Chord DAVE Review (DAC & HP Amp)

[AlephAlpha001]

Hehe, I could see another support thread shaping up in the Head-Fi world with evangelists flocking

It's been a great past week or so at ASR and much amusing butt-hurt over at Head-Fi. Been most enjoyable and it's about to get even better. Kudos for these reviews of The Good Stuff ™ (sic) @amirm.

 

[Somafunk]

I liked how you started out from an industrial design perspective and have, almost imperceptibly, switched to a truly Scottish perspective by the end

You can take a Scotsman out of Scotland but nae luck in getting him to bring his wallet

(i jest of course….being Scottish it is a genetic trait to poke fun at oneself)

 

[DonR]

Well, if you ask me it is a bold design. It is innovative, it stands out and I find it more appealing than the Fisher Price esthetic of a lot of other stuff by Chord. I do find it looks very cool with the stand but without the stand it looks a little bereft, at least it does to me.

I don't mind this case design. It is far better than the other designs, I agree. Once the screen comes on though, it's all ruined for me. At this price, I would expect a lot more effort put into the software design choices.

 

[DonR]

You can take a Scotsman out of Scotland but nae luck in getting him to bring his wallet

(i jest of course….being Scottish it is a genetic trait to poke fun at oneself)

My wife always quotes Groundskeeper Willie: "Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland."

 

[JSmith]

Who the heck voted this as Great? Golfing Panther. Maybe a typo? Gotta be a typo….

But did @amirm actually listen to it, how does it sound? Oh wait... he did listen to it.

@Jomungur who sent this in for testing also noted the Dave didn't sound as clean in comparison to another SOTA measuring DAC during an unsighted A/B comparison.

You can take a Scotsman out of Scotland but nae luck in getting him to bring his wallet

Don't you lads use a purse instead anyway?

JSmith

 

[Trell]

So I am still there with my RME ADI-2 Pro as my desktop device, the volume button doesn't do what it should do when I turn it

Have you seen this firmware update last December? It contains fixes for encoder jumping and direction errors, if that is your problem with the volume knob.

Firmware Update ADI-2 DAC 66 / 47 and ADI-2 Pro 259 / 111 (Page 1) — ADI-2 & 2/4 Pro series, ADI-2 DAC series — RME User Forum

Firmware Update ADI-2 DAC 66 / 47 and ADI-2 Pro 259 / 111 (Page 1) — ADI-2 & 2/4 Pro series, ADI-2 DAC series — RME User Forum —

forum.rme-audio.de

 

[Jomungur]

From review: "Notice how SINAD lands right next to Chord Hugo 2!"

Just a correction, I think you mean Chord Mojo 2 here.

 

[Jomungur]

Sorry off topic question. What kind of shipping service usually people use to ship something like this and how much it cost to ship+Insurance coverage for this thing round trip?? Next day air??
Usually a package this size is the perfect basketball-toss-entertainment substitute for postal/courier handler.
Is there an extra red shipping label saying "Update your resume before you toss/throw this box around ....".
Kudo to the kind loan of the kind forum member.

Expedited courier shipping, yeah, with a fragile good service and lots of insurance. Are you wondering whether it got damaged during shipping? Most business grade couriers don't toss goods around like the guys working luggage at the airport. It's always possible, but I tried to pack that thing so it could withstand an explosion. Paid about $370 to ship it, figured it was like a website donation.

 

[thin bLue]

For the money, such a disappointment.
Should be much better than this...

 

[DonR]

Expedited courier shipping, yeah, with a fragile good service and lots of insurance. Are you wondering whether it got damaged during shipping? Most business grade couriers don't toss goods around like the guys working luggage at the airport. It's always possible, but I tried to pack that thing so it could withstand an explosion. Paid about $300 to ship it, figured it was like a website donation.

I applaud your efforts towards advancing this site. I personally very much appreciate those who are willing to donate their prized possessions only to see them decimated by our devilishly clever host.

 

[Digby]

BTW as we are being critical of the looks, how about we give some consideration to the name too? Which looks more like DAVE to you, this combination DAC & headphone amp:

or this absolute unit from the local:

 

[Jomungur]

I applaud your efforts towards advancing this site. I personally very much appreciate those who are willing to donate their prized possessions only to see them decimated by our devilishly clever host.

No worries. I feel I have a better DAC now and never would have had I not visited this site. I bought and listened to the Topping 90DSE before sending the DAVE to have a backup and I ended up liking it better (I picked the Topping solely based on its position at the top of Amir's rankings).

This was also a test for me too. If Amir's objective measurements didn't roughly line up with my subjective impressions of the products I've sent in, I would have thought less of the objective measurements and just moved on from this site. But they do line up (at least with DACs), and so that says something to me about their usefulness.

If anyone reading this thread is Chord fan, just take a deep breath. It seems to me Chord has put too much faith in their proprietary WTA, has sat on their laurels and has not paid enough attention to things like noise and some basic stuff. This stuff should be fixable with better engineering and the next Chord statement product can benefit from it. And if it's priced more sensibly, all the better.

 

[composer]

Do you guys know when this device was introduced into the market?
It would make quite a difference for a dac.
If it was say from 1997 that price at the time would have made sense for such performance... Kind of.
If it's from 2020 or after, quite nope...

One year more or less is so much time for dac technology.

 

[DonR]

Do you guys know when this device was introduced into the market?
It would make quite a difference for a dac.
If it was say from 1997 that price at the time would have made sense for such performance... Kind of.
If it's from 2020 or after, quite nope...

One year more or less is so much time for dac technology.

2015

 

[raif71]

Dacnabbit but don't fret. It's just less than stellar measurements. Those that enjoy it, continue enjoying it. For me, can't afford it. Too expensive. . Thanks to @amirm and @Jomungur for sending it in.

 

[AlephAlpha001]

BTW as we are being critical of the looks, how about we give some consideration to the name too? Which looks more like DAVE to you, this combination DAC & headphone amp:

or this absolute unit from the local:

You're on to something here. They were made for each other. Don't diss DAVE to Dave after he's had few pints unless you've got your running shoes on.

 

[JSmith]

Paid about $300 to ship it, figured it was like a website donation.

Hey thanks for doing this so we can all see the results and for taking any risk on shipping/handling as well.

Do you guys know when this device was introduced into the market?

It was released May 2015... however is still sold as a current product. Once again it seems Chord cannot update their models, but just keep selling the same thing for many years.


JSmith

 

[dfuller]

This is weird to me.

On one hand, objectively it's a decent performer - more than likely totally transparent. On the other, it's a badly designed and wildly overpriced (and ugly!) piece of audiophile woo woo.

 

[amirm]

Sorry off topic question. What kind of shipping service usually people use to ship something like this and how much it cost to ship+Insurance coverage for this thing round trip?? Next day air??

Insurance costs about $10 per $1000 of value. Owner packed this in a wooden box and then double boxed it. It was not going anywhere. These products are shipped by the company anyway. If you double box it, nothing is going to happen to it.

 

[chesebert]

How old is the unit under test? I note that SMPS does degrade over time given the complexity and off the shelf quality parts used in Dave. If it's over 5yrs old, @amirm should really source a new unit to test.