Looking to see if there is a next level dac/pre-amp beyond Chord TT2 or Dave. Things like Weiss D501, T+A Dac 200, DCS Lina, et.al.
Your thoughts???
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As the owner of a Dave I have looked far and wide. The Weiss doesnât improve on the Dave to me. The DCS Lina is widely touted so if I was starting from scratch it would probably be my first look.
Iâve heard both the Dave and the Bartok/Lina in passing, and they are hardly comparable - apples vs oranges. Dave hones in with laser focus on transient attack while DCSâs superpower is ease of presentation and soundstage. Chord puts your right onstage in the middle of the musicians (so to speak) while DCS puts you in the audience comfortably 5 rows back, centerstage, with the best acoustics in the house.
If youâre looking for something to âbeatâ Dave on its own merits I donât think youâre going to find it. At the summit-fi level you have different versions of greatness, but no ONE version that beats the others. I suspect the closest analog youâll find is the Rockna Wavedream Signature, but even that is going to excel at something other than what Dave is best at.
As for what sets Dave apart? I donât think there is anything better at that.
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oh man, this thread title reminds me of @Torq 's Life after Yggdrasil post that became a monster of a source impressions/review thread.
Original: Life after Yggdrasil? | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org
Part 2: Life after Yggdrasil: Watering the Ash | Super Best Audio Friends
You may actually find this useful, as Torq spent a lot of time going through a lot of different sources over the years and documented it all.
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A few things to bear in mind if reading those threads âŚ
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I do not read or post to either of them, anymore. Havenât in, oh, has to be on the verge of five years now. So, if you do post on them youâre not going to see any response from me.
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Since I last did anything of that nature, my tastes, and gear, and hearing have all changed.
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Iâm spending most of my time with speaker systems these days.
And itâs probably worth noting that the last time I did a âTop 10â post here, was more than three years ago, and most of that has changed since then too.
I still have my Blu-Mk2 (M-Scaler) and DAVE, but I donât really use them anymore. Iâve just been too lazy to list them, and the other Chord pieces that go with them, for sale.
My primary DACs, as cost-no-object choices, for both my headphone and speaker rigs, are the Next-Ggen Linn Klimax DSM (Organik) units. I also have the latest Selekt Edition DSM w/ Dual Mono Organik DACs ⌠which sounds as good, for half the price, if you JUST want the streaming and DAC functionality (otherwise the Klimax is better).
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As I understand it, and in my (somewhat limited) experience of summit-fi digital front ends, you start getting more into âdifferentâ than âbetter in almost every wayâ. I am a DAVE + MScaler owner, and I have pretty much stopped looking or thinking about anything else. I feel very settled there.
I personally donât feel that the Bartok compares favorably to the DAVE + MScaler. I was also not super blown away by the T+A stack, but that listening was extremely limited.
In any case, you have many many options at virtually any price point. @Torq is an amazing reference for that level of gear, but youâll want to read through his past musings and see if your tastes align with his.
Probably depends on what youâre after, there are a lot of dacs to choose from, and some of them demand a quality digital source otherwise, youâll likely be left unimpressed. I know someone that thinks the totaldac d1 unity is about on par or surpassing the dave, resolution-wise, at the price point. But, again, it will depend on what youâre after and the rest of your chain as well.
Fwiw there are some dac articles on here that Iâd suggest looking through.
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IMO definitely yes.
The two best ones Iâve tried thus far have been the Holo May (With HQP or PGGB) and the Rockna Wavedream Signature Balanced.
What particular characteristics/sound aspects are most important to you?
There is no truly âperfectâ DAC and it becomes more and more a game of tradeoffs or preference the higher up you go
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I have friend who has an MScaler and we hooked hooked it up to my RMI ADI DAC 2 FS. To me the end result was a different sound but not necessarily a better sound. I would not invest any money for so little effect. Then I read about HQPlayer and I installed a trial version on my PC to tinker with it. After a week of trials I found an upscaling setting where my ears thought âWow, this sound really betterâ. Total investment.215 ⏠as I had the PC already.
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I definitely think that the M-Scaler is a bigger upgrade for Chord DACs, as theyâre the only ones (to my knowledge) that can take advantage of the full upsampling all the way to 768kHz, via dual-BNC.
The route you went makes a whole lot of sense, as you can output the higher sample via USB from your PC, and as you mentioned, at much lower cost.
Where independent scalers become more appealing is if/when you decide to decouple your rig from a PC. By no means is this something one must do, but there are are very real benefits, especially in terms of background noise that can creep in via PCsâ inherently noisy operation (both physically, e.g. from fans, and electrically). A DDC can go a long way here as well.
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I did extensive comparisons with the M-Scaler and various DACs. In most cases it was a wash, in some it was fractionally âbetterâ, and in a few more it was WORSE.
TINY improvement with the RME stuff. A bit more if you go down the DSD path (though then the RME effectively becomes a pure DAC - you canât use its volume control etc.). Worse with Yggdrasil. Better with Holo Audio Spring models.
The same was true with HQPlayer, but the DACs that it improved were different. And, used with a true 1-bit DSD DACs, at its highest settings for upsampling, noise-shaping and filtering, is hard to beat. But said DACs are uncommon (the RME line is not one), arenât particularly inexpensive, and the difference is still in the âlast 1%â arena.
For the most part, even given state of the art gear, I donât find HQPlayer âworth itâ. Too much overhead, wonât work with everything I want to feed to my DAC, and the difference is only audible in intense, audition-style, listening and isnât remotely compatible with how I âlisten for pleasureâ.
The M-Scaler did, at least, have a zero-hassle existence. Connect it up, turn it on, forget itâs there.
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Ian says this about his women too.
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Oh ⌠thereâs no possible way I could forget âmyâ woman âŚ
Sheâs FAR too distracting (in all the best ways) âŚ
You cheeky devil you
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Hmm, my woman is definitely trying to âoversampleâ me a lot most of the timeđ
Since I have a hearing loss I prefer as much resolution and imaging as i can get. Iâd rather very transparent and neutral even if the the treble region is a ittle bright.
Hi I would say that the T&A dac or the Holo May are superior to the Dave and Mscaler.If you have them sell, and use the cash for either one of these 2 items. Dave & Mscaler was found to be wanting equalled or bettered by dacs costing an absolute fraction. Use the money or gain some from the sale and happy days my friend.Chord DAVE Review (DAC & HP Amp) | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
Honestly man, measurements just arenât everything (there is a reason 90%+ of the very best gear has tubes in it). Im not a particular fan of chord products (and agree they cost more than they should performance wise) but may and t+a sound wildly different. If you are after the chord house sound you canât realy beat the Dave without maybe going dcs (rossini will keep the chord magic for many, but not all since it doesnât have quote as forced of seperation)
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If youâre looking at measurements and/or using ASR as a benchmark ⌠youâre going to be REALLY unhappy if they ever test the T&A DAC 200 (which measures >5x worse than DAVE for THD+N, or ~100dB SINAD vs. DAVEs ~112dB).
The T&A DAC 200 sounds great, for half the price of a DAVE (and at a point where personal preference is usually the principal factor), but if youâre using objective measures then itâs half the price for a 5x worse objective performance.
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Chord Products are overrated and the Mscaler was absolutely useless,incredible that you spen 10,000 on a mediocre DAC than have to spend anothether ÂŁ4k to get the best out of the 10k you have spent on the Dave.Personally avoid Chord period,loads of other great dacs to enjoyâŚCHORD M-Scaler Review (Upsampler) | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
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