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More Rob Wattisms

JRG1488

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Just my personal POV but I believe Rob Watts designs good kit and his public utterances are because it seems that the vast majority of people prepared to pay serious dosh for Hi-Fi have fallen hook line and sinker for this sort of bollox and if they want to sell stuff profitably he has to pander to them.
The Chord stuff is beautifully made. I bought a used Chord Blu CD transport which is a joy to own and use. Yes I could probably have found something sounding the same but it is in my room and it isn’t a crap bent tin box with printed on logo.
On the basis that I have known for 40 years at least that the most expensive part of a Hi-Fi component is the enclosure (power transformer in amplifiers) I know a component as beautifully made as the Chord stuff will be pricey.
I accept that the Dave won’t sound better than the Qutest but to be “credible” to the people who are spending money on Hi-Fi they have to say it does, obviously.
Shame but the reality of the business, as Serge has said a business which is honest about how little one needs to spend on electronics to get top performance and the futility of upgrading electronics (usually) is not going to be in business long...

No ones saying these aren't good performing products they are, I was just pointing out even on measurements there are other products that come very close for a whole lot less money.
But your right thats probably missing the point as these are show off products, I just imagine the market for a £8000 dac as a design piece to show off is quite small, hence all the BS about it having better audible performance.
 

Frank Dernie

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No ones saying these aren't good performing products they are, I was just pointing out even on measurements there are other products that come very close for a whole lot less money.
But your right thats probably missing the point as these are show off products, I just imagine the market for a £8000 dac as a design piece to show off is quite small, hence all the BS about it having better audible performance.
I think the market for this sort of thing would surprise you.
Dave may well sell better, and certainly be more profitable than Qutest since enthusiasts seem to lap this sort of thing up and in the world of £110k DACs from Audio Note etc the Dave is probably seen as an absolute bargain...
 
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He obviously can design good equipment , why doesn’t he just promote that his designs are well engineered, why the BS?
That diminishes him in my eyes.
Keith
 

JRG1488

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I think the market for this sort of thing would surprise you.
Dave may well sell better, and certainly be more profitable than Qutest since enthusiasts seem to lap this sort of thing up and in the world of £110k DACs from Audio Note etc the Dave is probably seen as an absolute bargain...

True i'm not saying the Dave isn't selling well for what it is, but of course Rob watts wants all the sales he can possibly get, by claiming its solves audible problems he might get some sales from people who want the best audible performance even if it means taking out a loan to pay for it.

He obviously can design good equipment , why doesn’t he just promote that his designs are well engineered, why the BS?
That diminishes him in my eyes.
Keith

Probably because theres well engineered products audibly transparent products at 10x less the price, to just say my product is well engineered it sounds transparent like most other dacs obviously won't generate sales. Claiming all other dacs are audibly flawed and his product solves this problem is a better way of generating sales, his target market is the high end audiophiles who have no idea how a dac works and are mostly not interested in objective measurements or what the thresholds of human hearing are, so a gullible bunch who will believe what he tells them without questioning it.
 

garbulky

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No, because the part about hearing differences is not engineering. It is audio science. And there, he told me direct that he doesn't believe in blind tests. You can't be more counter to everything we know about proper evaluation of audio.
That's a hard line there. One thing makes him counter to everything else? Blind testing isn't a super simple concept that's neatly tied up that ties itself to everything else - at least when it comes to null results. The most important result in a blind test is a positive difference and I have a hard time thinking he doesn't believe in the importance of a positive difference.
 
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Music1969

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The Qutest still costs £1,100, its not really "state of the art"

Yes I said it's not inexpensive.

I guess the description "state of the art" is subjective then?

From JA's Stereophile review I linked above: "Chord's Qutest offers state-of-the-art measured performance"

From Amir's review: "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. "
 

amirm

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That's a hard line there. One thing makes him counter to everything else? Blind testing isn't a super simple concept that's neatly tied up that ties itself to everything else - at least when it comes to null results. The most important result in a blind test is a positive difference and I have a hard time thinking he doesn't believe in the importance of a positive difference.
What?
 

JJB70

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He obviously can design good equipment , why doesn’t he just promote that his designs are well engineered, why the BS?
That diminishes him in my eyes.
Keith

That's also what annoys me. The guy clearly isn't stupid, when he wants to be he can be an extremely capable engineer and his company can make genuinely superb equipment. He is not an out and out snake oil sales man as Chord equipment (Mojo battery aside.....) is well engineered and far from the badly designed and worse measuring audio jewellery of some manufacturers. So why does he demean himself by talking such bollox? I would actually be less annoyed if he was just an idiot but he doesn't have that excuse.
 

JRG1488

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Yes I said it's not inexpensive.

I guess the description "state of the art" is subjective then?

From JA's Stereophile review I linked above: "Chord's Qutest offers state-of-the-art measured performance"

From Amir's review: "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. "

"state of the art" wouldn't be the term id use unless it measured better than everything else by a large margin, it measured better in most areas yes but only by a small margin, cheaper products even matched its performance in some areas like topping dx3 pro in IM disortion.
 

sergeauckland

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"state of the art" wouldn't be the term id use unless it measured better than everything else by a large margin, it measured better in most areas yes but only by a small margin, cheaper products even matched its performance in some areas like topping dx3 pro in IM disortion.
One problem these days is that certain products, like DACs and mic amps, are very close to what's theoretically possible, so any improvements will be small and very difficult to achieve, and in most cases pointless in terms of audibility. Nevertheless, some designers persist in chasing these improvements either for the intellectual satisfaction of shaving another dB off the spec, or commercial advantage in being able to claim SOTA, even if by 1-2dB, as that's all that's available.

S
 

Music1969

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If someone still doesn’t agree Qutest is in the state of the art category after both JA’s and Amir’s comments, then it’s clear it’s just the price bothering them. There’s no other way to slice it, after these comments:

From Amir's review: "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. "

From JA's Stereophile review I linked above: "Chord's Qutest offers state-of-the-art measured performance"
 

JRG1488

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I just said state-of-the-art isn't the wording id use for the reasons I gave above , I didn't disagree with Amir's statement.

An extra £900 for such small margins of extra measured performance and no audible improvements isn't state-of-the-art.
 

Thomas savage

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He's just doing his job , I guess he could just say " I designed a audibly flawless DAC years ago so I will stop now and and go work at Tesco".

Seems to me robs keeping himself amused setting his own targets and making a living. I'm sure he's caught up in it all and believes these improvements are audible.

He has to believe it else there's not much reason to bother and his jobs redundant.
 

sergeauckland

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He's just doing his job , I guess he could just say " I designed a audibly flawless DAC years ago so I will stop now and and go work at Tesco".

Seems to me robs keeping himself amused setting his own targets and making a living. I'm sure he's caught up in it all and believes these improvements are audible.

He has to believe it else there's not much reason to bother and his jobs redundant.
I think this is very much the problem with talented audio designers once audible perfection is reached. Where do you do from there? My interest has been increasingly in control and facilities rather than audio quality, which was largely solved over 30 years ago.

The last tenders I worked on before I retired 15 years ago made no mention of dBs and kHz, only what had to route to where, under what circumstances and detailed specifications for the control interface. Audio spec was taken as read. With consumer electronics, it seems that the marketing interest is in control apps and interfacing to networks as well as providing the connections like USB or BT rather than the audio specs.

S
 

JJB70

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I just said state-of-the-art isn't the wording id use for the reasons I gave above , I didn't disagree with Amir's statement.

An extra £900 for such small margins of extra measured performance and no audible improvements isn't state-of-the-art.

In the world of high end audio the Qutest is bargain basement, it may seem hideously expensive to normal people, but normal people with that sort of reaction are not the target audience. A lot of high end audio is just hideously expensive and often shoddily made poor performing jewellery, while the Qutest is expensive it is also a well designed high performance product, it's expensive but at least it's good. I wouldn't buy one as to be honest I am perfectly happy with the DA conversion of my smart phone, DAP and CD player, all of which are audibly transparent and past a point of diminishing returns to my ears. In most areas of technology the concept of diminishing returns applies, so you reach a point where the cost of further improvement is disproportionate to the performance gains. My own view is that DACs are a mature technology and that in most cases separate DACs are unnecessary, although I know they measure differently. However, for what it is the Qutest does at least measure well and isn't obscenely expensive in the way of a lot of hi-fi gear.
 

Frank Dernie

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I just said state-of-the-art isn't the wording id use for the reasons I gave above , I didn't disagree with Amir's statement.

An extra £900 for such small margins of extra measured performance and no audible improvements isn't state-of-the-art.
State-of-the-art is not your’s to define though is it?
 

PierreV

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The RME ADI-2 and the Benchmark DAC 3 are roughly in the same price class - expensive but not insanely expensive jewelry - and don't seem to attract as many haters. If the guy is passionate about what he does and does it well, he deserves a pass imho. Yes, marketing is a bit crazy and seems to enter the "chasing unicorns" territory, but that's a constant in this field and era.

But on the whole, isn't it better to have in the industry guys who worry about pF and ground planes than people who suddenly realize Roon alters the sound signature, and improves by an order, of magnitude the performance of a 10x to 15x more expensive device (DCS)?
 

JRG1488

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The RME ADI-2 and the Benchmark DAC 3 are roughly in the same price class - expensive but not insanely expensive jewelry - and don't seem to attract as many haters. If the guy is passionate about what he does and does it well, he deserves a pass imho. Yes, marketing is a bit crazy and seems to enter the "chasing unicorns" territory, but that's a constant in this field and era.

But on the whole, isn't it better to have in the industry guys who worry about pF and ground planes than people who suddenly realize Roon alters the sound signature, and improves by an order, of magnitude the performance of a 10x to 15x more expensive device (DCS)?

RME ADI-2 and the Benchmark DAC 3 are pro-sumer they are designed to be used in a studio aswell where having better measured performance might have some benefits, plus you get a bit more functionality , pre-amp , headphone amp, balanced outputs. Despite this I think there still quiet pricey for what they are.


The guy is running a business selling products for a profit trying to make money, I doubt he actually believes the BS he writes, his just trying to sell his products so he can make money and knows his target market very well.
When other manufactures are able to make good performing well engineered dacs for less than half the price making one with slightly better performance with over double the budget can't be that difficult.
 

Music1969

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RME ADI-2 and the Benchmark DAC 3 are pro-sumer they are designed to be used in a studio aswell where having better measured performance might have some benefits

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