Chord Electronics Owners & Discussion Thread

[stvc]

Wah... how the blu? So it work better with the uptime reclocker?

[Guest AndrewC]

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

 

You know what they say... ;)

 

[stvc]

Haha, that why must try  ::)

[nfnc]

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.

 

Interesting.  Was not aware that you had moved on to DAVE/Blu 2.  More to your taste than the PS?

 

Rob Watts claims that the USB input is galvanically isolated but mentioned that its not 100% (somewhere in the head fi thread). Hence, USB isolation is not required. Yet, on his battery powered laptop source, the AQ Jitterbug (or two) has a positive effect.

 

 

[Guest durianlover88]

I think you get the gist of it....

 

Anyway, felt pain when I sold the Directstream DAC today....I thought I could at least hear the Huron firmware upgrade...

 

Not bought any DAC yet...the loaner was returned....still waiting see any voices or call to lead me to next one. I know I have to do something different to have another radical level up, but this time more prudent to make sure I sell first before I buy (house stacking up till no space)....and thinking very carefully this time the next step...

[Guest AndrewC]

 

Interesting.  Was not aware that you had moved on to DAVE/Blu 2.  More to your taste than the PS?

 

Rob Watts claims that the USB input is galvanically isolated but mentioned that its not 100% (somewhere in the head fi thread). Hence, USB isolation is not required. Yet, on his battery powered laptop source, the AQ Jitterbug (or two) has a positive effect.

 

IIRC you’re referring to the post where Rob talks about the 2pf coupling capacitance on DAVE’s USB galvanic isolation, which has an impact when noise in the GHz range from AC powered Laptop stray into the USB port. i.e. deficiency in the setup, addressed via better source components like the Melco ;)

[nfnc]

IIRC you’re referring to the post where Rob talks about the 2pf coupling capacitance on DAVE’s USB galvanic isolation, which has an impact when noise in the GHz range from AC powered Laptop stray into the USB port. i.e. deficiency in the setup, addressed via better source components like the Melco ;)

 

Yes, that's it. Remember reading it a while back.

 

romaz's adventures on CA are interesting but puzzling. The USB input on the DAVE is asynchronous. I can understand that better isolation, removal of noise, etc can help but better clocks prior to the USB input takes some understanding.

 

Then again, I don't believe he is using the Melco (which reportedly employs an NDK femto clock).  He is using a PC with bridged LAN ports - hmmm, sounds familiar but have no idea if the Melco uses bridged LAN ports - which he apparently has customised to employ the SOtM ultra clock.

 

On a side note, have you tried the Melco Series 2 with the dedicated USB output, and does it make a difference with the DAVE?

[nfnc]

I think you get the gist of it....

 

Anyway, felt pain when I sold the Directstream DAC today....I thought I could at least hear the Huron firmware upgrade...

 

Not bought any DAC yet...the loaner was returned....still waiting see any voices or call to lead me to next one. I know I have to do something different to have another radical level up, but this time more prudent to make sure I sell first before I buy (house stacking up till no space)....and thinking very carefully this time the next step...

 

Oh... was wondering why the Aurender was put on the market.  Difficult to decide what to buy. More difficult to let go.

 

Didn't know that AV One did home loans.

 

Good luck with your search but afaik you tried a number of good ones before deciding on the PS.

[Guest durianlover88]

Nah....loaner was courtesy of a good Ansuz buddy....I wholly appreciate his kindness and generosity to let me test the Dave inside out, and along the way we learnt how much more it can be optimised.

[Quest88]

I think AV1 does do home trials with supervision, not really loans.

[kiat1624705752]

Anyway, felt pain when I sold the Directstream DAC today....I thought I could at least hear the Huron firmware upgrade...

 

Was very inspired by your posting on DirectStream, that trigger my evaluation on the same DAC.  What's the shortfall in the DAC that made you want to move on?  Especially now that new new firmware is coming in

[Guest durianlover88]

Boy I was a bit distraught selling the Directstream yesterday, I hope the buyer did not see tears welling in my eyes....seriously I was wanting for Huron update to come a couple days back but it did not materialise. So when the offer come, there is no point to turn down as buyers are hard to come by. I am still awaiting the lucky buyers for my other items on sale...

 

In short, nothing wrong with the Directstream, they are perfectly fine and performing mightily. I questioned myself if I truly will sell it why not put into bedroom, but I also remind myself since I am trying to pursue a radical step change, I need to burn my bridge....this feeling I dunno if Bros here can understand...I am selling everything before the Grand Stereo and ASI Tango R Diamond speakers, and also upgrading to the latest Titanium Sound Application conditioner. It is 'unfortunate' Ansuz dealership change hands but I have to count my blessings.

 

Enough of off-topic....I apologise for the intrigue I had caused to Bros here...

[domho8]

Boy I was a bit distraught selling the Directstream yesterday, I hope the buyer did not see tears welling in my eyes....seriously I was wanting for Huron update to come a couple days back but it did not materialise. So when the offer come, there is no point to turn down as buyers are hard to come by. I am still awaiting the lucky buyers for my other items on sale...

 

In short, nothing wrong with the Directstream, they are perfectly fine and performing mightily. I questioned myself if I truly will sell it why not put into bedroom, but I also remind myself since I am trying to pursue a radical step change, I need to burn my bridge....this feeling I dunno if Bros here can understand...I am selling everything before the Grand Stereo and ASI Tango R Diamond speakers, and also upgrading to the latest Titanium Sound Application conditioner. It is 'unfortunate' Ansuz dealership change hands but I have to count my blessings.

 

Enough of off-topic....I apologise for the intrigue I had caused to Bros here...

Wa bro your story touching ah 1 tear drop down fr eyes dah.

Bro lulian whatever u doing impt can make u more song can liao [emoji2]

 

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Guest AndrewC]

...

romaz's adventures on CA are interesting but puzzling. The USB input on the DAVE is asynchronous. I can understand that better isolation, removal of noise, etc can help but better clocks prior to the USB input takes some understanding.

 

Then again, I don't believe he is using the Melco (which reportedly employs an NDK femto clock).  He is using a PC with bridged LAN ports - hmmm, sounds familiar but have no idea if the Melco uses bridged LAN ports - which he apparently has customised to employ the SOtM ultra clock.

 

On a side note, have you tried the Melco Series 2 with the dedicated USB output, and does it make a difference with the DAVE?

 

Aside from Power, Grounding, and Noise isolation through these USB isolation devices, on the impact of re-clocking; within the digital domain, i.e. the packet data/the 1s & 0s, pretty much all of what these experimenters and “golden ears” claim can now be completely debunked objectively thanks to bitstreams nonrepudiation via embedded protocols like MQA, RAAT (Roon), NAA (HQPlayer), & RAVENNA (Merging). In fact, IIRC, even Rob Watts has posted multiple times that the bits are not changing with these external re-clockers for the USB interface. Here’s a post from Roon COO just yesterday on a very similar topic; https://community.roonlabs.com/t/sq-comparison-rock-vs-windows-os-on-roon/26747/21 (these guys know digital bitstreams, better than anyone on X’Place thats for sure ;) );

 

 

The same however doesn't apply to synchronous interfaces like S/PDIF, SDIF2/3, AES/EBU, I2S, HDMI etc., where clocking is of vital importance... So people should know/understand that before they generalise whether re-clocking can make a difference or not, and can be objectively proven so beyond hearsay (pun unintended ;D).

 

Melco does use bridged Ethernet ports, but when switched to “Direct mode” it disconnects bridging and is effectively a dedicated Ethernet port to the DAC/Player. That said, even if left on "Network mode" (like I do), 100% galvanic isolation can be achieved via fibre Ethernet connectivity;  in my main system at home, streaming audio is exclusively via Melco’s Ethernet port - which even though is quad pulse-transformer & choke coupled, per TDK’s specs it has 35pF of interwinding capacitive coupling, but that’s easily galvanically isolated via Ethernet over single-mode fibre to my Upsampler/DAC with a Media converter and a custom Military-grade regulated LPSU (which has a magnitude better PSRR performance than common "audiophile" LPSUs ;) )

 

No, I haven’t tried any of the new Melco boxes, I’m not a big fan of USB interfaces for audio (even if Neutrik USB); in the case of my DAVE though, USB is the only highrez interface, but it's only for casual listening in my bedroom anyway, plus I’ve got something else new planned which I’ll be testing in a couple of weeks.

 

 

To the PM queries;

On the 2nd-hand price of DAVE; IMHO you should expect to pay between S$8-$10K depending on condition and how desperate the seller is (and lower still if from a friend  ;D). AudioGon bluebook doesn’t have a price guide for DAVE yet, but Hifishark has price points in Europe which is generally 10-15% higher than Singapore; https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=chord+dave

 

On Power Conditioner/Power-cord/Interconnect cables I used with DAVE; see PM responses (a bit of “tail wagging the dog” price wise if you know what I mean, so I’d rather not post publicly :P).

[jelt2359]

I'm enjoying my Blu2 + Dave combination a lot. Feeding it with a rednet 3 -> mutec 3+ USB. The rednet 3 beat my sms200, so I sold the latter. The blu2's USB input is not galvanically isolated unlike the Dave so maybe that's a factor. Who knows.

 

Surprisingly adding the Blu2 to the Dave does not make the sound more sharply detailed. Instead, the sound is smoother, more organic, more real. It is now more layered, more nuanced, and has more shades of Colour. Edges do not sound more sharply-defined or digital in any way. It's like the difference between film-like and HD. This is much more film-like.

 

I demoed it for a friend, who then sold his dac that weekend and is now looking to get this combination :)

[stvc]

I'm enjoying my Blu2 + Dave combination a lot. Feeding it with a rednet 3 -> mutec 3+ USB. The rednet 3 beat my sms200, so I sold the latter. The blu2's USB input is not galvanically isolated unlike the Dave so maybe that's a factor. Who knows.

 

Surprisingly adding the Blu2 to the Dave does not make the sound more sharply detailed. Instead, the sound is smoother, more organic, more real. It is now more layered, more nuanced, and has more shades of Colour. Edges do not sound more sharply-defined or digital in any way. It's like the difference between film-like and HD. This is much more film-like.

 

I demoed it for a friend, who then sold his dac that weekend and is now looking to get this combination :)

 

Interested with your setup, mind to share your setup? Computer>network>red net > BNC > blue > BNC > Dave? Which software you are using?

[jelt2359]

This is my setup:

 

Computer (Roon) -> (via Dante, not RAAT) Optical Fiber Media Converters fed by LPS-1 -> Rednet 3 (modded to use LPS) -> AES -> Mutec 3+ USB (modded to use LPS) -> BNC -> Blu2 -> double BNC -> Dave

[stvc]

Wow very Long chain, I'm confused with the rednet, I thought it was a streamer but after looking into the product details and your setup.. I'm totally lost haha.

[jelt2359]

If I were using an SMS-200, it would be a drop in replacement for my rednet 3, since I was using it in bridged IP mode direct from PC.

 

Rednet 3 is a ethernet to AES or coaxial device using a pro audio protocol, Dante, to send audio over the ethernet cable.

 

Some stuff like the optical fibre media converters is optional, I have it there to break the copper chain between computer and my rednet 3 just because my computer is not optimised electrically for audio (repurposed a gaming laptop by installing audio optimiser, process lasso, and fidelizer; but did not change the power supply).

 

The Mutec 3+ USB is also optional, I could just use a coaxial to bnc cable to go from rednet 3 -> blu2. But it sounds better with the Mutec in so that's what I'm using. This Mutec 3+ USB has USB input as well so I could also just as well be doing SMS-200 -> Mutec.

[stvc]

interesting, wish I could listen to my our setup someday.

[Guest AndrewC]

This is my setup:

 

Computer (Roon) -> (via Dante, not RAAT) Optical Fiber Media Converters fed by LPS-1 -> Rednet 3 (modded to use LPS) -> AES -> Mutec 3+ USB (modded to use LPS) -> BNC -> Blu2 -> double BNC -> Dave

 

Just read up on Rednet3, I’m guessing your Roon Core is connecting to DANTE's Virtual ASIO soundcard interface drive software installed on your Laptop?

 

I have to wonder though, whether the benefits of just the DANTE transport outweighs all the drawbacks; Roon Core to Virtual Sound card. No higher bit rate than 192K PCM, which likely means you can also only do DoP based DSD64, nothing higher. Plus the additional AES-to-USB Mutec conversion point. And all the interconnects to go in-between…

 

Thats a whole lot of "stuff" compared to a super clean and simple RAAT connection straight from your Laptop Roon Core over a dedicated Ethernet link to the SMS-200 or better still, the Sonore microRendu, and USB out to DAVE (with no other limitation)!

 

You might want to re-evaluate which path actually sounds better ;)

[nfnc]

First (?) review of the Chord Blu 2 + Dave in Hi Fidelity Poland:

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=pl&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=http://www.highfidelity.pl/%40main-3061%26lang%3D

[eze73]

Hello

Big question : how to get more from the DAVE ?

Cheers

 

[jigster]

Hello

Big question : how to get more from the DAVE ?

Cheers

 

Blu2?

[Guest AndrewC]

Hello

Big question : how to get more from the DAVE ?

Cheers

 

Start with not sticking to just the AES input  ;D