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CHORD M-Scaler Review (Upsampler)

Rate this product:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 358 88.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 13 3.2%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 7 1.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 28 6.9%

  • Total voters
    406

spooky

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Do you disagree with the measurements? Do they not show that the insertion of the device in the audio chain does nothing beneficial that can be measured?
Nothing that can be measured by the measurements used. I don't think this is a sensible thing to debate on this forum and I don't see any sense in debating this. ;)
 

sarumbear

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Nothing that can be measured by the measurements used. I don't think this is a sensible thing to debate on this forum and I don't see any sense in debating this. ;)
I agree as I have no idea what you meant with the above sentence. I will have difficulty to understand you anyway.
 

raif71

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The faulty unit excuse has arrived. This time it took 72 posts.

However, given the fact that the device is not doing bad things to the signal the fault description is now pretty unique: It can’t improve the quality of the audio because it’s broken but it doesn’t hurt the signal.
Haha glad to be of service but the question had to be asked to eliminate the possibility :)
 

AudioSceptic

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Is this the same model?
I just read the subjective part of that review and JA has slipped down a few more notches in my estimation.
When I got home from the concert, I called up Ms. Gourari's Elusive Affinityalbum on Tidal (24/48 MQA FLAC, ECM 2612) and streamed it directly to the PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC. While the recording equals the live concert version in musicality, with Roon unfolding the MQA-encoded data to 96kHz, the piano's right-hand register was a little too far forward in the mid-treble. Upsampling the Roon-unfolded data to 192kHz with the M Scaler reduced the slight clanginess to the sound of the piano and better presented the relationship between the piano and the subtle acoustic of the record venue.
And what's with this quaint term "D/A processor" he still uses when the rest of the planet calls it a DAC?
 

Geert

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The review seems incomplete and ideally would have been done with a TT2.

Volunteering to send a TT2 to Amir for review? Just another 6k.
 

AudioSceptic

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Let's just all stay calm, undramatic, rational and polite ;).

One important thing to point out is that 5300$ is not at all bad price. You can buy only limited amount of hi-res music for that money, whereas with this device you are equipped for life :cool:
That is also more than most people would spend on an entire audio (or even AV) system.
 

AudioSceptic

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Hey guys, I'm going to out myself on this one. I loaned these. I had my suspicions about the M Scaler; I use Chord DACs (main DAC is not the Hugo2) and it was hard to tell what it was doing to the sound, if anything. Still, it's disappointing that such an expensive product has such poor results. I'm not a technical person, but I think Amir is saying that the M Scaler does what it says it does but that the "improvement" is not discernible on an audible level?

Anecdotally, I've been listening to my audio system without the M Scaler the past week and I can't tell the difference. Anyway, hope ASR's review helps someone who was considering purchasing this item. There are some extremely glowing reviews of the M Scaler out there.
Thanks for the honesty. I'm sure you can get a good price for it. <https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304469637811> :)
 

JayGilb

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We will continue to see new technologies introduced that make no audible improvement because we have long since passed that point.
But how do you sell your next dac if it's the same as the previous version ? You need to add essentially useless technology and play a game of one-upmanship
and since it's new technology, it must demand a new level of cost.

Lather, rinse, repeat.
 

xaviescacs

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Eh? If it does nothing and costs $0.01, that is still poor.
Well that's completely subjective, we could be discussing this all day, but that's the goal perhaps. It's not easy to have a poll that has room for subjective opinions and at the same time captures who good in terms of performance and added value a device is, assuming the voters are informed of course. :) If you ask about the added value, it's clear from the test that there is non or marginal, so the poll as more a question than a poll.
 

A Surfer

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Wrong country and I no longer have one.
I think you will prefer the head-fi approach. Believe everything good that you hear from people who have the gear that you own or would like to buy, and when those pesky science people come along, tell them about the magic that can't be measured. I'm guessing here, but I suspect that you wouldn't care much, but your theory that testing in the way done here at ASR misses something is by definition an invalid theory because it cannot be falsified. No matter the testing regime used I suspect you will always fall back on the position that the magic is not measurable so why bother.

So do you like proper testing of medications, cars, medical procedures, food additives or do you not require scientific scrutiny there as well? Again, I do not know for certain if this describes you, but when it comes to audio mythology, there is often a double standard among those who purchase silly products like the M-Scaler. They want proof about everything else, but with their audio gear, just a confident sales person such as Robb Watts telling them to trust him will suffice. It doesn't even matter that he is a competent engineer, he markets loosely, close to using falsehoods and implies almost magical thinking to his audio designs.
 

spooky

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I think you will prefer the head-fi approach. Believe everything good that you hear from people who have the gear that you own or would like to buy, and when those pesky science people come along, tell them about the magic that can't be measured. I'm guessing here, but I suspect that you wouldn't care much, but your theory that testing in the way done here at ASR misses something is by definition an invalid theory because it cannot be falsified. No matter the testing regime used I suspect you will always fall back on the position that the magic is not measurable so why bother.

So do you like proper testing of medications, cars, medical procedures, food additives or do you not require scientific scrutiny there as well? Again, I do not know for certain if this describes you, but when it comes to audio mythology, there is often a double standard among those who purchase silly products like the M-Scaler. They want proof about everything else, but with their audio gear, just a confident sales person such as Robb Watts telling them to trust him will suffice. It doesn't even matter that he is a competent engineer, he markets loosely, close to using falsehoods and implies almost magical thinking to his audio designs.
You are making quite a few assumptions about me, none of which are really relevant to the question that I originally asked. In simple terms, I wondered how a definitive conclusion can be reached when only the lowest of the three upsampling rates was used. I don't think that's an unreasonable question.

If you believe that everything that should be measured is being measured or can be measured then that's rather a big assumption, and you know what they say about assumptions. I like to keep an open mind. I have not said that the testing done here misses something - I have simply suggested that this is a possibility.

You might like to note that I stated earlier that I perceived an improvement with the middle upscaling setting when combined with a TT2 but I do not perceive much, if any difference, when used with my DAVE. I have expressed mixed results depending on the DAC used. Rob Watts hasn't told me to trust him and my conclusions are based on having tried it with different DACs to satisfy my own curiosity. I also would not entirely trust someone taking some measurements and telling me what is going to produce the best sound. My buying decisions are not based on measurements or on what other people tell me, regardless of what you might believe.
 

Jimbob54

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Well perhaps a different level of upscaling might have produced a noticeable difference. Otherwise it's like testing a mountain bike by riding it to the pub (assuming you don't live up a mountain). Or maybe doing the shopping in a supercar and not taking it to a track. You're only getting part of the picture. The review is surely incomplete if only the lowest of the upscaling options is used.

Subjectively, I found a difference with the higher upscaling levels with a TT2 (particularly the middle setting). With a DAVE I'm not convinced it makes as much, if any, difference to my ears with my speakers in my room. I might actually prefer my DAVE without the M-Scaler - perhaps that's related to noise or just my personal preference.
Ok- but which bits of the testing do you think would have given different results? Would there have been less jitter? Would the filter have been any sharper? See the link I posted above to Goldensounds review. In his Dave review also he measured it with and without upscaler - which measurements / graphs there would you have expected to be different.

Subjectively he too found audible improvements. Im no expert at all but I dont see where those improvements might be given the measurements.
 

Jimbob54

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I wondered how a definitive conclusion can be reached when only the lowest of the three upsampling rates was used. I don't think that's an unreasonable question.
Im seeing 2x and 4x upsampling vs pass thru on most charts.
 

spooky

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Ok- but which bits of the testing do you think would have given different results? Would there have been less jitter? Would the filter have been any sharper? See the link I posted above to Goldensounds review. In his Dave review also he measured it with and without upscaler - which measurements / graphs there would you have expected to be different.

Subjectively he too found audible improvements. Im no expert at all but I dont see where those improvements might be given the measurements.
So either the people who find audible improvements are all wrong, the improvement detected isn't really an improvement or it's doing something that isn't being measured.

I would have liked to have seen it tested using the higher upsampling settings. If that was not going to be done then the review should state that no difference was detected by the reviewer using the lowest setting but he did not have the opportunity to try the higher settings and therefore cannot draw a conclusion about how those settings might perform.

I'm not sure that it's reasonable to say the M-Scaler does nothing when the higher settings were not tested.
 

spooky

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Im seeing 2x and 4x upsampling vs pass thru on most charts.
I preferred comparing without the M-Scaler connected rather than using pass through. A slightly longer delay between listening samples of course.

I perceived a difference with the middle setting when using a TT2 but not when using a DAVE, which I found interesting. Entirely subjective of course, but that should be fair game as the review contains a subjective element.

The subjective part of the review only mentioned using 2x upsampling and not 4x for some reason. I'm not sure why. With the TT2 I didn't notice much difference at all using 2x but did notice a difference when using 4x.
 

Leporello

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If you believe that everything that should be measured is being measured or can be measured then that's rather a big assumption, and you know what they say about assumptions. I like to keep an open mind. I have not said that the testing done here misses something - I have simply suggested that this is a possibility.
That testing "misses something" is always a possibility. But appealing to unknown possibilities is a common audiophile fallacy. Perhaps results would have been different had Amir used cryogenically treated power cables with his analyzer?
 
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