oleg87
Senior Member
While objectively underwhelming, -80dB distortion products aren't exactly going to grate on the ear either.
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Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?
- Thread starter Willhelm_Scream
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solderdude
Grand Contributor
Plus.... who says the distortion products aren't much lower at say -3dB or even -10 dB where most of the signal will be.
SINAD is just a 1kHz tone at full swing and thus only says something about 1kHz at full swing.
In this case it is a non signed classic R2R converter (TDA1543) which usually are not known to be TOTL performance wise but can be considered transparent.
SINAD is just a 1kHz tone at full swing and thus only says something about 1kHz at full swing.
In this case it is a non signed classic R2R converter (TDA1543) which usually are not known to be TOTL performance wise but can be considered transparent.
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DonR
Major Contributor
Sure as heck beat the pants off an equivalent turntable or tape deck at the time.
I didn’t hear a CD player that I thought sounded better than my turntable until the mid 90’s. You can’t do a DBT because the turntable’s higher noise floor is obvious. When CD players first arrived the people that I knew that loved them right away had $100 turntables with $12 cartridges playing LP’s that were trashed. Their CD players certainly were better. I thought they sounded inferior to a good vinyl rig. Something grated in the upper registers. Maybe it was just a sound I was used to. Maybe it was crap mastering. Maybe it was associated equipment. I don’t know. Wouldn‘t really prove anything to listen to one now either because I’m 66 years old and can’t hear as well as I did then.
So I have a Mojo 2 as my main desktop DAC and I'm hooked on the sound signature, my question is would a Chord Qutest be worth the extra cash ? Is the Qutest a worthy upgrade or does the Mojo 2 sound more or less the same as a Qutest ? I can't really find anyone doing this comparison...
Soria Moria
Senior Member
They sound the same. Keep your Mojo2 unless you want something else for other reasons than sound.
Hemi-Demon
Senior Member
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They sound about the same. I like Chord dacs, outside of the funny colored marble controls. The mojo 2 has the eq options and offers a pretty good single ended headphone jack and it's cheaper. I dislike the battery systemand Inhate micro usb.
The qutest has more taps, but it's just a dac for what $1,600. Watts make some well engineered gear, that measures well, sound great, but his products are a bit overpriced.
There really is no need to upgrade unless you plan on purchasing the Mscaler and you need the BNC connectors.
The qutest has more taps, but it's just a dac for what $1,600. Watts make some well engineered gear, that measures well, sound great, but his products are a bit overpriced.
There really is no need to upgrade unless you plan on purchasing the Mscaler and you need the BNC connectors.
Chester
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You can run an Mscaler into Mojo2, you don’t need a Qutest.
JayGilb
Major Contributor
Just for shits and giggles purchase a $200 dollar DAC for comparison. You can return it if it does not perform as well as a Chord DAC.
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Should I need to, I will replace my Qutest with an ASR recommended product, for less money!
I've got many DACs in that price range, none of them sound as good as the mojo2 to me, all the stuff that Rob Watts says seem to be true, basically 3d sound which I can even hear on my M50x's, the best instrument separation. I found by experimenting that the mojo2 seems to like the optical input, I drive it from the topping D10 with the topping ASIO driver and Qobuz right up to 192Khz, also earthing the 0V seems to help as well.
I have a tone board with a optical connection passively mixed with the mojo2, A/B comparison is easy by selecting the target sound device in Qobuz, it's night and day to me. Normal chip based delta sigma DACs don't seem to sound natural to me, too digital sounding, most likely some do but I haven't found one. I appreciate ASR's measurements but risking opening a can of worms I'm more inclined to think there may be aspects the measurements are not capturing i.e. I trust my ears. Rob Watts talks about nano second timings and small signal rendering down to some crazy low level, I think he's onto something, the proof is in the pudding.
The only thing Rob Watts is on is the gravy train.
Keith
Keith
How to make the pudding was explained by @BDWoody. Any other pudding is way too salty.
velasfloyd
Member
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you do a A/B comparison but you know what you are listen to? if it is not blind, it is not valid. Also volume must be the same. Go check Amir's video.
Chord is scam. basically
Mojo2 is down to £395 from £500 on Amazon, which is not too bad, yes Chord gear is expensive but so is most audio gear, as we know there is no shortage of people willing to pay crazy money for speakers, cables, headphones etc. I know in terms of hardware the Mojo2 doesn't cost any where near the asking price to build, the Artix-7 FPGA costs about £30, the case, battery and other discretes lets say a total of £100, so there's easily £300 profit per Mojo but what price do you put on the skill of crafting such a device, I say if it brings someone joy of what ever sort it might be worth the money. As a side note I also have a DC blocker, AC filter and isolation transformer in the mix all of which seemed to give subtle boost in sound quality, I guess when M50x's sound good you know there isn't much wrong with your audio chain.
As expected.
Try your comparisons with meaningful controls, and you may be surprised. Or, you could just continue buying the story you like best.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
We get new users who open that particular can all the time. Probably one or more each day.
The answer doesn't change: Do the comparison level matched and double-blind, and you're more or less guaranteed to get your mind blown.
And yes, there's aspects of audiblity that the measurements don't capture, but they are by far most likely to be caused by either cognitive bias or badly constructed listening tests, or both.
Once you experience first hand just how much our ears + brain can f¤¤k with us, you'll realize that all they normally can be trusted with is enjoyment. They can only be used for accurate evaluations of reality under very strict conditions.
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