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Snobbery in Hi-Fi. Why are people so stupid and turn their noses up at gear costing much less which is just as good?

Hello my dear sceptics. I’m the proud owner of a Chord Dave. Objectively less than a 300 dollar Topping. Well I owned a lot of these Toppings, from D10 and ending with the D90 Discrete, and I always felt that I was missing the music, not the tones. The moment I heard a Chord Dave I knew that I wanted to own one. The difference in sound quality with all these Toppings is shocking. Especially when you know that so many people use a Topping for their expensive speakers. But that is their problem. The moment my strange looking Chord Dave powered my Neumann KH420’s (yes, bought because Amir said so) I was in heaven. But the story did not end here for me.

The utterly useless jitter-generating Chord M Scaler was, of course the next step. And last week was my week, I found a second hand unit for half the price. Still enough to feed a family for six months but hey! Hifi.

To be honest I really didn't know what to expect. I just had to try it. Despite the horrible review here at ASR. Well, the bloody thing works. Perfectly. I know you hate audiophile-like descriptions but I hear better defined details, naturality, tighter bass and all this without losing the musicality that Chord has en Topping has not.

I wish you much success with your blind tests and evidence-based music experiences. I know that you are all nice guys, like me. ;)
 
HuubFranssen said:
The moment my strange looking Chord Dave powered my Neumann KH420’s (yes, bought because Amir said so) I was in heaven.
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You do realize that your Neumann converts that analogy signal output by the Cord back to digital then back to analog?
 
HuubFranssen said:
Well I owned a lot of these Toppings, from D10 and ending with the D90 Discrete, and I always felt that I was missing the music, not the tones.
Click to expand...
Which of the 0 & 1 s do you think the Topping was losing in it's DA conversion?
 
HuubFranssen said:
Hello my dear sceptics. I’m the proud owner of a Chord Dave. Objectively less than a 300 dollar Topping. Well I owned a lot of these Toppings, from D10 and ending with the D90 Discrete, and I always felt that I was missing the music, not the tones. The moment I heard a Chord Dave I knew that I wanted to own one. The difference in sound quality with all these Toppings is shocking.
Click to expand...
Let's assume for a minute that there is some real difference in sound quality between the Chord Dave DAC and the Topping DAC and further that there has yet to be a widely used measurement that can capture and show the objective difference... to verify that this difference is real have you verified that this difference is not simply your impression based on sighted bias?

I for one was open to the the idea that the prevailing understanding of DACs and digital audio here at ASR might be wrong. I thought I could hear differences that were not being measured. To find out for myself, I went to the trouble of setting up my own double blind test. It was pretty eye opening to discover the differences I thought I heard vanished during the double blind comparison.
 
Mr. Widget said:
Let's assume for a minute that there is some real difference in sound quality between the Chord Dave DAC and the Topping DAC and further that there has yet to be a widely used measurement that can capture and show the objective difference... to verify that this difference is real have you verified that this difference is not simply your impression based on sighted bias?

I for one was open to the the idea that the prevailing understanding of DACs and digital audio here at ASR might be wrong. I thought I could hear differences that were not being measured. To find out for myself, I went to the trouble of setting up my own double blind test. It was pretty eye opening to discover the differences I thought I heard vanished during the double blind comparison.
Click to expand...

Yes I’m sure. Why would I spend so much money? Throw away your Topping and spend some more for a decent Chord.
 
PristineSound said:
You do realize that your Neumann converts that analogy signal output by the Cord back to digital then back to analog?
Click to expand...

It’s Chord, not Cord. The Neumann KH420 is completely analog. The reason why I bought it. I hate too much digital things in my chain.
 
Sal1950 said:
Which of the 0 & 1 s do you think the Topping was losing in it's DA conversion?
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By traditional approach I would agree with you. But apparently there is this whole new envelopment thing that you can't measure?
 
Sal1950 said:
Which of the 0 & 1 s do you think the Topping was losing in it's DA conversion?
Click to expand...

Yeah this is how you think. An ASR forum member, not so long ago, heard a Chord Dave with and without M Scaler at his friends place. Ofcourse he heard differences. Because he thinks like you he suspected the Chord Company for including a tone control in the M Scaler. You can imagine what I think… the effect of the M Scaler can impossibly be caused by a tone control.

When the flat-earth-people do measurements to prove that the world is flat these measurements always prove the opposite. Then they must, and will, conclude that their measurements are not correct.
 
HuubFranssen said:
It’s Chord, not Cord. The Neumann KH420 is completely analog. The reason why I bought it. I hate too much digital things in my chain.
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I think you’re a troll.

And ‘hate too much digital things…’ is senseless.

Unless they are broken.

And you mean too many.

And, you can’t be ‘sure’ because you haven’t DB’d them.
 
HuubFranssen said:
It’s Chord, not Cord. The Neumann KH420 is completely analog. The reason why I bought it. I hate too much digital things in my chain.
Click to expand...
My mistake the 120 and 150 are the one with DSP
 
HuubFranssen said:
Yes I’m sure. Why would I spend so much money? Throw away your Topping and spend some more for a decent Chord.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm wondering why you would. The goal is buying musical enjoyment for money, right?

For over ten thousand euromoneys, oh boy, there's so much else. Endless amounts of music. Even a big new record collection (ludicrous prices these days lol). Killer speakers and two subwoofers. All kinds of room correction. Room treatment. A big arse music studio with the most beautiful and gorgeous sounding instruments and all periphery.

Endless options, all of which actually make a big difference not only in factual terms, but most importantly in musical enjoyment.

You chose the absolute worst option for the money. Enjoy.
 
HuubFranssen said:
Yeah this is how you think. An ASR forum member, not so long ago, heard a Chord Dave with and without M Scaler at his friends place. Ofcourse he heard differences. Because he thinks like you he suspected the Chord Company for including a tone control in the M Scaler. You can imagine what I think… the effect of the M Scaler can impossibly be caused by a tone control.

When the flat-earth-people do measurements to prove that the world is flat these measurements always prove the opposite. Then they must, and will, conclude that their measurements are not correct.
Click to expand...
You sound like Danny Ritchie.

But if you are happy with your Cord purchase for whatever perceived reasons, I am a fierce defender of people's decision on what they buy, so long it's with your own legit, earned money and it's legal.

More power to you. . .just don't try to convince me of fairy tales though
 
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HuubFranssen said:
Yeah this is how you think. An ASR forum member, not so long ago, heard a Chord Dave with and without M Scaler at his friends place. Ofcourse he heard differences. Because he thinks like you he suspected the Chord Company for including a tone control in the M Scaler. You can imagine what I think… the effect of the M Scaler can impossibly be caused by a tone control.

When the flat-earth-people do measurements to prove that the world is flat these measurements always prove the opposite. Then they must, and will, conclude that their measurements are not correct.
Click to expand...

ZZZzzzzzzz.
3/10 troll
 
Paul7777x said:
I think you’re a troll.

And ‘hate too much digital things…’ is senseless.

Unless they are broken.

And you mean too many.

And, you can’t be ‘sure’ because you haven’t DB’d them.
Click to expand...

No my friend , I’m not a troll. Just somebody like you.
 
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