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Rob Watts talk at CanJam 2022

Music1969

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Lots of things about brain being confused and problems for the brain.

We know he can design a great DAC without using a ESS/AKM/TI etc DAC chip - quite impressive when you think about it (see Amir's Qutest measurements):

Not sure why he needs to get into -301dB things being audible.

 
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Music1969

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Because he wants to sell parity product at a much higher price?
Yes since the technical is a bit 'out there' then logically it must be sales and marketing.

But parity performance done 'from scratch' with discreet design is already impressive enough.

I just don't think he needs the -301dB comments to sell. Am only guessing though.

He's got a loyal following and making a lot of money from them.
 

Blumlein 88

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So for a several hundred percent premium he can equal the performance of ESS/AKM based DACS? Color me not so impressed. So he makes up a story about -300 db which is rubbish. Again not so impressed.

An organ 200 ft away doesn't sound 200 ft away in your home because the microphone was maybe 10 feet away? And as more than 99% of all recordings have compression, then how important can noise floor modulation at -120 db be when by definition compression is modulating the noise levels? Gawd hard to listen to all the crap spewing from his presentation. I love the part where conventional DACs sound soft, and hard.
 
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JJB70

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Watts can come out with some real asinine b*LL*x, he is undoubtedly an extremely competent and capable engineer which separates him from so many in high end audio who really are just scammers or idiots but he does say some stupid stuff.
 
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Music1969

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but he does say some stupid stuff.
It's great comedy though.

I hope people aren't getting angry - I hope people are having a good chuckle.

It's funny because his loyal followers really do believe him.

Sold nearly 200k Mojo 1's alone....
 

Purité Audio

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I would never carry anything he designed, even though technically there is nothing wrong with them.
I can’t imagine why he has to stoop so low, ( I know SIY apart from the cash)!
Keith
 

Shazb0t

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I would never carry anything he designed, even though technically there is nothing wrong with them.
I can’t imagine why he has to stoop so low, ( I know SIY apart from the cash)!
Keith
Sellers gotta sell!
 

srkbear

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Between he and Paul McGowan is enough bloated gobbledygook to write the manual on The Art of Sounding Pompously Arcane to Charge Felonious Prices. One gasbag meets another. The only folks more insufferable than these two are their ostentatious customers.

The DAVE is nearly eight years old, and as fine as it sounded back then, its mere concept is so dated at this point and its technology is astonishingly obsolete. Yet schlumps still fork over $13,000 for the thing, and never miss a chance to condescend to us unfortunates who pay less than $900 for a Topping or Gustard DAC that outperforms it in just about every aspect. At least I don’t have to use an adapter to plug my balanced headphones into a single-ended ¼” jack.

I’d have far more respect for Chord and PSAudio if they had some sense of proportion about things and stopped presenting their masterpieces as if they were meant to be displayed under glass behind a velvet rope. The Great Swindle has gone on long enough—an Edsel built by hand and expensively packaged is still a crappy ride.
 

raif71

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I'm using a 2nd hand chord mojo and I like the sound and the power that it has though I will thiink twice getting it or the mojo2 brand new. The other chord gears I can only dream to own them. :)
 

srkbear

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I'm using a 2nd hand chord mojo and I like the sound and the power that it has though I will thiink twice getting it or the mojo2 brand new. The other chord gears I can only dream to own them. :)
The mojo is nice and I’m glad you got it for less than full price—Chord gouges their prices to the extreme, especially for what you get. As far as their even higher priced items go, your dreams are worthy of far better gear—the DAVE is almost eight years old, doesn’t perform as well as newer and far cheaper alternatives, and is way too outdated to continue resting on its laurels,

Pick any DAC from Amir’s top five, all of which outperform the DAVE for less than $1,000–they all outmeasure the DAVE considerably, will pair nicely with an amp with balanced headphone outputs (unlike the DAVE), and you can get a smokin’ amp and headphones with the money you save. :)

Mantra I was once taught by a very wise audio expert, that has served me astonishingly well:

—All-in-one setups (like the DAVE) almost always cost more and offer less

—Invest your cash in the following descending order of price: headphones—>amp—>DAC.

Cheers!
 

AudioExplorer

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He seems to say in this talk that doing computations in floating point unavoidably results in noise floor modulation but this doesn't happen with fixed point operations. I don't understand what plausible reasons there could be for such a statement. Is there any reason floating point should have disadvantages versus fixed point (assuming good implementations for both), noise floor modulation or otherwise?
 
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