[kennyb123]

ESS based designs are fundamentally flawed in their technical ability. There is no fixing (creating new transparency) of the initial signal that comes out of the chip. But you can make a lot of flavors that people find attractive because now their beloved Rock song does not sound so harsh anymore or the classical recording sounds so clear and “transparent”. Real transparency does not care if you like the result, it shows what is there. If you want everything to taste like Whisky-Cola go ahead.
I much prefer a change in taste with every song, like no Whisky tastes the same (if you don’t put Cola in it

 

[thePhones]

Happy Easter!

 

[gnomen]

I quite understand the negative reactions. This thread is for champions of Chord's customised DAC code, so why wouldn't there be push back to anyone saying anything else. I'm no electronic engineer and I am not saying which chip is better. I'm just talking about what 'good' sounds like, and after decades of owning and enjoying some of the highest quality sound equipment available and listening to a broad collection of music ranging from classical to popular, large scale to solo, live and recorded, I think I am entitled to my opinion.

There were three separate, indepedent reviews of the Weiss Helios DAC published recently, each of which said it was the best DAC they had ever heard. I know, that's a wild claim. But I listened for myself and, for my tastes and my listening preferences, I agree. There will always be other products that compete with it, of course, but no-one in those reviews is saying the ESS chip is a limitation. Far from it.

I really admire the pioneering work Rob Watts has been doing with transient timing and the brain science of how we hear and how we locate sounds in space. For me, he joins a select group of audio engineers who have advanced the state-of-the-art for all of us over the past 50 years. I have used his products for the past decade, starting with the original Hugo, and put my money where my mouth is on many occasions. I will continue to follow Rob's posts and his researches. But there are other gifted audio engineers out there, all producing what they think is the best product with its own unique advantages. At this time, after extensive listening, I have decided I like Weiss better. I'm not reporting it here to have an argument, simply to share the experience with long-standing forum buddies -- this is what I discovered works for me in 2024.

 

[ChrisGB]

Ah, don't you just love the internet . The word "best" and or "better" could so easily be replaced with "preferred" or "my preference". Sonic tastes are not something easily calibrated.

We all have different ears and different tastes, not to mention different PSU, amplification, transducers, cables.

I really admire Rob's commitment to objective and analytical listening in pursuit of refining the sound. Although depth perception is a strong priority for Rob, the "side effects" of transparency and resolution are equally compelling. For me, the results suit my preferences enough to get the money out of my pocket.

 

[The Jester]

Any idea if the DX buttons will be on the new upscaler ?
Doesn’t seem to be any info on the digital amps that it was designed to control …..
Only so much one person can devote their time and efforts to I guess …

 

[thePhones]

Any idea if the DX buttons will be on the new upscaler ?
Doesn’t seem to be any info on the digital amps that it was designed to control …..
Only so much one person can devote their time and efforts to I guess …

The last info we have is a talk of John Franks and Rob Watts a year ago or so. At that point the Power Pulse Array was still on ice.

 

[The Jester]

Things progress,
Maybe a better option to look at a wireless DAC and digital crossover assembly for a future active speaker system, imagine one of Rob’s DAC’s complete with transparent EQ along with digital phase correct crossover driving discrete amps for each transducer …. We can but dream …
I’ve found that the better a well setup speaker system images with analogue or other DAC’s the more noticeable the depth perception becomes with the MScaler and Qutest, to the extent that with good recordings there’s a 3D like image, and sitting under 10ft away from both speakers they acoustically disappear, with some recordings I can actually look intently at either speaker and hear nothing coming directly from them, just a room filling soundstage …
Can only imagine how that could improve with the central power amp, speaker cables and passive crossovers out of the signal path ….
Sadly I can also imagine the price of such a system …

 

[Rob Watts]

I think some would argue that the sound of a DAC is determined not only by the quality of the digital stage but also by the quality of the power supply and analog stage. ESS would be inferior to the digital stage in DAVE, but if the Weiss 501 had a superior analog stage and power supply it could certainly be better overall. I would want to hear from those who actually compared them.

I would hesitate to put a number on the sound quality from the DAC as the analogue and PSU is indeed vital. But if pushed for a number, it would be very much more than 90% is dependent upon the interpolation filter and DAC implementation.

The problem is so many listeners are not good at evaluating sound quality - they are either frankly deaf, or choose to focus solely on on one factor - the tonal balance.

And don't get me started on the sound quality capabilities of reviewers...

I think the quartet refers to 4 FPGA processors. I think I heard that in a Thai HiFi interview of all things, so I might have misinterpreted that.

There are actually 5 200T FPGAs inside it - that would make it Quintet...

Things progress,
Maybe a better option to look at a wireless DAC and digital crossover assembly for a future active speaker system, imagine one of Rob’s DAC’s complete with transparent EQ along with digital phase correct crossover driving discrete amps for each transducer …. We can but dream …
I’ve found that the better a well setup speaker system images with analogue or other DAC’s the more noticeable the depth perception becomes with the MScaler and Qutest, to the extent that with good recordings there’s a 3D like image, and sitting under 10ft away from both speakers they acoustically disappear, with some recordings I can actually look intently at either speaker and hear nothing coming directly from them, just a room filling soundstage …
Can only imagine how that could improve with the central power amp, speaker cables and passive crossovers out of the signal path ….
Sadly I can also imagine the price of such a system …

It's on my list of things to do - very much in the future sadly. But I suspect it will make a massive difference. But I would need to collaborate with a technically competent and very capable speaker manufacturer.

 

[ecwl]

The problem is so many listeners are not good at evaluating sound quality - they ... choose to focus solely on one factor - the tonal balance.

With time, I'm more and more convinced that many people just prefer euphonic distortions, particularly for poor recordings.
Daniel Hertz by Mark Levinson recently came out with new products that uses a technology called C-wave. The patent is available for review:
https://patents.justia.com/patent/11925433
And you can see basically it uses DSP to add reverb/EQ that people found to be euphonic.

And don't get me started on the sound quality capabilities of reviewers...

The challenge I suspect is that we really don't reference to live music and even when we do, we still listen more for tonal balance than transient accuracy or instrumental timbre or soundstage depth. As a result, even our "expert" reviewers in the field are "trained" to listen for euphonic sound in tonal balance because that is the industry standard.
Of course, to me and a lot of Chord fans, Chord DAC sound is phenomenally euphonic, particularly with great recordings, while being more true to the source than other DACs. I know others with their own favorite DACs would have different opinions which I think is fair since they're spending their money on their favorite gear.

It's on my list of things to do - very much in the future sadly. But I suspect it will make a massive difference. But I would need to collaborate with a technically competent and very capable speaker manufacturer.

As I get older, I find myself prioritizing more and more what I choose to do and what I choose not to do at work and during my free time. I think if Rob Watts want to build an active speaker, he can do so tomorrow with Mojo 2 and TT2 technology to drive a 2-way bookshelf and offer phenomenal sound (to most of us). I'm sure a product can come out within a year. But I also think that it's just not a true priority because he prefers to focus on pushing the envelope in upsampling/noise shaping for better transient reconstruction and depth recreation, in DAC technology for more faithful analog waveform reproduction, in superior ADC for much better transient and soundstage depth recordings and in higher powered transparent amplification with pulse array amplification technology. Moreover, I think Rob Watts is such a sonic perfectionist, he would not be happy with a simple 2-way driven by Mojo 2+TT2 technology.

More importantly, I doubt such a product would sell well enough to be worth the engineering effort. I know people can point to HomePod, Sonos, Bluesound, Devialet but such a product would be at least Devialet in pricing and Chord's core technologies for wireless and streaming are probably not sufficiently competitive from a user interface perspective to these more established brands.

 

[KMann]

@Rob Watts

We met at CanJam SoCal 2022, and it was great talking to you. I'm eagerly anticipating the Quartet MScaler. Based on my experience listening to Chord DACs and observing the progression from Mojo to TT, TT2, DAVE, and Blu MK2/MScaler, it became quite evident how the longer WTA filters improved quality of music reproduction. It was easy to discern how more sinc-based taps contributed to improved depth, transients, and resolution.

However, there seems to be significant resistance from established figures in the industry regarding the use of longer linear filters. Below is a quote from a prominent DSP expert copied from another thread here. At first glance, the argument appears convincing, yet it fails to align with my experience with your DACs. Could you shed some light on your thoughts regarding the line of reasoning I've included below? I'm asking because such arguments are bound to become more pronounced with the addition of more taps.

Let's say we are producing RedBook content, thus we are doing 44100 samples per second. And we have a 88200 taps long filter. This means the filter is looking into one second in future and one second in history to produce each sample. Thus a transient blip one second in future will start affecting your output right now. And then it will periodically keep growing louder for one second as it becomes closer in time. Once it has passed the actual event climax, it will similarly keep periodically fading away for one second. If you have multiple such transients spaced closer than one second from each other, they will end up blending to each other, keeping the "build-up" in between at higher level. Closer these are to each other, higher the build-up. In other words, these transients will "collide" with each other. Near beginning of the track you don't have visibility to the "future", and near the end you don't have visibility past the "end". Longer the filter, longer this "uncertain" area is.

Certainly it is not beneficial that a drum hit played by musician one minute in future is affecting your output sample right now. And the samples you are playing right now are not useful for reproducing what the musician will play one minute later in future.

At the other extreme, single sample doesn't represent anything. You could have had the actual drum hit somewhere between two RedBook samples in time. This event needs to be reconstructed from few surrounding samples. 4410 samples gets you down to 10 Hz.

 

[gnomen]

The problem is so many listeners are not good at evaluating sound quality - they are either frankly deaf, or choose to focus solely on on one factor - the tonal balance.

And don't get me started on the sound quality capabilities of reviewers...

This is beneath you, Rob. What are you saying? "If you don't like my DACs you are no good at evaluating sound quality" Really? "Frankly deaf"! Oh dear. The world is full of people dedicated to producing better quality sound, and listening for it, writing about it, and sharing experiences on forums. To denigrate everyone not among your followers is the height of arrogance. I hope you did not mean it.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

This is beneath you, Rob. What are you saying? "If you don't like my DACs you are no good at evaluating sound quality" Really? "Frankly deaf"! Oh dear. The world is full of people dedicated to producing better quality sound, and listening for it, writing about it, and sharing experiences on forums. To denigrate everyone not among your followers is the height of arrogance. I hope you did not mean it.

At no point did he say anything about his DAC designs vs. others. Nor did he proclaim to have "golden ears".

It is true that a vast majority of people aren't good at evaluating sound quality. Look at all the people walking around with AirPods and Beats earbuds listening to Spotify. Most people don't care anything about DAC technology or tubes vs. SS. Influencers/reviewers peddle crap reviews and know nothing about SQ other than it "sounds good". It is also true that "professional" or "HiFi" reviewers are not necessarily reliable at evaluating sound quality.

Not sure why you are offended by his statements that are largely true. Other than being on his Head-Fi blog, there is zero inference that his is the superior intellect over others. Step back and take a breath friend.

 

[paulrbarnard]

This is beneath you, Rob. What are you saying? "If you don't like my DACs you are no good at evaluating sound quality" Really? "Frankly deaf"! Oh dear. The world is full of people dedicated to producing better quality sound, and listening for it, writing about it, and sharing experiences on forums. To denigrate everyone not among your followers is the height of arrogance. I hope you did not mean it.

I think it is you who has done the conflation here…

 

[thePhones]

Of course, to me and a lot of Chord fans, Chord DAC sound is phenomenally euphonic, particularly with great recordings, while being more true to the source than other DACs.

What I love about the transparency of Chord and MDave specifically is that I find it easy to hear if someone plays his instrument with heart or just with very good technique. It’s so easy to follow the rhythm of piano that you can feel the intention/heart behind each key being pressed. I did not like piano before MDave, but now it’s one of my favorites. I even have favorite types of piano now because each one has such a specific timbre to it. That is not to say that the M Scaler is worse with the other Chord Dacs, just Dave is really special to me when it comes to timbre variation (which is the most important thing to me.
On the Quartet i’ve not yet decided if I get it immediately or as soon as possible, we’ll see

 

[kennyb123]

It is true that a vast majority of people aren't good at evaluating sound quality. Look at all the people walking around with AirPods and Beats earbuds listening to Spotify. Most people don't care anything about DAC technology or tubes vs. SS. Influencers/reviewers peddle crap reviews and know nothing about SQ other than it "sounds good". It is also true that "professional" or "HiFi" reviewers are not necessarily reliable at evaluating sound quality.

What matters is whether one has proven themself to be a trustworthy listener. That a person chooses to walk around with AirPods can’t tell us that because many other factors could have lead to that choice. We’d have to hear is what that person would say if better sound quality was presented to them. Would they be able to be fair in assessing the differences? Not everyone is equipped to do this, unfortunately. For some, what’s more important is that they give the “right” answer where the “right” answer is determined by how they would be perceived. Some need to be seen as a member of a particular tribe, so they can only provide assessments that keep them aligned with that.

I think most people can actually be fair. I have had many non-audiophiles over to listen and almost all have been able to call a spade a spade. One exception was a guy who couldn’t bring himself to say anything positive about brands or technical approaches he didn’t like and couldn’t say anything negative about brands or technical approaches he liked. He’s not at all a fan of Chord DACs and it was clearly evident that his dislike made him not the most trustworthy listener when Chord DACs were involved.

I think if one falls in the fairness camp, they tend to only value the observations of those who have also demonstrated that they can be fair. Those who fall in the tribalism camp tend to only be able to determine how much they value another’s opinion by what tribe they perceive that person to be a member of. Since they often can’t hold an opinion that isn’t shared by their tribe, they tend not to value the observation of those who have demonstrated themselves to be fair. Some have drunk so much of the Kool Aid they have to imagine that the only fair people are the ones who give the “right” answer.