Chord Dave: Revisited in 2022 vs Wavedream Signature

Thanks for bring it up. I almost forgot the existence of the very thread. But from my perspective, it seems a little outdated (we're in 2022..) except for GE's latest measurements. Hates could be a little too strong wording I admit. Within the past couple of years, I've not heard Dave was worth purchasing in the 5k+ realm (like Soup argued in OP). Seen some posts from active reviewer(s) in the opposite direction tho.

In the totl realm, I don't think any 5k+ dacs were "Received positively" in sbaf except for May and WD. Those two are what I regard as positive reception on average.

Anyway I changed my wording. See below.

 

@Torq in his mega DAC thread said that Dave was one of the few DACs he thought surpassed the Yggdrasil. Not exactly sure where the impression of SBAF being anti-Dave is from except based on Chord Hugo.

@SoupRKnowva - What do you think of the headphone output? I read the implementation is particularly good and you can go without an external amp.

 

All my impressions are from using it with speakers, I haven't used it for headphones at all. Its something I might do in the future but that's not something its easy for me to find the motivation to do.

Yeah people say its really good since its the same as the RCA outs, it can do something like 2 watts into speakers, I can't remember the power into different headphone loads, I know Rob Watts posted a chart on head-fi at one point.

 

The mojo was a revolutionary product at the time.

It still sounds good, being mostly brought down by practicalities.

Ie the UX/interaction being godfuckingawful* and the battery charging/management being just as atrocious.

Haven't tried anything from them since the initial disappointing midrange stuff. DAVE is as far out of my budget as the waveform, so listening to it is a mug's game.

* If I have to memorize early colonial naval colour semaphore code to know what a product's status is, you need to fire whoever designs your UX.

 

Yeah, I am very happy the Dave has a screen, even if its rectangular in a round porthole or whatever lol and I never look at the balls/colors on the mega scaler, I set it up once and never look at it again, the lights all face away from my listening position

 

I remember when I was getting back into the hobby right before I joined SBAF, the Mojo was being touted as the fifth coming of multichannel audio or something. The subsequent mass selloff and the steep discounts not too long after the initial hype train was rather amusing to watch, but I do hope that no one who was losing thousands of pesos for an extended home demo was spending money they couldn't afford to lose.

True it took me a long bit to get used to the colour scheme and the thing got frighteningly hot more often than not in use ("That's intentional! It's meant to radiate heat away from components!"), but I agree that it sounded good, just not my preference with DT880s (250ohm) which is what I was rocking at the time.

Maybe I'll be able to call in a favour and see if any local baller has a DAVE they'd be willing to bring to a meet some time. Might also ask to borrow that Hugo v1 again for a refresh if aforementioned friend wouldn't mind. Last I heard he was happy with a Modius and Yamaha AG03 into Genelecs.

 

I think @Xecuter characterized the DAVE is being flat and lacking stage with speakers in direct response to Torq's ranking, AFAICT with a very different speaker chain from what @SoupRKnowva is running though:

Dissenting opinions are always good to balance perception though; I also felt that the DAVE was unusually ill-received on SBAF prior to this thread due to a few high-profile opinions (generally criticizing the depth and staging).

 

I personally have a really high opinion of DAVE and TT2. They both seem very uncolored and the detail retrieval is the best I've heard relative to basically anything.

I am unfortunately too poor to afford them though, and I really like Yggdrasil A2.

 

Sorry, I should clarify. ~$8-9k should be the sticker price and the actual traded / sell price should be whatever figure less than $8-9k after various dealer discounts or whatever else. However, if I'm wrong and actual sell price is already the same as actual price of a Holo May (IIRC ~$5800 after shipping for KTE), then it would IMO be competitive if someone liked the sound over the May or whatever other DAC in the same range.

 

I wanted to expand a bit more of the impact the mega scaler had on the sound and just how improved the separation is with it in the system. As I said the Dave was already the best dac I had ever heard when it came to separation, making the Wavedream sound downright congested on some my most complex metal tracks.

This is going to sound hyperbolic, I know, but I don't really know how else to put it. Listening to Labyrinth by Fleshgod Apocalypse with the mega scaler was like listening to it for the first time, or at least truly hearing it for the first time. This record is a production nightmare, DR3-4 with a very busy and obviously compressed mix. The ease with the mega scaler picks it apart making it easy to hear what is happening is incredible.

I imagine this effect would be very obvious even on well mastered complex orchestral pieces as well, but I don't listen to any classical so I can't chime in there at all. But really, the Dave is a metal-head's dream, making it possible to hear metal in a much more digestible manor than the awful mixing and mastering might typically allow for.

And ill reiterate, I know some people who have said that its separation sounds unnatural, I disagree completely. It just sounds so refined with nothing drowning anything else out.

 

I owned a Dave years ago, and have auditioned it numerous times over the years.
My references have improved a lot since the comments I made about Dave many years ago, the audio scene has also evolved a lot since then. For instance, Soup is using hydra-z and optical rendu which definitely impact the sound performance of the DAC downstream.

Then again Soup and I value very different things in sonic reproduction, we also have vastly different music tastes.

What I do know, is I 100% respect his process. He bought both DACs, tried them out in his system and decided what stayed.
I have heard my rockna sound bad, really bad in other peoples system, system synergy is very REAL.
Soup and I have also disagreed over messages for months about the rockna digital volume (-20db +) vs a decent pre-amp.
I am just happy he is so happy at this point.

WRT my DAC list, I am just a reference point, but you must also keep in mind that with my set of preferences and the gear I own, certain things just don't play nice. For those with a similar ear/gear and preference to me it's a useful data point, for others it's not so useful.
That being said, I wouldn't mind testing Dave again now that I have my references very tightly dialed in and a dedicated speaker space. Although, I suspect my opinion of it wouldn't improve much, horses for courses.

 

This probably won't be news to anyone, but tonight I reconfirmed it really does take two to tango when it comes to USB.

I was thinking, since the USB on the Dave/Mscaler is so good....maybe I could get away with just using usb out of my Pi4 and sell my ultraRendu. Only took a few minutes to get it set back up to test.

I wasn't even 30 seconds into the first song and I knew this wasn't it. I could not in fact sell my ultraRendu. Everything got harsh and the stage absolutely collapsed. The refinement was all gone. And the next thing that popped into my head, what if I hadn't ever bought the ultraRendu? and then the Wavedream might've beat the Dave.


Having great USB on the receiving end isn't enough, as evidenced by the pi4 losing to the uR. Having great usb on the sending end isn't enough either, since the USB on the Wavedream wasn't even close to using pi2aes or hydra-z via i2s. It really does take great usb on both ends to make the magic happen.

 

Agree 1000%. The OpticalRendu is even better, at least IME and my system. Unfortunately it’s also more expensive, but it’s dynamite with Yggdrasil A2 + Unison.

 

Same experience with Wavedream and StreamBox S2 Ultra.
I thought the Rockna USB implementation was rock solid (and it is, all things considered. I realized that from my days with the Wavelight), but the S2 Ultra - stock - was clearly better than any PC or laptop I tried.
Then, when I got the WD I realized its USB input isn’t galvanically isolated . Since my time with the WL, I acquired a Furman IT-2400 (balanced isolation transformer) to power my audio setup (aside: the biggest improvement I’ve made to my setup - a story for another time. TLDR: highly recommended), and because the S2 also serves as a decrapifier for my PCs that are on a non-isolated outlet, I went on to isolating the S2 Ultra. This can be achieved in one of two ways:

1. Via isolated power supply, like an ultracapacitor PSU. I noticed great improvement powering the S2 with the UpTone LPS-1.2 versus the SMPS connected to the mains. I never really cared for the UpTone until then, oftentimes preferring the $15 Jamecco wall-wart LPSU with Raspberry PIs
2. Via a USB isolator. I’ve had good success with the intona pro USB 3.0

Because my S2 serves as both a standalone Roon player (where option #1 is sufficient) and a decrapifier for PCs connected to the wall, option #2 was the more universal option.
In the end, combining options #1 and #2 and adding another LPS-1.2 to power the clean side of the intona yielded huge improvement over the S2 Ultra in stock configuration.
I understand my use case requires isolation (DAC on balanced isolation transformer, PC on normal outlet), but the improvements from going to #1, then #1 + #2, then #1 + #2 + second LPS-1.2 cannot be understated.
However good the DAC USB implementation, a good USB is still paramount to good sound. Oh, and f**k raspberry Pi’s USB output. It sucks!

 

Did you power Pi with any LPS or generic SMPS?
I’m not sure about Mscalar as DDC but Pi4 with LPS going into good DDC like Singxer SU-6 or Audio GD-D20HE makes for very a competent solution.

 

Yea, it sucks with DDC or DAC with suboptimal galvanic isolation or when powers with noisy SMPS or when used such that the CPU usage is extremely high.
However as endpoint with good power supply even as cheap as Allo Shanti and with with DDC that has good galvanic isolation and has signal shaping mechanism after isolation it works well.

I’m not saying it works as well as Ultra Rendu going into DAC but it works as well as any USB out of generic laptop or computer and good DDC should minimize the affect of source USB

i agree it may not work with Mscalar as well as Ultra Rendu but generic statement like Pi4 USB sucks is so not correct

 

Very interesting review @SoupRKnowva and thanks for sharing this. I would like to hear Dave with M-Scaler but i never met someone close with both and...well it's way above my price range.

Will you sell the Wavedream now or go back to it for 2 weeks and switch them again ?



p.s -
This said, and since the "Chord theme" has been talked about, in my few times with their gear i can share my experiences:

1 - Their cables are overpriced and i didn't hear any difference, i still have a pair of them around here, that i don't use.

2 - TT and Hugo (first models) are meh

3 - Qutest is a good dac

4 - Mojo is a good, nifty little device.

Edit - oops chord cables are not made by chord electronics.

 

I already sold the wavedream, a few weeks back. I spent a weekend comparing the two after I’d had the Dave in, and the opposite thing happened than I mentioned in the review, instead of my gut wanting to go back to wavedream, it wanted to go back to Dave.

also, the company selling cables called Chord is a different company than chord electronics that makes the dacs.

 

My understanding is that The Chord Company, company behind the cables, are different to Chord Electronics Ltd, comapny behind DACs and amps.

 

I do wonder how well the MScaler will work with my USBridge Signature... but yeah we'll have to try it with the WD once I fix the Forte (or try it with the BK16 if you want...)