CHORD M-Scaler Review (Upsampler)

[Peternz]

HQPlayer is pretty popular. It's essentially like the M Scaler, but software instead of hardware but not as capable. Those who like it, say they hear a difference.

Are the YT reviewers who like the M Scaler all wrong? Hans Beekhuyzen, GoldenSound, Passion for Sound, Currawong, Phototristan, Darko Audio.

Yes.

Thanks to Amir for his excellent work and efforts. Also a big thank you to Mscaler owners who have chimed in. The things I feel I have learned from this thread.

1. The Mscaler does not noticeably degrade the sound.

2. The Mscaler does not noticeably improve the sound.

3. The Mscaler adds clutter to your system.

4. The Mscaler of course needs a power socket and cables. Some would say you need cables with a special oil to make everything work well.

5. The Mscaler can cause electromagentic interference affecting TVs and the like.

6. The Mscaler costs $5650. Add $X for cables.

7. The Mscaler styling is controversial to put it politely.

8. There are a lot of reviewers of audio equipment out there who base their impressions on feelings and pre conceptions rather than science.

9. The Mscaler brings enjoyment to people who believe that it does something and or just like fancy boxes and colored balls.


Bearing all this in mind, I am not going to criticize people who own and enjoy the Mscaler. After all, it seems clear that it does not noticeably degrade the sound quality.

 

[the_brunx]

If Chord M-Scaler was a bicycle:

Robbery watts: “It useless, So what?”

 

[Katji]

There's been some good humour lately. The coloured balls part finished it. ...And a good summary too.


I quite like the styling of most of the DACs, just this one bothers me - a lot:

 

[Blumlein 88]

For others who have gone down this rabbit hole, this article in Hi Fi Critic was helpful for me to understand the "problem" the M Scaler is intended to solve. Interestingly, the critic does not claim that the M Scaler's approach will actually achieve any audible results, he leaves it an open question- a sensible decision in hindsight. Nor does he claim the M Scaler actually achieves what it aims to from a pure signal processing standpoint. I hope the science presented here is correct or I'll shoot myself for wasting already way too much time trying to figure out this black box.

Filter Technology in Chord Electronics DACs by Rob Watts Chord Electronics - Moo

that 1948 was both the year that Columbia. Records announced the LP and the year in which Claude Shannon's famous paper A.

usermanual.wiki

One of his comments was quite prescient at the close:

I have a feeling that the M Scaler will prove to be one of the most significant, and probably controversial, products of 2018. It is sure to intrigue those who have already found Rob Watts’ DAC designs to be a cut above, and just as likely to prompt the Monty Montgomerys of this world to dismiss it as delusional.

I fail to see why this long coefficient filter is important on the DAC end, but apparently not needed on the ADC end according to Rob Watts.

What are the perceived sound quality benefits? Watts says that the improved ransient accuracy of the longer filter makes instrumental timbre clearer, tightens
bass and “dramatically” opens up the soundstage. “After you’ve listened to the M Scaler”, he says, “it’s very difficult to listen to the Hugo TT2 or Dave.” And has his thirst for more filter taps now been sated? No: “My gut feeling is that we need to go further.”

Strangely every single improvement in digital sound I've ever heard about is the same thing. Tightens the bass, opens up the soundstage, and is clearer. The only thing he left out is it sounds smoother and more analog like. Funny how all the improvements with uncontrolled listening comparisons result in the same thing. With all the improvements we have had since 1984 you'd think old CD players would be horrendously terrible by comparison. Somehow they are not. Also as is a tradition funny how this method works wonders no matter how the initial AD conversion was done just by working on the backend.

 

[FrantzM]

There's been some good humour lately. The coloured balls part finished it. ...And a good summary too.


I quite like the styling of most of the DACs, just this one bothers me - a lot:

Subjectivity Alert!!!

This is fracking ugly...

 

[FrantzM]

And this Chord upsampler would be one confirmation of the placebo effect... There are several such units in the HEA universe, this Chord is not even one of the more expensive ones... MSB and DCS, perhaps Ch Audio have unit that sells for between 3 and 5 times the asking price of this one. Similarly they may do nothing but the subjective press could not believe the differences it brings to their system, more organic, lectin-free, no preservatives,, galactic-black background, country-wide ad Everest High Soundstage, and let's not forget: Diana Krall basically inhabiting the listening room ...

A useless, expensive PoS this Chord unit, is.

Thanks Amir, thanks ASR, the walls are falling, the crap removed, hopefully more people will enjoy HiFi.

Peace.

 

[Jomungur]

There's been some good humour lately. The coloured balls part finished it. ...And a good summary too.

It's not coloured balls, it's "control spheres displaying a polychromatic scale". Get it straight! . (Ironically, the problem with that marketing phrase seems to be a perfect analogue of the engineering problem with the M Scaler). OK, well let me see what else I can send in.

 

[mansr]

It's not coloured balls, it's "control spheres displaying a polychromatic scale". Get it straight! . (Ironically, the problem with that marketing phrase seems to be a perfect analogue of the engineering problem with the M Scaler). OK, well let me see what else I can send in.

 

[AdamG]

Yes.

Thanks to Amir for his excellent work and efforts. Also a big thank you to Mscaler owners who have chimed in. The things I feel I have learned from this thread.

1. The Mscaler does not noticeably degrade the sound.

2. The Mscaler does not noticeably improve the sound.

3. The Mscaler adds clutter to your system.

4. The Mscaler of course needs a power socket and cables. Some would say you need cables with a special oil to make everything work well.

5. The Mscaler can cause electromagentic interference affecting TVs and the like.

6. The Mscaler costs $5650. Add $X for cables.

7. The Mscaler styling is controversial to put it politely.

8. There are a lot of reviewers of audio equipment out there who base their impressions on feelings and pre conceptions rather than science.

9. The Mscaler brings enjoyment to people who believe that it does something and or just like fancy boxes and colored balls.


Bearing all this in mind, I am not going to criticize people who own and enjoy the Mscaler. After all, it seems clear that it does not noticeably degrade the sound quality.

Don’t expect a reply. DJ Bistro was a shadow account created today by a previously banned member. According this account has been spam cleaned.

 

[raif71]

There's been some good humour lately. The coloured balls part finished it. ...And a good summary too.


I quite like the styling of most of the DACs, just this one bothers me - a lot:

 

[Katji]

! I knew it!

 

[A Surfer]

The level of, I'm sorry, pure and utter stupidity, there is no nice way of saying it I am truly sorry, in the head-fi thread is legendary at this point. There are a few incredibly ignorant people (ignorant about the subject matter) who simply spout on and on there. It is absolutely ridiculous. If I were Chord, I would be embarrassed by the posts being made meant to defend their gear. Seriously, it is now beyond cringe worthy.

 

[aj625]

The dual coax measurement was at 16x upsampling,

@amirm But filter properties like attenuation and slope are not provided for 16x. Is it deliberate ? Even after too many posts no response for the same and also avoiding the comments why listening tests were not done at 16x when going from 16x to pass through is only one click ? Why there is 110db attenuation in golden sound measurements but here it is 80db, is it due to 2x upsampling?

 

[dananski]

I've been wondering for a while why upscaling with lots of taps is something you can't just do in software, either in real time, or output as a higher bitrate file. It's an operation entirely in the binary domain! You can play the 768KHz/32-bit output to an excellent DAC over USB for under $/£300, so if there's any point at all to the taps, why on earth is the only implementation in hardware, and at £4000??

My suspicion was you can do it in software, but that wouldn't make any money, and there'd be no point because it sounds the same.

So these file links got my hopes up at verifying this (or having some remarkable revelation) in a blind test:

Chord M-Scalar Sample 1.wav

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Chord M-Scalar Sample 2.wav

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

But it turns out the output was recorded in 44.1KHz, so these recordings seem completely pointless I'm actually a bit unhappy they're presented as evidence, but maybe I've missed some advertised claim that the upscaler can improve the sound so much that it's still improved when you downscale it back to the original (/s).

I don't know if there is equipment readily available to perfectly capture a 768KHz digital signal (which would be ideal for isolating the M-Scaler from other factors), but I'm pretty sure you can at least record the resulting analogue signal at that rate.

 

[amirm]

@amirm But filter properties like attenuation and slope are not provided for 16x. Is it deliberate ?

16X mode is proprietary so not compatible with Topping D70s where I measured that.

 

[amirm]

But it turns out the output was recorded in 44.1KHz, so these recordings seem completely pointless

Why? What hearing ability do you have above 22.05 kHz? How about your speaker's ability to play above that? Are imaging, changing bass, etc. are all happening due to ultrasonics?

 

[amirm]

I'm actually a bit unhappy they're presented as evidence, but maybe I've missed some advertised claim that the upscaler can improve the sound so much that it's still improved when you downscale it back to the original (/s).

The DAC was placed in higher sample rate and much sharper filter applied to it. Neither one of these effects were undone by RME capturing at 44.1 kHz. Remember, the path in the middle is analog, not digital. It would have been that analog signal going through your amp and to your speaker.

 

[amirm]

I don't know if there is equipment readily available to perfectly capture a 768KHz digital signal (which would be ideal for isolating the M-Scaler from other factors), but I'm pretty sure you can at least record the resulting analogue signal at that rate.

Dual Coax output at 768 kHz is proprietary so nothing is capable of capturing it. The claim for using such high sample rate is due to ease of filtering in the DAC and not any claim of audible information hugely above audible band.

 

[dananski]

16X mode is proprietary so not compatible with Topping D70s where I measured that.

Ah that's a shame.

Why? What hearing ability do you have above 22.05 kHz? How about your speaker's ability to play above that? Are imaging, changing bass, etc. are all happening due to ultrasonics?

Hah my high hearing is lopsided and not even great in the better ear, so definitely not. And I doubt anyone could. I'm just interested on an experimental level. I wanted to have an empirical disproval, verifiable by anyone, of the claims, made by Chord and so many listeners, that it makes some difference. I don't think it's a fair test if the recording effectively undoes everything the M-Scaler's trying to do.

 

[amirm]

5. The Mscaler can cause electromagentic interference affecting TVs and the like.

I wanted to comment on this earlier. Check out my two eye patterns again:

See how rather gentle the rise time for those square waves are that my analyzer generates? Now look at M-scaler output again:

That much faster rise time severely increases emissions out of the device. For this reason, source digital devices like my AP filter that so that they can pass emissions tests. I am wondering if M-scaler has been through any third-party certification on this front. There is just a CE label on the device which can indicate self-certification.

Also, note that there is a glitch right after the fast rise of the signal. That is actually a reflection over that connection. Again, this is caused by too fast of a rise time making cabling, termination, etc. much more critical.