Chord quest, Vs Rme adi-2 dac fs + tap count.

[voodooless]

The RME DAC only has limited EQ capabilities, so might not be enough to fix your room issues anyway.

This is actually the only relevant post regarding real live in-room SQ. If you want room correction, neither of these will be of very good use. Get something with more DSP capabilities. Get a MiniDSP SHD or equivalent, that will do much more than and endless supply of filter taps.

 

[polmuaddib]

If you want to waste an hour, watch it.
In there he claims there that it is easy to hear a difference between -180db noise shaper and -200db noise shapper. He also claims that distortion between -130db and -150db is easily audible. And lots more claims that are just fantastical and without any proof. Empty claims.
So, whatever he says.... doesn't mean a lot.
Just because of those and ridiculous industrial design of Chord dacs I would never buy them. Not to mention the price for unbalanced equipment with 50 shades of color....

 

[JSmith]

Qutest on the left... every other DAC on the right;



Warning this article contains "colourful" language;

As time moves on and technology increases and becomes more affordable, the number of taps keep increasing. The older Hugo DAC used 26,368 taps whereas the Qutest uses 49,152 taps, the same amount as the Hugo 2, but only half of the 98,304-taps used in the Hugo TT 2. For interest's sake, Chord's range-topping DAVE uses 164,000 taps. Those numbers are put into perspective when you appreciate that by comparison, traditional chip DACs may run only 256-tap filters.

The Qutest must sound different to all other DAC's... one assumes this massive change is measurable and audible.



JSmith

 

[Phorize]

Well, of course he needs to provide proof, but so does the one saying he is making nonsensical claims. How can it be illogical to demand proof from booth sides? If one claimes a difference and one not, then booth need proof. I'm pretty new to measurements so I try to understand them, but I for one are just as critical to measurements as to random reviews. One area in specific has made me think this way, and that is tube amps, to my ears they sound better, more real, and this has always been the case for me, long before I was that in to audio, but according to measurements (if you don't understand them) tube amps would sound shit.

Ok, so the measurements of the DAC tells there is no difference at all, which measurement would be off when it comes to insufficient taps? And might it not be a measurement that is not performed? Or does not exist?


I'm sorry, but I just want to know, if Rob watts was a nobody then I might not have cared, but Chord is a reputable brand that has a lot of followers. Yes there are bullshit brands like nordost and transparent that has a cult following but, I think this is more complicated than cable measurements.

It’s not Chord that is making specific claims about the audibility of their dac technology, it’s Rob Watts in a personal capacity. Why do you think that is?

 

[Gurra1980]

Room EQ is better at fixing peaks than filling dips. Personally I'd start by measuring the room using REW and a calibrated microphone, and then see what problems actually need fixing, rather than just jumping to a possible solution.

The Rme fills so many rolls that would be great, good headphone amp, good DAC, eventual pre amp so I can go straight to Poweramp if I want and a parametric EQ to make some bad frequency curves better.

But I guess I would need to measure my room to find the problems and start there. But use the Rme to do the adjustments, I don't have any possibility to use a computer. I use optical from TV to the DAC.

 

[Gurra1980]

This is actually the only relevant post regarding real live in-room SQ. If you want room correction, neither of these will be of very good use. Get something with more DSP capabilities. Get a MiniDSP SHD or equivalent, that will do much more than and endless supply of filter taps.

Sorry but the mini DSP has been the one I have thought of the most, but it is unfortunately out of my budget. I bought the qutest used for 1000$ and I think I can sell it for the same and buy an Rme for the same money.

 

[Gurra1980]

It’s not Chord that is making specific claims about the audibility of their dac technology, it’s Rob Watts in a personal capacity. Why do you think that is?

Some bald claims here.
https://chordelectronics.co.uk/product/dave/

 

[JSmith]

Some bald claims here

I see no mention of hair loss?



JSmith

 

[Gurra1980]

I see no mention of hair loss?



JSmith

Sorry my native language is Swedish. Let's change bald to bold

 

[voodooless]

Sorry but the mini DSP has been the one I have thought of the most, but it is unfortunately out of my budget. I bought the qutest used for 1000$ and I think I can sell it for the same and buy an Rme for the same money.

Well, in that case I’d say: keep the Chord. The RME will not solve your room EQ problem. Save a few more bucks and then go for the better solution.

 

[Gurra1980]

Well, in that case I’d say: keep the Chord. The RME will not solve your room EQ problem. Save a few more bucks and then go for the better solution.

Well, that might be a better solution. Just out of interest what is wrong with rme's EQ? It seems to have endless adjustment capabilities? Is Dirac live the only solution that work, except for extensive room treatment?

 

[Phorize]

Some bald claims here.
https://chordelectronics.co.uk/product/dave/

I don’t see a single falsifiable claim about the dacs sound in any of the linked material. They say the dac is advanced and mention ‘timing’-which I’m assuming they intend to be believed as some sort of audible benefit to the listener but that they would likely argue relates to the electronic properties of the dac rather than if its sound if brought before an advertising standards body.

Pretty much all I see is the vacuous obscurantism that is standard in audio marketing; what concrete claims to do you see in that literature?

 

[Gurra1980]

I don’t see a single falsifiable claim about the dacs sound in any of the linked material. They say the dac is advanced and mention ‘timing’-which I’m assuming they intend to be believed as some sort of audible benefit to the listener but that they would likely argue relates to the electronic properties of the dac rather than if its sound if brought before an advertising standards body.

Beyond the vacuous obscurantism that is standard in audio marketing, what concrete claim to do you see in that literature?

The FPGA’s extraordinary capability enables a number of key sonic benefits, including significantly improved timing and the best noise-shaper performance of any known DAC. DAVE’s technology delivers music with unmatched reality and musicality, with an unrivalled timing response.

They claim it has sonic benefits, unmatched musicality and realism.

 

[voodooless]

Well, that might be a better solution. Just out of interest what is wrong with rme's EQ? It seems to have endless adjustment capabilities? Is Dirac live the only solution that work, except for extensive room treatment?

The RME only has a 5-band eq, which is rather limited. Dirac surely is not the only solution. You can get good results with a normal MiniDSP as well. Just the effort to make it work is much higher. There is a lot more knowledge and manual labor needed. Same for the RME solution, but results will be very limited with only 5 EQ bands.

 

[KSTR]

So my last question would be, is there any science saying that a higher tap count is not necessary? Because it makes a lot of sense to have a higher count.

You can create your own science if you want to. There is a patch for the SoX utility to allow upsampling with any number of taps up to many millions -- or just use standard SoX at the highest possible setting. Do offline upsampling (say, to 4x or 8x) on test files with various settings (there are many, with SoX), set the ADI-2 filter to Sharp and compare (or even ABX).
I did, could not detect a difference between a standard size linear-phase sinc filter and an extreme long one but that doesn't mean there can't be one for some individuals. Will have to try with lower sample rates like 32kHz to come closer to my HF limit of hearing which is the crucial factor here, I would think.

 

[Purité Audio]

Not sure if that is true, if you only try to correct peaks in the minimal phase region of the response, I use an RME hard and it does the job with a really awful axial length mode to the Op you can’t fix cancellations with EQ, just reinforcements.
Keith

 

[Gurra1980]

The RME only has a 5-band eq, which is rather limited. Dirac surely is not the only solution. You can get good results with a normal MiniDSP as well. Just the effort to make it work is much higher. There is a lot more knowledge and manual labor needed. Same for the RME solution, but results will be very limited with only 5 EQ bands.

Oh, I saw a video where they changed the EQ, they could select an exact frequency and then press it in and out to change exactly what frequency's they wanted. So I wandered what the meaning of "5band" was. It looked exactly like I remembered from mini DSP. Have I got this wrong?

Sorry, it might be hard to understand what I mean, not used to express me in english.

 

[LTig]

Well, that might be a better solution. Just out of interest what is wrong with rme's EQ? It seems to have endless adjustment capabilities? Is Dirac live the only solution that work, except for extensive room treatment?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the RME or its EQ. It has 5 PEQ bands so you can fix up to 5 peaks in your rooms FR.

 

[LTig]

Oh, I saw a video where they changed the EQ, they could select an exact frequency and then press it in and out to change exactly what frequency's they wanted. So I wandered what the meaning of "5band" was. It looked exactly like I remembered from mini DSP. Have I got this wrong?

5 bands is probably the wrong name. It has 5 individually adjustable PEQs and you can set them all to the same frequency if need arises. The first and last PEQ can be changed into a low shelf or high shelf filter, respectively.

 

[voodooless]

Indeed, nothing wrong with it, just limited to the 5. If you have in-room measurements in REW, you can see how far you can get with 5 PEQ’s using the EQ tool.