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Review and Measurements of CHORD Qutest DAC

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amirm

amirm

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Looks like it’s a store that is lending these to amirm, so probably they have one.
This is not a big, high-end store so they don't have any other CHORD products at the moment. If they get more, I will be sure to test them.
 

graz_lag

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I agree on this front as well. At this price I expect something professional looking like the RME ADI-2 DAC or this dac I saw on Massdrop today:
FFRbWSx6RgWQN7sb5SSH_banner.jpg

L.K.S. has got some very good reputation recently.
There were unknown some years ago, recommended to me by Amanero, Italy, when I was looking for an Amanero USB/SPDIF interface.
I was positively surprised by the overall assembling level quality, indeed.
Good to see they have moved into the hyper-crowed DAC market.
 

gvl

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This is not a big, high-end store so they don't have any other CHORD products at the moment. If they get more, I will be sure to test them.

Maybe you can get your hands on HQ Player, it now sports a million-tap filter too. The embedded version can be had as a bootable USB drive image and can be made to work with a SPDIF input, so you can drive it with AP directly. The trial version is free but limited to 30 minutes after which you need to bounce the HQP process to continue, rinse/repeat.
 

graz_lag

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Maybe you can get your hands on HQ Player, it now sports a million-tap filter too. The embedded version can be had as a bootable USB drive image and can be made to work with a SPDIF input, so you can drive it with AP directly. The trial version is free but limited to 30 minutes after which you need to bounce the HQP process to continue, rinse/repeat.

I noticed you were mentioning this HQ Player on another post of yours some time ago ... So I have installed it on my Linux Mint PC, to test it, yesterday.
I am a little bit upset :oops: for the asking price of 140 EUR or so, considering that 99.99% of the software within the Linux world is free, but the package is nice though ...
 

gvl

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I noticed you were mentioning this HQ Player on another post of yours some time ago ... So I have installed it on my Linux Mint PC, to test it, yesterday.
I am a little bit upset :oops: for the asking price of 140 EUR or so, considering that 99.99% of the software within the Linux world is free, but the package is nice though ...

The price is a bit steep, agreed, but it's a relatively unique piece of software. The embedded version is even more expensive. Much cheaper than the m-scaler tho.

If Amir could get the embedded version going we can get some objective data on external PCM to DSD conversion too.
 
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rmo

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This is a review and detailed measurements of CHORD Qutest DAC. It is on kind short-term loan from Gig Harbor Audio. I previously tested a the older generation, Chrodette and 2Qute DACs so naturally members were curious how the current product line performs. The retail price of the Qutest is USD $1895.

As I have noted before, CHORD uses a custom implemented DAC instead of using an existing DAC chip. The design sports very long tap filters as to better approximate an ideal low pass filter required for all digital to analog converters.

The unit is similar to older generation but feels a lot more hefty. It has the new iconic bubble light controls of other CHORD products:

Regular readers of the forum know that I am not a fan of this interface. While it is less confusing to use than some of the other CHORD products, I still can't fathom spending so much money on a DAC and then trying to decipher colors of LEDs which by the way don't match the manual. What is said to be white color for example seems bluish to me.

I had to get into the obscure settings for changing the output level to 2 volts as the default is oddly 3 volts as with the rest of the line I tested.

Another issue is lack of balanced output. In this price category, that is a mandatory feature and one that can come in very handy to remove ground loops.

Anyway, let's see how Qutest DAC does on the bench.

Measurements
Per above, I set the output to 2 volts so that it better compares with other DACs tested. Performance is essentially the same as 3 volts (Chord actually rates the unit at 2.5 volts):
View attachment 19745

This is exceptional performance. We only have a second harmonic and nothing else to the right of our 1 kHz tone. There are some mains related noise on the left which would have been absent if we had balanced output. Fortunately they are not an audible concern.

Needless to say this type of performance puts the CHORD Qutest at the top of the class of DACs tested:
View attachment 19746

Let's look at intermodulation distortion:
View attachment 19747

Very clean although not much different than the much cheaper Topping DX3 Pro I leave in there for reference.

Dynamic range is very good just the same:
View attachment 19748

There is exceptional rejection of jitter and spurious tones other than aforementioned power supply leaks:

View attachment 19749

Linearity is textbook perfect too, indicating accurate reproduction to 20 bits (limit of measurement):
View attachment 19750

Distortion versus frequency is very well behaved as compared to the $100 Khadas Tone Board:
View attachment 19751

For those of you who like the 32-tone test, here is the outcome of that:

View attachment 19752

The noise floor rises at low frequencies (relative to Khadas Tone board for example). Otherwise, the rest of the distortion products are all comfortably low.

There are four filter settings, crudely documented in the manual as such:


I tested a couple of them using square wave but it was not revealing of any differences:
View attachment 19754

So I resorted to zoomed frequency response tests, first at 44.1 kHz:

View attachment 19755

We see a pair of them having rolled off high frequency response and a pair without that. I doubt whatever Rob Watts is saying about differences on the overlapping ones to be audible.

The outcome did not change at higher sample rate of 192 kHz:

View attachment 19756

Full Nyquist bandwidth of 96 kHz is not maintained but this is fine and common.

Conclusions
From pure performance point of view, the CHORD Qutest nails all the tests I threw at it, garnering the top spot in DACs I have tested. On that front it should get a recommendation from me but I am hesitant to do so for a DAC costing so much but not having balanced outputs. If that is not a bother to you and you can afford it, the CHORD Qutest will provide exceptional performance and transparency to your audio system.

The CHORD Qutest shows that boutique/custom need not come with the heap of distortion as many others I have tested do. On that front, designer Rob Watts needs to be congratulated by not sacrificing measured performance for some unverified audiophile notion. Then again, I wonder how good of a DAC Rob could design using an off-the-shelf DAC chip. Likely would be just as good and cost a lot less....

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Well if you want to pair a Qutest with a great tube amp or hybrid, good luck finding one with balanced outputs.
 
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amirm

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Well if you want to pair a Qutest with a great tube amp or hybrid, good luck finding one with balanced outputs.
Such an endeavor would not be in my vocabulary. :) If you are going to screw up the response of such a clean DAC, better get something much cheaper....
 

rmo

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Such an endeavor would not be in my vocabulary. :) If you are going to screw up the response of such a clean DAC, better get something much cheaper....
There are plenty of tube amps, paticularly tube hybrids from Vincent and others that hardly sound tubey. Yet they don’t have balanced outputs .
 
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amirm

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There are plenty of tube amps, paticularly tube hybrids from Vincent and others that hardly sound tubey. Yet they don’t have balanced outputs .
They all have much, much worse distortion than this DAC so again, the performance of this unit is lost on them.
 

gvl

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They all have much, much worse distortion than this DAC so again, the performance of this unit is lost on them.

At least the distortion will be pure, as not in superimposed on the distortion of the DAC ;)
 

Music1969

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Hi-Fi News and Hi-Fi Choice measured both with different results.

Do you mean they each measured both?

I can only see a Hugo2 measurement with Hi-Fi News.

If you meant HFN measured Hugo2 and HFC measured Qutest, then I'm not surprised the results were not identical - different measurements systems and different people measuring.
 

SchwarzeWolke

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To be honest, I really like the design and look of this DAC. I also don't care about the accessibility of the interface, I just set my DACs up and let them running untouched forever.
The measurements are phenomenal and I'm now tempted to search one used... Screw you Amir, I'm loosing a lot of money because of you! :facepalm:
Lack of balanced outputs is not a big deal for me. It seems that I don't have issues with grounding with my Topping D10 and therefore would not expect any with the Chord.
 

VintageFlanker

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Has Amir posted the SINAD for ADI-2 DAC (or I guess the Pro which he has now)?
Nope, we get SINAD of the PRO (NON FS). ADI-2 DAC is estimated to 110db SINAD seeing the THD+Noise. It was, however, measured better than the PRO with the ancient Amir's AP.
Do you mean they each measured both?

I can only see a Hugo2 measurement with Hi-Fi News.

HI-FI News measured Qutest in November 2018 issue.
Hi-fi World also measured Qutest the same month, for what I remember.

I meant both magazines measured both Qutest and Hugo 2 with their own methods with different results for each units.
 
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Music1969

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I meant both magazines measured both Qutest and Hugo 2 with their own methods with different results for each units.

No problem. As mentioned, this doesn't surprise me. Different people measuring and different measurement gear.

Even though Amir has measured both, they were done with different gear/setups. Hopefully a re-test can happen if he can get a Hugo2 loaned to him.
 

VintageFlanker

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No problem. As mentioned, this doesn't surprise me. Different people measuring and different measurement gear.
Sorry about my English, you probably got me wrong. To be clearer :
Hugo 2 and Qutest measured with same method by HFN: different results.
Hugo 2 and Qutest mesured with same method by HFW: different results.
 
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Music1969

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Sorry about my English, you probably got me wrong. To be clearer :
Hugo 2 and Qutest measured with same method by HFN: different results.
Hugo 2 and Qutest mesured with same method by HFC: different results.

Hi, no problem.

Which month was Qutest measured in HFN? I can only find Hugo2 review in HFN (August 2018).
 

VintageFlanker

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Hi, no problem.

Which month was Qutest measured in HFN? I can only find Hugo2 review in HFN (August 2018).
First, big EDIT: It's Hi-fi WORLD who measured the Qutest, not Hi-Fi Choice! I'm confused with all these HI-FI UK mags... :D

Regarding Hi-Fi News, the test was published in November 2018 issue. This one:
1537818418_hi-fi-news-2018_11_downmagaz.com.jpg


I will take a look once at home to see if I can share here only measurements part.
 
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