Chord Electronics Owners & Discussion Thread

[Steveo888]

4 minutes ago, Music2496 said:

Thanks. What is/was your USB source? A PC or Mac was connected straight into deqx?

Or a networked USB audio streamer?

 

I am using a custom Fidelizer Nimitra server with a sotm tx ultra and iso regen with curious and lush cables usb cables. 

[rand129678]

13 minutes ago, sandrews888 said:

I am using a custom Fidelizer Nimitra server with a sotm tx ultra and iso regen with curious and lush cables usb cables. 

 

Nice. Everything including the kitchen sink  

 

[legend]

12 hours ago, sandrews888 said:

@legend I can see you were upsampling the files before you hit the qutest. I have heard Rob watts say to not up sample before it hits his dac. Wonder if that would make a difference? Also I am going to try sending the digital sample from the Dave to the deqx as well soon to compare the difference from analog 

I have just tried the comparison with the Brubeck track at 88.4 and not upsampled by Amarra - and got much the same result ie without the Qutest there was more detail and PRAT but with the Qutest before the DEQX it was smoother and perhaps the sax had a bit more 'body' though not the brassy 'earthiness'.

 

Because I could not be certain that the Brubeck had not been upsampled at some stage (I used to do it a lot off-line using a r8brain freebie) I also tried a  Beethoven's Piano Sonata (op 111 2nd movt) that was very well recorded at 44.1 and has some slow notes from deep bass to highs and again found the same result - the non-Qutest setup had better detail in the notes, including their decay.

 

I should emphasise that these results are for a fully active speaker (Tikandis) with the DEQX being used for Xovers as well as driver correction so it is not your typical setup.  I am still very impressed with the Qutest with conventional passive speakers and even more when Simon kindly brought down the M-Scaler so I still want an M-Scaler when testing passive speakers and I don't want to worry about the rest of the system causing colourations/distortions.

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by legend

[Steveo888]

 @legendIf I were to bring down the Dave to your place, could we hear that with the one deqx, tikandi be 3 way system to compare? I assume your Tikandi system has the better mid range driver we were talking about?

 

We could invite Simon @Sime V2 up with his mscaler  to do comparisons with qutest alone vs qutest/mscaler vs dave alone vs dave/mscaler on both your passive and active setups 

 

We could also try the Chord dave with the deqx/TIkandis via its bnc digital output stage as the qutest doesn't have a digital out to compare. Might be an interesting afternoon in Nowra!

Edited January 22, 2019 by sandrews888

[legend]

2 minutes ago, sandrews888 said:

@legend If I were to bring down the Dave to your place, could we hear that with the one deqx, tikandi be 3 way system to compare? I assume your Tikandi system has the better mid range driver we were talking about?

 

We could invite Simon up with his mscaler  to do compaisons with qutest alone vs qutest/mscaler vs dave alone vs dave/mscaler on both your passive and active setups 

 

We could also try the Chord dave with the deqx/TIkandis via its bnc digital output stage as the qutest doesn't have a digital out to compare. Might be an interesting afternoon

Sounds great to me!  Can you  organise it with Simon?

[Steveo888]

Wont be for a few weeks but will be either a Saturday or sunday. Im only free on weekends.

[Guest]

It’ll have to be a Sunday. 

[legend]

Sunday is generally good for me.

[Ittaku]

Well, as plenty of people have been discussing using the Dave with the mscaler, there's a Dave and Blu2 up for grabs now in the classifieds.

 

[PKay]

51 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Well, as plenty of people have been discussing using the Dave with the mscaler, there's a Dave and Blu2 up for grabs now in the classifieds.

 

Now that would be an interesting comparison with your MSB unit.

[Ittaku]

1 minute ago, PKay said:

Now that would be an interesting comparison with your MSB unit.

You mean the Dave vs the Ref DAC? That I've done. But Dave with mscaler, I have not.

[Guest]

If someone wants to buy me a Dave, I’d be grateful

[Ittaku]

I've created a subwoofer-free full range DSP profile to use with my speakers so we can do fair back and forth comparisons this Sunday now. I won't be able to turn it up quite as loud but otherwise it will make for better comparisons. I'll also try not to drink too much alcohol between now and then as that tends to trigger tinnitus... and we can't have that on the day.

[bhobba]

On 17/01/2019 at 5:30 PM, legend said:

I do not know much about the theory of the M-scaler (having only just heard about it from Simon) but wonder if talk about the million taps relates to FFT and so whether the aural improvements are due to improvements in timing - in much the same way as MQA claims?

MQA and the M-Scaler operate on two different principles .  For what MQA does see the following:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17501

 

For what the M-Scaler does see:

 

The difference is summed up in just one word - aliasing.  The MQA guys do not believe small amounts of aliasing are audible, Rob Watts believes it is very audible.   For the vast amount of material (something like 99.9% or even greater) as explained in the MQA article there is nothing above 48kz at 16 bits.   So one simply records at some extremely high bitrate,  say 768k, chops off anything below 16 bits and you have a signal you only need to transmit at 96k sampling rate (which transmits everything 48kz and below).  It is how to transmit that signal the two diverge.   Rob has a very accurate brick wall filter (its the other half of the M-Scaler technology) and via the M-Scaler at the other end very accurately restores it to the original sampling frequency, usually 768k.   The MQA quy's use what is called spline filtering to convert it to 96k (the triangle sampling mentioned in the MQA article is an example of such a spline).  It introduces aliasing but the MQA guys claim it gives better timing between samples when reconstructed using the same filter.   Which sounds better - only listening tests and your ears can determine that.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited January 23, 2019 by bhobba

[rand129678]

1 hour ago, bhobba said:

MQA and the M-Scaler operate on two different principles .

 

A few pages back I shared a funny & related quote from HQPlayer's Jussi Laako:

 

"looked from two extremes, both Chord talking about transient accuracy with extremely long filters and MQA talking about transient accuracy with extremely short filters are both right in a way, but only looking at things from one point of view while ignoring others. As usual in life, truth is somewhere between the extremes..."

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/49609-john-atkinson-yes-mqa-is-elegant/?do=findComment&comment=866897

Edited January 24, 2019 by Music2496

[legend]

1 hour ago, bhobba said:

……….(deleted)

 Rob has a very accurate brick wall filter (its the other half of the M-Scaler technology) and via the M-Scaler at the other end very accurately restores it to the original sampling frequency, usually 768k.   The MQA quy's use what is called spline filtering to convert it to 96k (the triangle sampling mentioned in the MQA article is an example of such a spline).  It introduces aliasing but the MQA guys claim it gives better timing between samples when reconstructed using the same filter.   Which sounds better - only listening tests and your ears can determine that.

 

I hear a significant improvement with both MQA and the M-Scaler. Which improvement is larger is difficult to say because the DAC in each case was different - a Project S2 for the MQA and a Chord Qutest for the M-Scaler (because the Qutest does not do MQA).

 

However I also hear a similar improvement in going from a passive loudspeaker to an active one with a DEQX processor, even when the loudspeaker drivers are similar.  And of course DEQX also have said for quite a while that timing is very important. The DEQX processor brings all frequencies into time alignment - something that is very difficult to do with a passive loudspeaker system.

 

So it looks as though the issue of 'time domain' is being tackled on a number of fronts to good effect.  It would be interesting to see if/how well the different approaches could be combined.  My experience is that it cannot be done via the analog inputs of the DEQX because its ADC inevitably affects the result.

 

[Guest]

lol, plugged my TV into the M Scaler, now that’s made a difference for YouTube stuff. Still a slight delay in video mode, but it’s doable. Video mode off, yeah-nah

[powerav]

You should find all of your music DVD/bluray concerts going through the M scaler in pcm stereo much better than the surround formats.

[Guest]

Only problem with that is that in order to see both sound and picture, you have to get around the HDMI problem. I can’t watch picture through the 8805 while listening to another inputs sound. I could plug the 205 directly into the TV, but I’ll have dual outs running on the 205, and when that happens it’s has audio through one, picture only through the other, and that might reek havoc when switching over to watch a Blu-ray in surround. 

[rand129678]

1 hour ago, legend said:

I hear a significant improvement with both MQA and the M-Scaler. Which improvement is larger is difficult to say because the DAC in each case was different - a Project S2 for the MQA and a Chord Qutest for the M-Scaler (because the Qutest does not do MQA).

As you hinted, it's not the best comparison because you're not just comparing digital filtering methods but you're comparing different DAC analogue section and power supply section designs.

 

Per the late and well respected Charles Hansen of Ayre Acoustics (link below), the latter two can dominate the analogue output sound quality / performance more than digital filtering methods.

 

In other words, the differences you hear between those DACs may be more the differences in DAC analogue section and power supply section designs, than MQA vs WTA filtering methods.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/35106-how-does-a-perfect-dac-analog-signal-look-different-than-a-cheap-dac/?page=7&tab=comments#comment-713189

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Music2496

[powerav]

10 minutes ago, Sime V2 said:

Only problem with that is that in order to see both sound and picture, you have to get around the HDMI problem. I can’t watch picture through the 8805 while listening to another inputs sound. I could plug the 205 directly into the TV, but I’ll have dual outs running on the 205, and when that happens it’s has audio through one, picture only through the other, and that might reek havoc when switching over to watch a Blu-ray in surround. 

Just as a reference, I do it by connecting my source which is a PC to my AVR with HDMI for VIDEO and then a USB form PC to Project S2 DAC for Audio so in the AVR setting I set the input I use for HDMI video as the pass through so when I select the input for the DAC analog input the video will stay on. I can not go back to bluray concerts through AVR HDMI for audio even if it's in DTS MA, sounds so flat compared to audio through the DAC, can only imagine the Chord and Mscaler being (pick a margin between 10 - 100) times better.

[davewantsmoore]

2 hours ago, Music2496 said:

 

A few pages back I shared a funny & related quote from HQPlayer's Jussi Laako:

 

"looked from two extremes, both Chord talking about transient accuracy with extremely long filters and MQA talking about transient accuracy with extremely short filters are both right in a way, but only looking at things from one point of view while ignoring others. As usual in life, truth is somewhere between the extremes..."

 

Indeed.    I think describing WTA and MQA as "very different" is in some subtle (but important) ways, missing the forest for the trees

[Guest]

I’ve put a lot of thought into this since finally getting a pre with 4K pass through. Before hand with the 205, it had to be connected to the tv because the 8801 couldn’t deal with 4K, so I’d have no issues with running all the video 2 channel through the Chord. 

But since the 8805, I’m liking the less drama with everything running through it as it should. Now the 8805 especially handles multichannel way better than the 8801 so much so that I don’t need the Chord, and 9/10 times I prefer the 5.1 to the stereo on those concerts. The only concerts I watch 2 channel on is Cog’s “sound of three” and Gojira Live. 

Two channel video is not a priority at all for Blu-ray, so now if I need to watch Netflix, I’ll have to use the Apple TV considering  that the TV is running through the Chord now. 

Chord or not, The Sound of three though the 8805 was better than I’ve ever heard it. 

17 minutes ago, powerav said:

Just as a reference, I do it by connecting my source which is a PC to my AVR with HDMI for VIDEO and then a USB form PC to Project S2 DAC for Audio so in the AVR setting I set the input I use for HDMI video as the pass through so when I select the input for the DAC analog input the video will stay on. I can not go back to bluray concerts through AVR HDMI for audio even if it's in DTS MA, sounds so flat compared to audio through the DAC, can only imagine the Chord and Mscaler being (pick a margin between 10 - 100) times better.

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Sime V2

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

 

Indeed.    I think describing WTA and MQA as "very different" is in some subtle (but important) ways, missing the forest for the trees

But between MQA and an M-Scaler, MQA is source dependent, whereas everything can be M Scaled

And let’s face it, MQA does not have a future imo. 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Sime V2

[rand129678]

5 minutes ago, Sime V2 said:

whereas everything can be M Scaled

With your Brookylyn DAC+, when you have MQA enabled, everything is MQA'ed - including non-MQA material.

 

Which some love... and some really hate, as it means you need to go into the DAC settings to enable/disable MQA depending on what's being played).

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Music2496