Mass exodus of Chord dacs owners in the classifieds

[agisthos]

In recent years Chord have probably sold more DAC's than any other high end company in their price range. So you would expect to see a number of them for sale.

[georgehifi]

11 hours ago, Mike13 said:

@georgehifi are you the dude on the forums that loves the ladder DACs? I’m still keen to try one.

Get your hands on a discrete MSB, Holo Terminator, Denafrips 2 or Spring 2 ect ect, or "good" PCM1704 based cdp/dac Naim 555 Linn cd12, ML No.39 ect ect,  and them breathe life back into your Redbook,  DXD 16/44 or 24/96 anything PCM collection again. You won't look back at dsd or sacd.  

 

Cheers George

Edited March 21, 2019 by georgehifi

[georgehifi]

8 hours ago, Mike13 said:

I don’t think there is a mass exodus. What is the count? Some people might be selling to buy the same brand.

6 I think different models in the last week, before that a lot of Chord cables???? Something in the air??

 

Cheers George

[sir sanders zingmore]

I think Chord cables are a completely different company 

[Guest]

They are different. 

[Mike13]

28 minutes ago, georgehifi said:

6 I think different models in the last week, before that a lot of Chord cables???? Something in the air??

 

Cheers George

Six isn’t a lot. There would be hundreds of people who have a Chord DAC in Australia. So many mojos. Some of the six may have upgraded. I don’t think the stats stack up to anything in the air if you look at the percentage of total unit sold. 

 

Gieselers seem popular on here but there might be 30 of the top model in existence. Six of those might be statistically significant. Except a lot of people are upgrading to the new version.

 

Sir Sanders is right. The Chord Company and Chord Electronics are not related companies. 

[evil c]

I go back and forward on Chord DACs. I've owned most of them - Qute, Hugo, QBD76HD, DAVE/Blu2, and currently own the Mojo, M Scaler, TT2 and Qutest.
 
Chord DACs have a sound signature which I typically don't gravitate towards - they are on the leaner, tonally cooler, more revealing end of the spectrum. I normally prefer warmer, darker, richer. But there is something strangely addictive about Chord DACs - when I think I have successfully moved on to something else, I get drawn back to them. Other DACs can sound "better" on a superficial level, but the Chord DACs are the only ones I've heard that (for me) provide that deeply satisfying, musically engaging feeling that, until now, only a good turntable can provide. I think this shows that Rob Watts is onto something with the application of massive processing power to the task.
 
But still the sound from Chord DACs is far from perfect. The QBD76 was a very dry sounding DAC. The DAVE/Blu 2 suffered from a similar characteristic though to a lesser extent, as well as (again, for me) an unnatural sense of space. This gradually creeped up on me after owning it for a year, and I ended up selling both. But I immediately regretted it. The DACs I tried to replace the Blu 2/DAVE with sounded initially better, but just weren't as satisfying in the long term. It was when I brought my little Mojo home from the office to try against the other DACs (which I won't name) it was clear that, despite its obvious shortcomings, the tiny Mojo was a more engaging DAC than some much more expensive and seemingly more technically accomplished DACs.
 
I knew I had to get back into the Chord game, so I bought a Qutest. This is really a superb DAC. With a linear PSU (despite what Rob Watts says) and using the optical input (the other inputs sound awful), this could genuinely be all most of us need. It sounded remarkably like the DAVE, and in some ways better - more liquid, a more natural sense of space - though of course much less resolving. I could really have stopped there. But of course I didn't.
 
I bought a TT2 and M Scaler, and these sound amazing. Again, a strong family resemblance to the DAVE, with some trade offs. More liquid and smoother than DAVE, more dynamic, but with a smaller soundstage and perhaps a touch less resolution. The effect of the M Scaler on the TT2 is far more pronounced on the TT2 than the Blu 2 on the DAVE. So far I think the TT2/M Scaler is producing a version of the Chord sound I think I can live with. But I would love to borrow a DAVE again to compare directly against the TT2 ...

Which Linear PSU did you get for the Qutest?

[rossb]

Teddy Pardo

[bhobba]

On 22/03/2019 at 7:18 AM, Mike13 said:

Gieselers seem popular on here but there might be 30 of the top model in existence. Six of those might be statistically significant. Except a lot of people are upgrading to the new version.

 

That's the trouble with many DAC's including Chord and Clay's - they are being upgraded all the time.   I used to be the DAC guy around here getting all the latest DAC's - nowadays I cant even keep up with all the new DAC's being released little alone get and compare them.

 

I have a M-Scaller and TT2 - but the TT2 is bung.   I only hope its my final DAC - I just love the TT2 will drive speakers direct - will it drive my Magnesium's which are only 84db or so sensitive?  We will see - I find power a very strange thing.   Sometimes a flea powered 2W amp works fine - other times even 500w has issues.   The reason seems to be the source - anybody else notice how low in volume Netflix is?

 

Thanks

Bill

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, bhobba said:

low in volume Netflix is?

That’s done on purpose, to lower bandwidth. The picture is fine, but not the audio because most people has very good tv’s, but not good audio. 

[Guest Muon N']

1 hour ago, bhobba said:

anybody else notice how low in volume Netflix is?

I have noticed dialogue will be a very low level, then the action or dramatic stuff comes in and I'm racing to turn the **** down, very annoying.

[vinilink]

Having a DAC, in a hifi chain, to me is like "too many cooks spoil the broth". 

[crtexcnndrm99]

Very popular item with plenty sold I imagine. More mainstream than most any other DAC I would guess. Add to that the relatively large headphone community (which is what I used mine for) and the ubiquity of this product in that community.

Personally, (having sold all my headphone gear to focus on building a decent home setup) I saw that one sold relatively fast and figured there must’ve been several interested parties at this point in time.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, vinilink said:

Having a DAC, in a hifi chain, to me is like "too many cooks spoil the broth". 

There’s a dac in you favorite CD player or streamer. If you cant see that as being the same thing your commenting on, not much else I can say. 

[vinilink]

Just now, Sime V2 said:

There’s a dac in you favorite CD player or streamer. If you cant see that as being the same thing your commenting on, not much else I can say. 

Of course, I know there is a built in DAC in CD players. I should clarify that, many external DACs failed to impress or convinced me they sound better, unless I need to be reeducated by audiophile bros in here. 

[powerav]

There’s another one for sale, what’s going on

[Hi-Fi Whipped]

5 minutes ago, powerav said:

There’s another one for sale, what’s going on

that guy is selling all his equipment to buy a house so not really related to the product, just circumstances.

 

Starting to sound like a media beat up around here!

[Guest]

I’m about to sell the Brooklyn, so what does that mean………………

 

oh right, nothing. 

[magical]

On 22/03/2019 at 8:18 AM, Mike13 said:

Six isn’t a lot. There would be hundreds of people who have a Chord DAC in Australia. So many mojos. Some of the six may have upgraded. I don’t think the stats stack up to anything in the air if you look at the percentage of total unit sold. 

 

Gieselers seem popular on here but there might be 30 of the top model in existence. Six of those might be statistically significant. Except a lot of people are upgrading to the new version.

 

Sir Sanders is right. The Chord Company and Chord Electronics are not related companies. 

SO many Mojo's. I used to sell them and I was amazed at the quantity that were bought. Got them in lots of 20, and they all went in a week. Week after week. I'm not a portable user myself, but I was impressed by the sound, and by god does it have some gain. 

I remember demoing to one customer & warned him about the high level, he put on his cans (HD800's i think) and his face went red. Sonic blowout. 

[Replicant2049]

I have procured a Dave and an M Scaler over the last few months and I am very happy with them (especially once I connected them with SOTM BNC's). I also have a Hugo 2 that I take to the office with the M Scaler. Having fairly efficient headphones (Utopia and LCDi4) both setups are working very well for me.

 

I would like to try a good RDR though, like the Denafrips Terminator.

[magical]

On 27/03/2019 at 2:57 PM, Replicant2049 said:

I have procured a Dave and an M Scaler over the last few months and I am very happy with them (especially once I connected them with SOTM BNC's). I also have a Hugo 2 that I take to the office with the M Scaler. Having fairly efficient headphones (Utopia and LCDi4) both setups are working very well for me.

 

I would like to try a good RDR though, like the Denafrips Terminator.

Thats a pretty serious quality dac. You should be happy. Do you find it's better after being powered up for several days? When I had the dac 64 at home, it sounded good strait away, but got so much better after 3 days. 

 

[Replicant2049]

On ‎2‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 1:05 PM, magical said:

Thats a pretty serious quality dac. You should be happy. Do you find it's better after being powered up for several days? When I had the dac 64 at home, it sounded good strait away, but got so much better after 3 days. 

 

Unfortunately I have two little boys around and I don't have a dedicated listening room, so I set it up each night, listen, and then tear it back down so I actually don't have it powered on for days at a time.

 

Regarding DAVE and M Scaler I must say that I think the stock BNC cables really don't show the capability of these two devices together.

[TerryO]

On 24/03/2019 at 2:10 PM, vinilink said:

Of course, I know there is a built in DAC in CD players. I should clarify that, many external DACs failed to impress or convinced me they sound better, unless I need to be reeducated by audiophile bros in here. 

I for one don’t disagree with your comments on external DACs, for now I have given up on purchasing them, in fact I have sold the ones I had.

The digital source I use is CD so instead I have been swapping in and out different players, yes they have DACs but the ones I have recently purchased also are tube players, PL Classic, Consonance Droplet and I am finding rolling tubes is like changing DAC’s. same goes with my Amps, again they are Tube and tube rolling provides so much ability to either dramatically alter or fine tune depending on what genre of music I’m playing at the time, just by rolling some tubes which only takes a couple of minutes.

 

This is a interesting and often expensive hobby we have and as far as I’m concerned the only important arbiter of right or wrong, good or bad is the person buying the gear and doing the listening, each to their own, even if they aren’t fussed on external DACs.

 

cheers Terry

[Guest]

There’s a Brooklyn plus in the classifieds with extras

Edited April 3, 2019 by Sime V2

[flanders]

I don’t notice as many Chord DACs in the classifieds as I do Curious USB cables! Is it just a case of a lot of them being in circulation?