally sell a lot more of their expensive choral stand. I like the stand a lot but it’s a big expense from what I remember.

 

[thePhones]

Minor observation but it looks like you can’t stack this system as it will impede access to the buttons.

Chord may finally sell a lot more of their expensive choral stand. I like the stand a lot but it’s a big expense from what I remember.

The Choral range has just the perfect height to sit in front of the TV. I can perfectly put the Dave on one end and the scaler on the other. Cables all in area where chaos has no bounds, behind the TV.

 

[stemiki]

I like the design of Chord products. DAVE with its porthole and color screen is fantastic!

The buttons and volume control are also ok. I would like these two new frames to have a more appealing aesthetic.

The power supply, for example, could have a lens porthole to see the internal circuits, perhaps illuminated by small LEDs.

While the QMS could have a larger display and nice colored buttons, like the ones on the MS.

As for the remote control, I would also prefer it to work for all the commands, including DAVE's, and to have nice illuminated and colored buttons.

But these are secondary matters, what matters is of course the sonic result. On the other hand, as Rob has always said, don't listen with your eyes or your wallet.

 

[thePhones]

The power supply, for example, could have a lens porthole to see the internal circuits

This is most likely not done to have better shielding

While the QMS could have a larger display

Same thing, but also heat considerations.
It wasn’t Robs idea to put it in such a small case. It is a decision made by John Franks that it should fit in those Choral cases to have a clean looking product line up.
I’m just happy that they get along well and meet somewhere in the middle.

 

[miketlse]

This is most likely not done to have better shielding

That was my first thought as well.

 

[Shini44]

Just when I'm about to buy a new dac, Chord announces this. Buying this, even if it's $12k will be cheaper than buying a new high-end dac. Decisions, decisions

As someone who tried M-Scaler plus Dave, I been waiting for this to happen. Its 100% buy Best part is separated power supply, not sure that would make sound cleaner yet for other products it did for me.

 

[Ards]

100% buy for me also, but will need to juggle gear to make space for the power supply...