Dave - Hugo's big brother.

The design guy was paid by all you lot buying the Hugo .

Is that one of those things with candles inside that you used to get in Chinese restaurants?

They are targeting the BMW 325i crowd perhaps.

QBD86 in a fancy new stand ?  Not going to be cheap.

The latest Star Wars movie was released in 2005.  We must be in some time machine . . .

"Open the pod bay doors, DAVE."

I'm going to wait for Chord to release a DAC only version without the headphone amp, and hopefully the hideous stand, before considering it.

Actually I rather like the appearance...  I do find stacks of black boxes rather boring (though better than more visible silver). But for something on view something like this has a visual focus that is more artistic than a small green display, and I think would be fine provided there's only the one, and amps etc don't all start to compete. Not dissimilar to having a turntable on display, just a different shape.

But I am happy with the sound of my Hugo and don't have upgrade-itis, and although it would be very nice to have a less fiddly power switch and an input selector that retains its setting when switched off, if those are improved in the Dave, £8k is an expensive solution! However, if I were to win the lottery I would be tempted to have a listen to assess whether I can hear an improvement, having fun doing the same across all system components.

Yet I found  the most recent Star Wars to be the least enjoyable of them all. As for the latest, I understand it is still in production, so no-one will have seen it...

It's a bit 'techie' looking, and may be styled to appeal to the younger generation - but some of us relative oldies have a soft spot for techie things, at least when they combine form and function.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the people.

P.T. Barnum

Wonder if it's available without the stand? Anyway, I shall be auditioning one at the earliest opportunity. Ugly? Yes, but I'd put up with it if it sounds as good as I think it will.

Of course it is available sans stand - thankfully. Doesn't look too bad to me and not a lot different from the QBD, + you get a preamp and headphone amp. If people fell over themselves at the Hugo's headphone prowess they will likely be over the moon with this. Look forward to a listen although I don't really need the preamp bit. But if it had an ADC I would be all over it.  And yes DAVE is an unfortunate name.

That does look a lot better like that and may even look better in black, but not sure they will do that colour. However apart from 4xDSD what is the difference between this and the Hugo TT.

About 140,000 taps and Rob W says it sounds an awful lot better.

Bloody wants to for an extra £6500

It looks stylistically very similar to the D'Agostino Momentum amp.  Nice......

This rather sums up Chord's products for me, case engineering with very little engineering inside.

H

(Thinks...wonder why they sound so good then?...)

I'm just baffled by that statement to be honest

There's a bit of a steampunk ethos, to be honest, with the Chord stuff but I'd say that the FPGA technology is class-leading at the moment. That does not make the products perfect or fully-featured, though - but that's strictly my opinion.