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Chord Electronics Owners & Discussion Thread


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3 hours ago, legend said:

I agree that one has to be vary careful about the term 'hires'.  It is used by record companies to sell more copies but often just means a 44.1 version upsampled to 96/24 or higher with dubious upsampling pedigree.  Mark Waldrop of Aix records has a nice analogy for it - it is like just transferring a dinner to a bigger plate, sometimes badly.

Why isn't the Mscaler used in recording studios to make HiRes music? sounds simple in theory in with 44.1 and record what is coming out.

 

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21 minutes ago, powerav said:

Why isn't the Mscaler used in recording studios to make HiRes music? sounds simple in theory in with 44.1 and record what is coming out.

 

 Rob Watts is making an analogue-to-PCM768k converter, called 'Davina'...

 

"I have designed the first decimation filter for Davina, and this has 260 dB rejection, so this will ensure aliasing is in practice well below -300dB."

 

"It goes without saying that the Davina project (my ADC) will have none of the above shortcomings; absolutely no aliasing, and a very simple connection from Mic to the ADC to maximize transparency."

 

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-120#post-12376871

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread.831345/page-467#post-13653052

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-123#post-12382623

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18 minutes ago, Music2496 said:

 Rob Watts is making an analogue-to-PCM768k converter, called 'Davina'...

 

"I have designed the first decimation filter for Davina, and this has 260 dB rejection, so this will ensure aliasing is in practice well below -300dB."

 

"It goes without saying that the Davina project (my ADC) will have none of the above shortcomings; absolutely no aliasing, and a very simple connection from Mic to the ADC to maximize transparency."

 

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-120#post-12376871

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread.831345/page-467#post-13653052

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-123#post-12382623

Well there you go, that was one of those taco ad moments.

 

Image result for taco ad girl

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16 hours ago, Sime V2 said:

@Ittaku all I’m saying is that 44.1 sounds better than anything else. 

 

How, why, I don’t know. 

I'm quite sure it's just because your 44 material is better source material. Anything can be screwed up. There's no reason higher bitrates should sound worse if mastered equally well.

 

1 hour ago, powerav said:

Why isn't the Mscaler used in recording studios to make HiRes music? sounds simple in theory in with 44.1 and record what is coming out.

Because strictly speaking highres music should be able to capture much higher frequencies than 44.1 can capture. Upscaling 44.1 means there still is only a 22kHz limit to sound and it's not actually higher resolution at all - the debate continues to rage about whether that matters or not, but in my experience it does not matter. The only problem with 44.1 is the choice of filter matters a great deal and that's how we ended up on this thread...

Edited by Ittaku
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6 hours ago, legend said:

However some 'hires' are genuine

If I record the same signal with 44.1 and 705.6ks/s.....  there isn't any fundamental reason why one should be better than the other.    Whether there would be a difference or not, depends on how the specific equipment works.

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On 01/03/2019 at 2:17 PM, legend said:

And are you saying that a 44.1 with M-Scaler also trumps a hires file with M-Scaler - or just that a 44.1 with M-Scaler trumps a hires file without M-Scaler?

When reading the extensive HeadFi thread, their observations tend to cluster in a few areas and line up with my observations. The review that you shared seemed to be similar as well.

 

Early in the thread when the product had only recently been released most people had only heard the M-Scaler  at trade shows. They tended to 'listen to' the M-Scaler looking for 'blacker blacks' or listening for 'things I have not heard before'. Given the high price, they expected 100x improvement. There at this point in the thread there are lots of discussions on the technology, the price, the competition and Rob Watts which is polar. He is either a genius or a snake oil salesman.

 

Midway through the thread more owners share their experiences. I notice that the tenancy is that more people are listening to the music rather than the equipment. Under pressure from others a lot struggle to explain what the M-Scaler is doing. A lot say it is subtle most say that the music seems more natural or more 'live' and agree when they remove it things don't sound right. Some source material (usually 44.1) sounds more improved than other material. A few have removed the M-Scaler and things don't sound right but struggle to explain exactly why. The most positive sign is that most are spending more time than ever listening to the music.

 

The last part of the thread I read there is a lot of discussion of source material. There is lots of observations that CD / 44.1 material can get a big lift. Users did report that HiRes tracks did get a lift but with not much enthusiasm. Like it was a by-product not a value proposition. A lot of users report going back through their 44.1 library and really enjoying it. Often there will be a track from an artist will capture their attention. For me it was Eric Clapton's Unplugged Album, but I have found in songs from St Germain, The Waifs to Owl Eyes.

 

There was some discussion around why some 44.1 tracks sound much better, while others don't. A lot of people found a better hit rate with older tracks from the 1970's right back to the 1940's. The feeling was that a lot of this was due to less processing and interference in the recording process. A have a number of HiRes tracks and the ones that sound better to me (e.g 2L) I feel is due to the attention to detail in the recording process rather than the bit rate. I have not seen anyone praise the lift or the 'feeling of being there' that the M_Scaler gave to Electronic Dance Music or RAP. 

 

To answer your question. Owners report that the MScaler lifts all boats, but the lift varies. The value is that the music is more listenable and 44.1 can really shine which is a nice surprise to many, to the point where people lose interest in HiRes. Bad recordings ( 44.1 / 96 /HiRes) are always bad recordings and the Mscaler will do nothing here.

 

 

Edited by Cruncher
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2 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

If I record the same signal with 44.1 and 705.6ks/s.....  there isn't any fundamental reason why one should be better than the other.    Whether there would be a difference or not, depends on how the specific equipment works.

In theory .... there is no reason a higher than 44.1k sampling rate would be better ... as long as your signal magically and instantaneously starts at 20 Hz and magically stops 22050 Hz and and there is zero signal out side of this range (as conveniently all signals do in the mind of the Phillips corporation).

 

 

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1 hour ago, Cruncher said:

The most positive sign is that most are spending more time than ever listening to the music.

Simply this. It’s doing something right, and yes, it’s hard to explain. 

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2 hours ago, Cruncher said:

In theory .... there is no reason a higher than 44.1k sampling rate would be better ... as long as your signal magically and instantaneously starts at 20 Hz and magically stops 22050 Hz

No magic is required.   Just a filter.... which is exactly what Chord is doing.

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7 hours ago, Cruncher said:

Midway through the thread more owners share their experiences. I notice that the tenancy is that more people are listening to the music rather than the equipment.

Great read, there’s a lot of ways to get to this point and it’s different for all of us. Some people never get there too, luckily for me I got there without the need to spend $7.5k, not to begrudge others that have though. 

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8 minutes ago, Cruncher said:

I did not realise Chord was doing a ADC for recording ?

It was mentioned earlier in this post below; and this quote from one of the links:

"Davina is the first adc which is for analogue inputs so you can listen to vinyl at 768k and record the album at 44.1 at the same time. But really the motivation for the product is a first step towards a pro audio interface so pro recording can be done.
Rob
"

 

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7 hours ago, Hi-Fi Whipped said:

Great read, there’s a lot of ways to get to this point and it’s different for all of us. Some people never get there too, luckily for me I got there without the need to spend $7.5k, not to begrudge others that have though. 

I know what you mean, but I thought I was extremely happy driving a Kia Cerato till I bought the Stinger GT ?

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6 hours ago, Cruncher said:

I did not realise Chord was doing a ADC for recording ?

Well, they have said they are planning an ADC .... but I was talking about the M-Scaler.    It's arranging the data so that it "magically stops at 22050 Hz and and there is zero signal out side of this range"

 

 

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15 hours ago, Cruncher said:

When reading the extensive HeadFi thread, their observations tend to cluster in a few areas and line up with my observations. The review that you shared seemed to be similar as well.

 

Early in the thread when the product had only recently been released most people had only heard the M-Scaler  at trade shows. They tended to 'listen to' the M-Scaler looking for 'blacker blacks' or listening for 'things I have not heard before'. Given the high price, they expected 100x improvement. There at this point in the thread there are lots of discussions on the technology, the price, the competition and Rob Watts which is polar. He is either a genius or a snake oil salesman.

 

Midway through the thread more owners share their experiences. I notice that the tenancy is that more people are listening to the music rather than the equipment. Under pressure from others a lot struggle to explain what the M-Scaler is doing. A lot say it is subtle most say that the music seems more natural or more 'live' and agree when they remove it things don't sound right. Some source material (usually 44.1) sounds more improved than other material. A few have removed the M-Scaler and things don't sound right but struggle to explain exactly why. The most positive sign is that most are spending more time than ever listening to the music.

 

The last part of the thread I read there is a lot of discussion of source material. There is lots of observations that CD / 44.1 material can get a big lift. Users did report that HiRes tracks did get a lift but with not much enthusiasm. Like it was a by-product not a value proposition. A lot of users report going back through their 44.1 library and really enjoying it. Often there will be a track from an artist will capture their attention. For me it was Eric Clapton's Unplugged Album, but I have found in songs from St Germain, The Waifs to Owl Eyes.

 

There was some discussion around why some 44.1 tracks sound much better, while others don't. A lot of people found a better hit rate with older tracks from the 1970's right back to the 1940's. The feeling was that a lot of this was due to less processing and interference in the recording process. A have a number of HiRes tracks and the ones that sound better to me (e.g 2L) I feel is due to the attention to detail in the recording process rather than the bit rate. I have not seen anyone praise the lift or the 'feeling of being there' that the M_Scaler gave to Electronic Dance Music or RAP. 

 

To answer your question. Owners report that the MScaler lifts all boats, but the lift varies. The value is that the music is more listenable and 44.1 can really shine which is a nice surprise to many, to the point where people lose interest in HiRes. Bad recordings ( 44.1 / 96 /HiRes) are always bad recordings and the Mscaler will do nothing here.

 

 

Many thanks for your extensive answer to my question and its reading of the whole Head Hi-Fi thread - you have more patience with me!

 

I have no questions about the technology or the magical/addictive effect the M-Scaler had in my system when Simon kindly brought it here.  And it seems to me (not being a digital engineer) M-Scaler and true hires are both trying to do much the same thing - overcome the filter problem that occurs at 22 kHz with Redbook CDs.  I have spent many years going down this path - from buying SACDs and DVDAs, to upsampling CDs with r8brain and even making DVDA discs from all of my CDs - and having a universal player that outputs both 88/24 and 96/24!

 

My only question is whether to spend $7.5 on the M-Scaler or say another hi-fi show.  So over the past few weeks I have been investigating possible alternatives.  @Ittaku's extreme off-line upsampling using SoX was one possibility but I have realised that it would take too long for me to redevelop the computing skills needed. 

 

The other is HQplayer that now has a sinc-M filter with 1 M taps which I started investigating yesterday but found my current best computer with an AMD 2.6 GHz 5-core processor could not handle the in-line processing with my Qutest but for some reason could with Project S2 DAC. What I heard with the latter was very good but I don't think as good as I remember the M-Scaler with the Qutest that was so addictive (though it was now some time ago).

 

 

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5 minutes ago, legend said:

The other is HQplayer that now has a sinc-M filter with 1 M taps which I started investigating yesterday but found my current best computer with an AMD 2.6 GHz 5-core processor could not handle the in-line processing with my Qutest but for some reason could with Project S2 DAC. What I heard with the latter was very good but I don't think as good as I remember the M-Scaler with the Qutest that was so addictive (though it was now some time ago).

Check settings are same.   Choice can have an immense impact on workload.

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1 hour ago, legend said:

The other is HQplayer that now has a sinc-M filter with 1 M taps which I started investigating yesterday but found my current best computer with an AMD 2.6 GHz 5-core processor could not handle the in-line processing with my Qutest but for some reason could with Project S2 DAC.

If you can share screenshots of your settings that are failing with Qutest, it can be easier to help... Whatever HQP settings work for S2 DAC, should work for Qutest...

 

1 hour ago, legend said:

What I heard with the latter was very good but I don't think as good as I remember the M-Scaler with the Qutest that was so addictive (though it was now some time ago).

1 million taps with S2 DAC (via HQP) can definitely sound very different to 1 million taps (WTA) with Qutest... as per:

 

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

 

i.e. very different power supply section and analogue section designs between both DACs....

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1 hour ago, Music2496 said:

If you can share screenshots of your settings that are failing with Qutest, it can be easier to help... Whatever HQP settings work for S2 DAC, should work for Qutest...

 

1 million taps with S2 DAC (via HQP) can definitely sound very different to 1 million taps (WTA) with Qutest... as per:

 

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

 

i.e. very different power supply section and analogue section designs between both DACs....

Attached is a screenshot:

 

HQplayer_screenshot.thumb.png.032494884b0f4401bd001e6a4bdc44dd.png

 

The problem with the HQplayer to the Qutest is that the sound stutters every 4 or 5 secs at 88k upsampling and very 2 or 3 secs at 705k upsampling (the latter to try to mimic the dual M-Scaler input).  However Window's Task Manager shows the RAM usage constant around 3 out of 8 Gb and the CPU usage varying cyclically between 5% band 35%.  I tried a USB3 output instead of USB 2 with no change in the stuttering.

 

And yes I know/understand the Project S2 has inferior sound to the Qutest due to PS and analog sections etc - it is a 5th the price!  However the S2 seemed to work OK with the HQplayer sinc-M - and its display makes it much easier to see what sample rate it is operating at than the Qutest with its ambiguous internal LED light.

 

PS I wasted about an hour yesterday wondering why I was not getting any sound out before realising the dial on the far right (then greyed out, not orange) was volume control set by default at zero - male blindness as my wife would say!

Edited by legend
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9 minutes ago, legend said:

The problem with the HQplayer to the Qutest is that the sound stutters every 4 or 5 secs at 88k upsampling and very 2 or 3 secs at 705k upsampling (the latter to try to mimic the dual M-Scaler input).  However Window's Task Manager shows the RAM usage constant around 3 out of 8 Gb and the CPU usage varying cyclically between 5% band 35%.  I tried a USB3 output instead of USB 2 with no change in the stuttering.

As mentioned, the same HQP settings that work with S2 DAC should work with Qutest.

 

Change your max. volume to -3dB. This is highly recommended by Jussi Laako....

 

Technical background here:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/intersample-overs-in-cd-recordings

 

Select Gauss1 dither.

 

Re-try with PCM768kHz selected (and auto rate family box ticked).

 

 

Edited by Music2496
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20 minutes ago, legend said:

stuttering

Hard to say....

 

Try auto rate family on (not that it would have been making a difference for 44.1 data and 88.2 output)

Try a less intensive modulator.

 

There shouldn't be any difference between the Chord and the ESS .... unless there is some type of driver/interrupt issue causing the dataflow to hiccup.   If trying a much less intensive modulator doesn't solve the stuttering completely, then this is a pretty likely cause.

23 minutes ago, legend said:

And yes I know/understand the Project S2 has inferior sound to the Qutest due to PS and analog sections etc

We don't have enough information to say that.  ;)    There's a lot else different going on inside each.

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1 hour ago, Music2496 said:

As mentioned, the same HQP settings that work with S2 DAC should work with Qutest.

 

Change your max. volume to -3dB. This is highly recommended by Jussi Laako....

 

Technical background here:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/intersample-overs-in-cd-recordings

 

Select Gauss1 dither.

 

Re-try with PCM768kHz selected (and auto rate family box ticked).

 

 

Thanks.  I have just tried these changes (been lawn-mowing!) and unfortunately they seemed to have made thing much worse - continual distortion between the 2-3 sec stuttering/hiccups.

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57 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

Hard to say....

 

Try auto rate family on (not that it would have been making a difference for 44.1 data and 88.2 output)

Try a less intensive modulator.

 

There shouldn't be any difference between the Chord and the ESS .... unless there is some type of driver/interrupt issue causing the dataflow to hiccup.   If trying a much less intensive modulator doesn't solve the stuttering completely, then this is a pretty likely cause.

We don't have enough information to say that.  ;)    There's a lot else different going on inside each.

I did wonder if it was a driver problem.  I had not used the Qutest with my HP AMD6 laptop before and downloaded the driver from the Chord website yesterday - but don't remember having had to this before with my HP Mini computer (that I normally use in my MC system which certainly does not have enough power for HQplayer sinc-M) - though my memory may be fading!

 

BTW I used the "etc" to cover other factors in the S2 vs Qutest comparison!

Edited by legend
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12 minutes ago, legend said:

Thanks.  I have just tried these changes (been lawn-mowing!) and unfortunately they seemed to have made thing much worse - continual distortion between the 2-3 sec stuttering/hiccups.

Can you share a new screenshot, of your current settings that's failing?

 

And try and select Chord's ASIO driver, if you can see that option in HQP.

Edited by Music2496
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46 minutes ago, Music2496 said:

Can you share a new screenshot, of your current settings that's failing?

 

And try and select Chord's ASIO driver, if you can see that option in HQP.

New screenshot attached.  Also changed WASAPI to ASIO but it then would not let me choose the Qutest as a device!

 

 

HQplayer_screenshot2.png

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1 minute ago, legend said:

New screenshot attached.  Also changed WASAPI to ASIO but it then would not let me choose the Qutest as a device!

 

 

HQplayer_screenshot2.png

 

If you select auto rate family, you can select max sample rate of PCM768kHz, as I mentioned above.

 

Can you re-install the Chord Windows driver. After it installs the WASAPI driver, it then installs the ASIO. Make sure not to skip this second step.

 

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