DAVE's Popped In

Interesting write up Tony. Looks very discrete in black. Are those 'different' Burndy cables a bit further down the stack ?

Congrats, what is the difference with QBD76 and Dave? Could you still live with the QBD76 after hearing DAVE?

Hi James, well spotted! Yes, they're Silver Line Optimus Reference.

A phone call is imminent Tony. 

Have you compared it to the Hugo TT?  I intend to do so before committing.

Steve

Congrats Tony,

I too would be interested in improvements over your QBD76 and whether you also compared with Hugo TT. 

SJB

Tony, How exciting. I'm looking forward to having a listen next month

It's only on loan Minh! I'm impressed so far but not sure I want to buy one just yet. No doubt Signals will be wanting it back pretty soon.

Tony, tease, I might have to borrow it later too

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

Penarth Blues posted:

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

Penarth do you have the Blues man!!!! 

Great post Tony, as Oliver said ......more please eh....Dave!!!!!!

it may be ugly (or not), but it is probably the best digital source in the world right now.

And doesn't need 2 PS555 to sound optimal  and won't need expensive recapping in 10 years time either 

Fair comments, but I certainly wouldn't rule out the need for recapping... Such things tend to be universally required where optimum performance is required over an extended time. Electronic components age and deteriate and capacitors tend to age the quickest because of the chemicals involved within them.

Simon 

Penarth Blues posted:

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

Oh I don't know. DAVE's got the look of a bit of control mechanism from the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

Yours,

Cap't Nemo

According to the Chord website, Dave is an acronym. I wonder what for. Distinctive and very expensive? 

"Distinctive and very expensive"

Very good

tonym posted:

On loan from my trusty dealers, I've been feeding him a diet of room-corrected Amarra music files from my Mac Mini via USB iFi supply and from my USB/SPDIF convertor through BNC. He seems very keen on everything I've given him so far, and is performing some excellent little tricks; like extracting more detail, giving bass a clearer focus, and adding rather a lot to depth of image, the latter quite striking. We've become very good friends over the last couple of days and he's indicated he'd like to stay here.

As you might have gathered, I'm rather enamoured with Mr DAVE. Purely platonic of course. He's got lots of inputs and several rather dramatic display options, four in all (or off completely). He's more or less the same shape as my trusty QBD76 HDSD, as can be seen in the photos :-

Looks a little like Star Wars. Hope that I have once an opportunity to have a good listen to this, after reading so much about this.

Penarth Blues posted:

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

So it matches its odd ball name then?

*IF* it's so great, I wonder what the net result would be if you fed the digital output of the NDS into it?

Hungryhalibut posted:

According to the Chord website, Dave is an acronym. I wonder what for. Distinctive and very expensive? 

Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis ... what does that mean? A: someone was trying very hard to come up with an acronym that spells DAVE.

Penarth Blues posted:

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

If you don't like the black, I think Chord (given financial incentive) will build you one in whatever colour you want - they certainly built several sets of Choral equipment in Bugatti Titanium.

Eloise posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

According to the Chord website, Dave is an acronym. I wonder what for. Distinctive and very expensive? 

Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis ... what does that mean? A: someone was trying very hard to come up with an acronym that spells DAVE.

Penarth Blues posted:

All personal opinions, but that is about the ugliest piece of HiFi I have ever seen...

If you don't like the black, I think Chord (given financial incentive) will build you one in whatever colour you want - they certainly built several sets of Choral equipment in Bugatti Titanium.

:-D I don't think the colour is the problem for me...

I think the '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea' reference describes it best. It's a bit 'Victorian Engineering' meets lack of visual design ability. It's so 'busy' in terms of shapes, colours and lights that it would demand everything else in a room, or even a house, to match its aesthetic to make it 'fit'. It will never be a visually relaxing object to look at. My HiFi equipment also has to fit visually into mine and my family's life.

Hungryhalibut posted:

According to the Chord website, Dave is an acronym. I wonder what for. Distinctive and very expensive? 

Or in the world of "only fools and horses" Daves real name is Rodney

With a tinge of regret, DAVE went back home yesterday. I loved most of what he did - the clarity, detail, excitement, depth of image, but in my system there was a brightness to vocals that sometimes tipped over into harshness. There may be a way of overcoming this but I did try swapping cables and inputs without managing to dispel it. For those wishing to try DAVE I say go ahead, he might well behave himself in other comany.

With my trusty QBD76 back in its place I'm quite happy. I've considered doing a comparison with the TT but I've had it on very good authority that mine's better. One feature unique to the Chord DACS that the QBD possesses is a switchable three-second buffer; with this engaged the sound quality is definitely improved.

As an aside, I've also been trying some interesting Burndy cables (as spotted by James, above), one of which I took round to Darke Bear's yesterday & it was interesting to note it had exactly the same effect in his loftier system as it did in mine. More later...

Moderator: Tony, please remember that discussion of 3rd party Burndy cables on Naim equipment falls outside forum AUP.  Thanks.

Perhaps it would be trying the good old nDac again, given that the new firmware has altered the sound in a way that most people prefer. Others seem to prefer it to the Hugo: well, one other at least. We can call him Graeme. 

I was never very impressed with the nDAC, and at over £9K with 555PS I'd be looking at alternatives. The upgrade to the software, if my V1 is anything to go by, gives at best a marginal improvement.

Interesting to hear your impressions of DAVE's sound Tony.

Per marketing, maybe Chord should have called it DAVID  (Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis in Domino) instead of DAVE. Monosyllabic words have less marketing appeal. Too bland. That said, (aside from Italians)who really "gets" these acronyms that include derivations from a dead language?

I demoed DAVE at HiFi Lounge last week - it was really meant to be a speaker dem but while I took my own kit to use for the demo, I forgot the DAC (only a lowly rDAC) so laughingly suggested to Paul "I'll use the DAVE". He pointed out that I might forget upgrading the speakers after hearing it....and he was nearly correct. It was a REVELATION: So much more music and detail and depth and bass slam and...well everything! My mates jaw had hit the floor too and he’s normally a real sceptic!

To be fair, I was not only comparing it to a DAC at only 5% of its cost, but also  previous demos of the 2Qute, Bryston BDA2 and my own CDX/XPS. 

It was interesting to note that the hi-res material really played much better compared to normal CD resolution. I am thinking about another demo of lower range Chord DACs now. I’d be interested to hear Tony’s views on the DAVE vs his existing QBD76….

Kevin