Chord Electronics Owners & Discussion Thread

[eze73]

 

Part of this is on the Melco thread

 

The purpose of the testing was

1. To know whether my spendings were out of purpose

2. Share my experience and have your opinion

3. In no  case , i have some vested in the stuffs here , neither am I a reviewer

 

Tracks used for testing (CD tracks ripped via dbpoweramp to Flac uncompressed)

1. Adele : Set fire in the rain

2. Massive attack : Blue line (Bass)

3. Gossip : Heavy cross

4. Rodrigo y Gabriela : Live in Japan : Take five

5. Ella & Louis : April in Paris

6. Sia : Chandelier (Piano version)

7. Hugh Masakela : Stimela : Drums , fine recording

8. Nils Lofgren : Keith don’t go

9. Daft Punk : Giorgio Moroder

 

Conclusions of the DAC shootout

This is just for the sake of comparing

The DAVE is still a unbeatable for my ears , there's nothing to criticise about it

Fun , smooth detailed , instrument separation second to none

 

The DDDAC is the DAC of a great versatility , especially sounding full with the Sowter

The BC DAC 3.7 is an upgrade , and sad to say that it's not to my taste . It is powered with the LNS , and yelds to some nice music , good soundstage (bettering the DDDAC) ...but there is something missing

However , the BC Dac 3.7 sounds in a different league to the Eximus in terms of soundstage and detail

I can easily live with both the Eximus and the BC , the former being a good headphone amplifier (and good pre amp)

 

Overall

The DAVE is my favorite DAC today , music really really suits my taste when delivered via AES EBU (Tested with Auralic Aries , needed to be tested with the Lumin U1)

The DDDAC is a fantastic value for money , highly capable , without any competitor at 6000 euros

 

 

 

 

 

[Ratatouille]

"lucky" av1 cannot sell 100 of these in SG. boss will have suddenly strike toto.

price is nowhere near the average commoner, still if any millionaire in SG were to read this. just get the Dave. its a top notch DAC.

nevertheless an excellent personal review.

[RAYRAY1624705929]

Hi Andrew, awaits for your Dave review and thanks in advance.

 

DAVE is in da’House! Buddy just dropped it by for a couple of weeks ;D… Will post a review.

 

[Guest AndrewC]

Spent roughly the last 2 weeks listening to the Chord DAVE on and off compared to my home reference DAC, here’s my take;

 

Part 1 of 3

 

The BURNING QUESTION

On the back of my extremely positive experience with the Chord Mojo (my constant travel buddy), there was one burning question that really drove me to want to test out DAVE; How does it sound and is it a “giant killer” against the likes of my dCS Vivaldi DAC? So, as you read on, please keep in mind this is really a comparative review against arguably the top dog... So, YMMV ;D

 

On its own DAVE sounds simply fantastic! In direct A-B comparisons against my dCS though, differences are quite readily audible. DAVE doesn’t sound as top-to-bottom neutral as the dCS does; the bottom end is very robust and well nuanced, but it’s mid-range seems slightly accentuated - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing - some highly compressed pop/rock tracks arguably sound more palatable/more musical through DAVE than the dCS. “Replica” and a couple of other tracks on The xx’s “I See You” (Young Turks, 96/24) for example actually sound better through DAVE (in somewhat the same way some pop & rock tracks sound better over your car stereo than it does in your home reference kits).

 

The top-end on good recordings is missing some of the “air” that often surrounds the singing and instruments, especially around female vocals, strings, and cymbals/high-hats. Very noticeable on Keb’ Mo’s excellent “Keb’ Mo’” (Epic, DSD64), and then I couldn’t not notice it on more and more well recorded high-rez tracks. Initially it was a little tricky to tell if the "air" via the dCS is just HF noise, but on closer listen, especially the "zing" around cymbals and plucked strings, there's fine details that are missing on DAVE, giving it a slight more "though-a-plane-of-glass" rather than "you’re-there-live" sonics of the dCS. In fact, I recognise this exact sonic signature on the Mojo as well (mentioned in my Mojo review elsewhere on X’Place) where the effect is more pronounced. It sounds like the digital stream is ever-so-slightly “over processed”, or where the digital interconnect cable is straddling a power-cord and the bitstream is losing some of its most delicate nuances. That said, had my listening comparisons been before my Vivaldi 2.0 upgrade, I suspect they'd be neck and neck in top-end transparency. Stereophile’s measurements of the two - dCS Vivaldi, Chord DAVE - doesn’t provide any clues. If anything, DAVE seems to measure almost better, especially when compared to the dCS with Filter 5 which is what I use most times (minimum phase, no pre-ringing, early roll-off).

 

Some female vocals on PCM tracks on DAVE seem to take on a slightly nasally tone compared to the dCS - Emilie-Claire Barlow “The Very Thought of You” (Naxos DXD) for example… I think maybe that comes with the perceived pronounced mid-range. In John Atkinson’s DAVE review he found Piano tracks to sound great, I on the other hand found them to sound a little wooly, less realistic than via the dCS - Bill Evan’s excellent “Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of the Gate” and “Some Other Time” (Naxos, DSD128) albums for example. Also, Brass instruments occasionally seem to lack a bit of bite (even in PCM) - like on a couple tracks off of Jazz at the Pawn Shop (Naxos, DXD), despite DAVE having source material bitrate "advantage" in a few instances where I wasn't quite comparing apples-to-apples; for example, Bill Evans “Some Other Time”;  on the dCS @ DSD128 versus DSD256 on DAVE. The Vivaldi still pulls ahead slightly.

 

Like most people seem to suggest, DAVE does exceptionally well with redbook tracks (but then so does dCS actually). Still, it surprised me the couple of times when I actually preferred redbook albums played back via DAVE than dCS. Michael Kiwanuka "Love & Hate" (Tidal redbook stream), is just fantastic (repetitive lyrics aside). As was Tove Lo's "Lady Wood" (Tidal redbook stream), and Bob Moses "Days Gone By" (Tidal redbook stream) with its thumping bass and hypnotic rhythms. DAVE's got serious PRAT!

 

Keep in mind however, the scale of the differences I’m describing above between DAVE and the Vivaldi DAC are actually relatively small (though readily audible in direct side-by-side comparisons). No doubt I’m sonically biased, being too accustomed to listening with a dedicated upsampler with minimum-phase impulse response filters etc., I think if I’d listened to DAVE in complete isolation or over a prolonged period, it’d be impossible to detect any real “deficiencies”! ;)

 

Testing DAVE’s Headphone output, I only listened via a couple of my IEMs. As a headphone system/Amp, I think DAVE is only just ok, nothing special (but I'm not really a headphone guy anyway). My impression is that headphone listening via DAVE is likely better when it's coupled with a proper dedicated balanced headphone Amp, but it could get tricky … (read on in the technical bits).

 

[Guest AndrewC]

Part 2 of 3

 

TECHNICAL BITS

Cosmetically, I think DAVE looks gorgeous, compact, yet with the right heft, a really nice design. Feature wise DAVE is really minimalist, very rudimentary, which can be both good or bad, but it certainly doesn’t have anywhere near the flexibility of the dCS system. In this day and age, the lack of an Ethernet port for streaming is a big disappointment... though understandable if they couldn't make it sound as good if it corporates built-in Ethernet (just like they couldn't incorporate the "M Scaler" that's in Blu Mk II). Maybe Chord will rectify this with a native Ethernet interface on the Davina - the upcoming reference class ADC - perhaps. I also have to wonder about the choice of not including an external reference clock port, especially considering the other components that are intended to be interconnected to DAVE; relying solely on PLLs for bitstream clock recovery can't be a good idea in a Blu-DAVE-Davina configuration?

 

As it stands though, DAVE performs quite well with sources connected over its galvanically isolated USB input. Pretty much all of my listening impressions where with the Melco N1A and MacBook Pro as USB sources, and with an Intona US isolator in-between; subjectively sounded a little better, but I haven’t had time to take any measurements with/without the Intona. I didn’t do any listening to DAVE with S/PDIF inputs, nor fed streams from my dCS Upsampler over dual-AES interfaces to DAVE for that matter; which will be very interesting - imagine dedicated Upsampling with minimum-phase digital filtering (including MQA hardware decoding) coupled to DAVE’s WTA reconstruction filter…;D (Could it compete with Blu Mk II’s M-Scaler? TBD)

 

I was slight shocked when I looked at DAVE's USB configuration data through Apple's USB Prober utility; the serial number of the unit was identical to the unit John Atkinson reviewed in Stereophile - “413-001”!! O). Turns out the actual serial number affixed to the bottom of the unit is quite different ;D. Clearly Chord doesn’t bother to burn the correct individual serial number into the USB port data (neither does dCS for that matter).

The one thing that I don’t like about DAVE is its rather high full-scale output voltage. Specs wise DAVE puts out 3V (unbalanced) / 6V (balanced), RMS. JA/Stereophile measured it way higher; 4.37V (unbalanced) / 8.75V (balanced) @ 1kHz, "0dB" volume setting on DAVE - that's slightly more than double the common 2V line-level voltage. Most Amps have input sensitivity between 1V-2V. The net effect of this will be system matching trickiness. If connecting DAVE directly to a stereo or headphone Amp ("Digital-Pre” mode on DAVE), you’ll end up having to listen to music with DAVE’s digital volume turned down low. Or if connecting to a Pre-Amp with DAVE in “DAC mode” (fixed full-scale output), then having to turn the Pre-Amp’s volume control closer to its maximum attenuation. The Mojo has the same issue (as documented in JA/Stereophile’s Mojo measurement back in Jan’16), and I believe likewise Hugo. As a comparison, the dCS Vivaldi DAC has 4 configurable full-scale output voltage level settings; 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V, or 6V! So, it’s easy to mix and match the dCS with Pre-Amps and Amps of varying sensitivity and gain.

 

Fortunately, DAVE’s volume control appears to have little negative sonic impact - I believe the implementation is an evolution of the Hugo’s architecture; via a combination of the FPGA WTA filter core, the cross-feed DSP engine, and the output noise shapers/dithering - so, it’s not traditional binary truncation based, i.e. it doesn’t suffer from decreasing resolution with decreasing volume …  Thus, not a show-stopper, but still, it requires “special care” or you risk impacting sonics, or even worse, over-driving your Amps.

 

I tested DAVE directly into both of my Amps; a stereo amp, and a pair of SET monoblocks; I no longer have any analogue Pre-Amp in my system. My SET monoblocks (1V sensitivity, unbalanced) in fact has individual passive attenuation controls, so I was able to listen to DAVE in “DAC mode” (fixed full-scale) while I controlled listening volume directly on the monoblocks - this configuration superb sonics. For my stereo Amp (1.3V sensitivity, balanced), I added a pair of passive in-line 20dB attenuation pads to DAVE’s balanced outputs and set it to “Digital Pre” mode before connecting to the Amp. Even that wasn’t quite enough though, having to playback DAVE’s volume control at around -10 to -15dB range for my regular listening level, would have preferred to be in the -10 to -5dB range for good DSD recordings. Worst of all though, sonics was impacted with the attenuation pads in-place (wasn’t surprised, they’re crappy ones), so, not a good idea. A little surprised JA/Stereophile doesn't specifically mention this issue considering his review was based on DAVE in "Digital Pre" mode and connected directly to his Amp without any Pre-Amp in between. All of my listening test though were with my SET monoblocks and DAVE set to "DAC mode” fixed full-scale.

 

 

 

DAVE has 2 specific FPGA configuration modes - “PCM Plus” and “DSD Plus” for dealing natively with PCM or DSD streams. Switching between modes is manual, "cumbersome", and takes at least 20 seconds during which time audio output is automatically muted. I’m not sure why the switching couldn’t be made automatic? Clearly DAVE can recognise the varying input streams, including DoP.  DSD material played in DSD+ mode clearly sounded the best IMHO; Pink Floyd DSOTM (EMI SACD/DSD64 rip) was simply fantastic. I’m not sure if thats just a manifestation of my DSD sonic biases ;D.

 

While I actually like DAVE’s minimalist style, it doesn’t make for good usability scores. Speaking of which, especially annoying is the screen blinks when configuration changes are made. DAVE’s screen blinks once each time anything is changed, including increasing it’s volume control ! There are report online of DAVE's screen blinking nonstop under some circumstances of the incoming transport signal.

 

[embed=425,349]

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The remote-control that comes with DAVE does it’s job, but its a shockingly simplistic piece of plastic, hardly worthy of a S$10K DAC. IMHO, they should have a proper Remote orderable separately for people who want one (maybe they do, I haven’t checked if the proper remote that comes with Blu Mk.ii is separately orderable).

 

 

GLITCHES

Just once, when I connected my MacBook Pro to DAVE, with both units powered on, it triggered a logout on my Mac!! Strange!

 

Occasionally if I switch between DSD+ and PCM+ mode with music continuing to stream, after the unit has come out of Mute (i.e. mode change complete), the audio is garbled. I needed to stop the playing track, allow DAVE to blink, and then re-start the track for proper output to resume.

 

With some DSD256 tracks… there’s a stutter in the first 2-3 seconds of the start of the track, but I only experienced this on Jazz At The Pawnshop “Late Night” (Naxos, DSD256), no issue with Bill Evans “Some Other Time” (Naxos, DSD256).

[Guest AndrewC]

Part 3 of 3

 

FINAL VERDICT

Honestly, this is about the best DAC I’ve heard in a long time (since after my dCS Vivaldi DAC from 2013!). I’m not sure if it matches most people’s sonic palate, but if excellent sound quality and musicality are your only concerns, then the Chord DAVE is a no brainer! It doesn't feature many bells & whistles, but it kind of gets everything right sonically. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it reminds of me of my Linn Sondek CD player ... focuses the listener on the music, without distraction. A very British piece of electronics in that way.

 

Overall, DAVE's just lacking a bit of sonic finesse in comparison to the Vivaldi DAC, but on its own, against pretty much every subjective sonic attribute - transparency, extension, soundstage, 3-dimensionality, etc., and especially musicality, I think DAVE does one helluva job! At about just 30% of the price of the dCS DAC unit (US$ MSRP), DAVE is a steal! If you’re the sort that spends S$2-4K on the next fashionable DAC that comes along every 18months or so, or thinking of buying some other DAC south of S$8K, don’t. I'm pretty sure sonically DAVE blows those machines away, so, save up a little more and get this state-of-the-art machine and stick with it for the long haul, you'll likely end up saving money, time, and effort. As it turns out my buddy's off-loading his unit (he’s moving up to dCS!)... and I’ve just acquired his DAVE, at a steal, for my bedroom system! ;D, can't give it any higher a praise. A highly recommended buy obviously!

[stvc]

Nice review, but surprise that you got different remote than what i have, do you have the HF filter on and crossfeed set to 0?

[tiktokape]

Thanks for the insights over DAVE! In any case  that you decide to get Blu2, do share further. I think the next up task for you should be Linn Katalyst DAC [emoji14]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[domho8]

Tks for the in depth review andrewC.

 

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Guest AndrewC]

Nice review, but surprise that you got different remote than what i have, do you have the HF filter on and crossfeed set to 0?

 

Ironically, high-Rez tracks sound better with the HF Filter On; overall musicality and dynamics seems better, but there was no difference in the perceived lack of “air” with the HF filter on or off… (bugged me a little, I was hoping with it off, I’d get back something at that very top). There was less of an impact on Redbook tracks with HF filter on or off… So I mostly just left it on.

 

Yup, crossfeed at zero… I don’t like the sound when set at any other level with my IEMs, it sounds holo and fake.

 

Interesting about the remote! Do you have a pic? My buddy’s DAVE was one of the earliest shipped units I believe…  could be they’re supplying new units with newer remotes? Last night I was researching the current 2nd-hand market price of DAVE when saw a unit on sale on Audiogon, has the same remote as mine.

 

 

Thanks for the insights over DAVE! In any case  that you decide to get Blu2, do share further. I think the next up task for you should be Linn Katalyst DAC [emoji14]

 

 

Nah… :P… been partial to Linn in the past, I’ve moved on since and won’t go back.

 

 

Tks for the in depth review andrewC.

 

You're welcome!

[domho8]

Go back office check my piggy bank whether hv enuf for Dave ha ha

 

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

 

[stvc]

this is my, my is later badge.

 

[Guest AndrewC]

this is my, my is later badge.

...

 

That's the remote that comes with Blu … Maybe they’re shipping all DAVEs with this now? Lucky you! :)

[Guest AndrewC]

I poked around a little more with the DAVE,

 

Part 4 of 3 (?)

 

FOLLOW-UP TECHNICAL BITS

 

I only just read the manual, they actually tell you to stop playing music before switching modes FPGA filter modes ;D… So, scratch that as a “glitch” in my part 2… must remember to RTFM before playing with stuff next time.

Before changing modes please stop music playback and mute your amplifier to allow the clocks to resynchronise and avoid incorrect playback.

…

 

HF Filter - I wanted to take a closer look at this; with it On, the filter kicks-in well beyond the audio band with the -3dB corner frequency somewhere between 50-60kHz (green trace). With it Off (red trace), the cut-off goes well beyond 80kHz before a rather steep dive. The HF Filter doesn’t immediately appear to have any impact on the audio band itself, albeit I’m not really using professional measuring kit. In any case, things generally sound better with HF Filter left On.

 

 

USB Galvanic isolation - I also wanted to see how well DAVE’s USB port was galvanically isolated by measuring a 1kHz tone with/without Intona.

 

EDIT:

I remeasured with and without the Intona isolator inline, and a 1kHz tone as well as a 19kHz tone. As it turns out, in both cases, there was virtually NO difference at all in the measured response (see coincidental green and red traces in the graph below). In other words, contrary to my earlier “findings”, there was in fact no difference with or without the Intona USB isolator, at least objectively (the previous graphs were an error in the FFT analysis windowing selection).

 

So, it does appear that DAVE’s USB galvanic isolation is doing it’s job!  That said, while well under the hearing threshold, DAVE does seem to generate odd-order harmonics (and some funky stuff at the HF Filter cut-off frequency).

 

[stvc]

Interesting,How u measure them? I'm interested how well those streamer with galvanic isolation do, would like to measure them.

[Guest AndrewC]

Interesting,How u measure them? I'm interested how well those streamer with galvanic isolation do, would like to measure them.

 

ADC to digitize DAVE's analog output, and resulting .wav files reviewed on Adobe Audition :)

[InnocentBlood]

this is my, my is later badge.

 

 

Yes, this is what I have too and I got mine last June.

[DJQ]

i was told AV1 sold alot of Daves....  ;D good for them if its true.

[dXter]

Wish I can afford. ;D

Hope for 2nd hand ones. ;D

[domho8]

I ask av1 "chord Dave on sale liao and v hot" reply "no lei where u heard fr ah"

 

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

 

[DJQ]

Wish I can afford. ;D

Hope for 2nd hand ones. ;D

2nd hand 1/2 price?  ;D ;D ;D

[eze73]

Hello

Thanks for the nice review of the Chord Dave

Highly professionnal review , and I totally agree with your findings

Regarding Intona , may be with the USB REGEN or W2S recovery it would be different , who knows

Thanks again for sharing

Cheers

[Guest AndrewC]

Hello

Thanks for the nice review of the Chord Dave

Highly professionnal review , and I totally agree with your findings

Regarding Intona , may be with the USB REGEN or W2S recovery it would be different , who knows

Thanks again for sharing

Cheers

 

You're welcome  :)

 

On the issue of USB devices, in fact, since testing DAVE, I’ve had time to think about and further test this very point. IMHO, other such USB re-clockers/isolators like Uptone etc., are not going to make any difference.

 

Here’s why;

 

These devices do not change the actual USB bitstream; 1s remain as 1s and 0s remain as 0s. This can be proven objectively beyond any doubt thanks to MQA and it’s bitstream Authentication! All you need to do is test with/without any such USB device plugged in between Tidal/Audirvana+ and any MQA DAC like the Meridian Explorer2 DAC or AudioQuest Dragonfly. Play any MQA Authenticated track - if the Blue (or Green) “MQA Authenticated” light comes on, it’s bit perfect, no bits have been changed by these devices! Same thing goes for Ethernet cables or isolator devices, one can verify that the bitstream is being  delivered error-free using Roon and it’s RAAT protocol which imbeds checksums to verify bit perfect connectivity between the Computer and the DAC with or without these devices. So, we can objectively prove, for a fact, that these devices/cables don’t change bits! :)

 

These solutions also claim to provide re-clocking of the bitstream to ensure precise timing. However, once again this is quite unnecessary especially in the case of Asynchronous USB or Ethernet streams because these are packetised bitstreams that are asynchronous in nature, meaning they don’t rely on synchronous clocking signals to interpret bit states the way that say the S/PDIF signals on Transport and DAC requires a precise 44.1k/48k clock. Additionally, if the bits are being misinterpreted due to clocking/timing errors, the MQA decoder or Roon/RAAT will fail! So once again we can objectively validate that re-clocking is not required!

 

https://www.meridian-audio.com/en/products/dacs/usb-dacs/explorer/

1x LED glows white for PCM, green to indicate MQA playback and blue to indicate MQA Studio playback. MQA indications will not show if the bitstream is altered in any way

 

Here’s an MQA Mastered track from 2L, “Mozart: Violin concerto in D major - Allegro (Marianne Thorsen / Trondheim Solistene)”. The Blue light on the Explorer2 signifies “MQA Studio Authenticated” perfectly unaltered bitstream between my Mac and the Meridian Explorer2.

 

 

 

 

However, these USB re-clockers/isolator devices do provide electrical clean-ups; lifting the bitstream signal’s current and voltage levels to full spec, and even more importantly, providing isolation of the USB power & ground between the source platform and DAC; which is the most important part as USB sources (e.g. Computers) are quite electrically “noisy” which could affect the sonic output of a DAC (showing up as distortion). Ethernet by default is a galvanically isolated interface, so ground noise impact is eliminated without adding anything. Which leaves just USB where electrical isolation becomes important.

 

If you read ComputerAudiophile reviews of these USB devices, some showcase cleaned-up bitstream (oscilloscope digital bitstream eye-patterns); problem is, they are quite irrelevant really because;

(1) whats more important is the bitstream interpretation by the DAC itself, and as explained above, MQA or RAAT can prove  bit perfect delivery with or without these devices! and

(2) the electrical noise flowing from the source to the DAC, and for that, galvanic isolation tackles the issue. With DAVE’s galvanically isolated USB port, this issue is measurably addressed, hence the zero measured difference with and without Intona, and unlikely to make a difference with others!

 

Here’s the bottom line — I’m not saying these devices don’t work, I’m saying these USB re-clockers/isolators only really work well in setups where the source/DAC power & grounding is inherently deficient to begin with. So, if someone experiences a “Wow!!!” difference, you know their setup is “less than ideal” in the first place and requires this kind of “fix”. For components like DAVE, where these issues are addressed in their design, these re-clockers/Isolators devices don’t bring any benefits ;)

[stvc]

Interesting, in CA there is group modified their computer, network switches and streamer with better clock to improve the SQ, especially for Romaz which have Dave for this setup. Lucky I'm not with SOTM product  ;D

[Guest durianlover88]

I have tested Dave and lately Blu2 in my setup for coming to 2 months.....the ethernet isolation and Dave USB galvanic isolation though good, still not up to mark. '1 is 1, 0 is 0' there are more to it.