How is Chord Dave?

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by mtoc, Jun 9, 2016.

  1. mtoc

    mtoc SBAF's Resident Shit-Stirrer

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    What do you guys think of this Dave?
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Hugo sucks
    Hugo TT is OK
    Mojo is good
     
  3. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    Mojo needs a good USB source.
    • Sounds shrill on my workstation and work laptop.
    • Sounds good with the microRendu.
    Hope Dave followed the trend of the Mojo towards a warmer sound. Hugo was such a departure from the QuteHD... in the wrong direction...
     
  4. Smitty

    Smitty Too good for bad vodka - Friend

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    I don't think any of us have heard the Dave, and we don't have any interest. It's too damn expensive, full stop.
     
  5. IceUul

    IceUul Friend

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    Exactly! First it is damn expensive, second the chord stuff is not very popular here, third most of the chord buyers come from Europe.
    Need to wait somebody takes it to some US meet, then the impressions will follow...
     
  6. iDesign

    iDesign Almost "Made"

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    Putting price aside, what are your thoughts about the Hugo TT as an integrated DAC+amp?
     
  7. songmic

    songmic Gear cycler East Asia edition

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    I heard the Chord Dave once, but it was at an expo so I couldn't do a proper A/B with other DAC's. I did try out my modded HD800S I brought via Dave's headphone out (thus utilizing both its DAC and headamp), and the bottom line is, I much preferred my Yggdrasil/ZDS setup at home. Maybe its headamp section is gimped and added there as an afterthought, which is not surprising. It would've been more interesting to do a comparison between Yggdrasil/ZDS and Dave/ZDS.
     
  8. mtoc

    mtoc SBAF's Resident Shit-Stirrer

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    "Dave is the only product from Chord which ain't crap." (my friend told me.)
     
  9. HitmanFluffy

    HitmanFluffy Hoping to see real genitals someday!

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    The Dave as a DAC actually sounds decent. Very resolving, tone is on the cold side of neutral but otherwise pretty free of digital nasties compared to the cheaper Chords, and the stage is flatter than Keira Knightley. The headamp is powerful but not involving.
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    The biggest question about this device is how much do you want to spend on a case?

    Basic economics says that is where a lot of your money is going. Wouldn't it be better to spend it on electronics?
     
  11. Hekeli

    Hekeli Facebook Friend

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    Wouldn't it be better spent on designing and testing cutting edge stuff (which I think is happening in this case)? Think of Chord what you will, but Rob Watts technical ramblings' on the other side are quite interesting.. then again none of those "major discoveries" about noise floor modulation, taps'n'depth'n'stuff is peer verified. Well unless you count people like Romaz, who I think was the only one to pass Innerfidelity's dac blind test..
     
  12. Smitty

    Smitty Too good for bad vodka - Friend

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    I'll have to look up his ramblings, see how they compare to PSAudio's crazy dac spiel. That stuff re-educated me in cutting through pseudo-academic bullshit.
     
  13. thesanctified

    thesanctified New

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    I've listened to Dave out of the headamp. When the sales rep told me the price I almost laughed.
     
  14. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    One man's opinion of Chord Dave vs MSB Analog:
    http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/chord-dave-29757/#post579518
     
  15. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I had a listen to the DAVE with an HEK V2. I have to say, it felt gutless as a headphone amp- though not obviously bad as a DAC. I'd have expected a lot more of it for the price, though- a common theme with Chord.

    I think I'd probably have to hear it through a decent amp to come to firmer conclusions about it as a DAC- nothing was obviously horrible, though.
     
  16. Muse Wanderer

    Muse Wanderer Friend

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    Yeah listened to the same HEk V2 and Chord Dave with @Kattefjaes at the Indulgence meet. It had compromised dynamics with minimal impact. Too lean but clean.

    I wondered how it would sound attached to Jotun that was just opposite to the table. Tried to convince the Audiosanctuary table that had the Dave to borrow a Jotunheim from the Schiit table to attach to it but no success.
     
  17. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Yeah, you and me both- the look I got wasn't as funny as the one I got from the Sennheiser stand when I asked if they had any HD600 or HD650, instead of all those Momentums and so forth, but still. You'd expect Audiosanctuary to understand what a gutless amp sounds like, and at least put a headphone amp in front of that DAVE, if they wanted to sell people either the DAVE or the headphones. While it's an easy setup to wrangle at a show, it does seem like it wasn't doing either component any favours!

    Oh, and it wasn't really a Schiit table, the one with the Jot and Vali 2, it was Electromod. He likes to call himself Schiit, hopefully with permission, but it's a very different little company, a small UK hifi dealer; a very different and much less slick outfit to deal with. Were you there when he claimed Blue Hawaii amps destroyed Stax and suggesting that they'd get sued to bits for mentioning that they drive them, by the way? I had to bite my tongue a bit and just say "interesting", so that I didn't make a scene.

    Actually, I found the event a bit disappointing from that point of view, lots of high-end headphones, very few really good amps to try out. A lot of the headphones seemed to be connected to amps far crappier than they deserved. Ironically, I didn't hate the Audeze Deckard quite as much as some of the others- the only problem was they were connected to such bloody uncomfortable headphones :)

    Still though, the DAVE didn't rock my world. If you bought me one tomorrow, I'd still probably put it behind an amp.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2016
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    So this was headphones straight out of the DAVE?
     
  19. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    In my case, yes. HEK V2, to be more specific. They sounded flat and boring. I can pretty much rule out "that's just how they sound", as it was really flat and boring, worse than my various cheaper HE-xxx out of a proper amp. The sound was thin and lacked punch- and there just wasn't enough gain to be able to hear proper detail over show noise (whether that was a deficiency of the amp section's ability to drive, or some stupid configuration, I can't say).

    Given that sane folks around here have commented that V2 are supposed to sound like a slight step up from the original HEK, I suspect that the culprit was the half-assed amplification. @pedalhead, who was still an HEK owner at the time, can probably shed more light.

    Hell, if you can afford a DAVE, you can afford an amp and a pair of connects, anyway. It shouldn't be an issue.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2016
  20. Rthomas

    Rthomas Friend

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    I can vouch for Mark at Electromod. He is the official Schiit distributor for the UK and I've bought 3 Schiit products from him so far and each time the service has been excellent.

    He is also kind enough to look after you if you have a used unit as long as it was originally bought from him. This is very helpful for those of us who can only afford the high end stuff second hand and it protects resale value as well.
     

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