Heard nd555 vs ndx2 with Dave and frankly the ndx2 +Dave combo wins overall. And that’s without an mscaler involved
Where do you live? I live remote from any dealers, but had a dealer in London, 250 miles away, send me one to audition (actually two, as I auditioned both TT and Dave at same time).
Me too.
I tried nDAC vs Chord Qutest in my system years ago and found Chord dacs sterile and not musically engaging (in this and other tests, inc. vs TT).
The only way you’ll know is if you give it a go in your own system.
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Be very careful, chord dacs are a bit marmite. If you like what they do you will be loyal for life, if not then you will regret the decision. Demo is a must, and there are so many great dacs in the Dave’s price range. One thing for sure, if you want a very different sound to ndac and PS Dave is it
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This is in part down to the fact that Naim and Rob Watts (for Chord Electronics) use quite different methods of digital to analogue reconstruction… that process is imperfect and always an approximation (albeit a very close approximation ) … and there are quite different approaches in tackling it, which in the real world lead to audible differences. Further Naim use off the shelf components with quite basic digital filtering algorithms… where as Chord use bespoke components and highly bespoke software, Naim use IIR digital filtering with a recognized filter type where as Chord use FIR digital filtering with a custom FIR windowing function… all this adds to differences in presentation and ultimately nuanced differences in the rendering of intricate tonality, spatial information and air.
Your brain starts to expect some of these cues when you use these DACs, and you tend to match your system to align with their performances, so switching between them when critical listening can be frustrating… leading one feeling Naim or Chord DACs are ‘marmite’. (That is you like or dislike a lot).
However both Chord and Naim make some of the best DACs out there… they just do it differently.
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Agreed!
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I attended a demonstration of Dave with and without a mscaler by a Chord distributor a month ago. They used some historical female voice jazz recording which was fed by the new hyper-Melco and fancy cables. The point was to show how much more natural and precise the music would be made by the mscaler. Of course, the difference was not subtle at all, with the bare Dave being surprisingly messy for such an expensive dac. This had me worried. But I guess they rather wanted to highlight the capabilities of the mscaler.
But it isn’t generally … however you can get the mscaler to make a huge difference on the DAVE depending on the source and feeding signal.
A quality source signal such as via SPDIF can sound wonderful with DAVE and sound less impressive with mscaler, unless you scale the over sampling back.
I found myself constantly adjusting the oversampling to maximize what Mscaler was doing so it didn’t get in the way… depending on the production… it became too much fuss, as I couldn’t change this under software control aligned with the meta data of the file playing.
Also for 192/24 the mscaler does less than with 44.1/24.
So Mscaler can be good, but it is certainly not a fit and forget component if max DAC reconstruction quality is what you want.
I remember personally discussing some of these points with Rob Watts himself… interesting and personable chap, and yes it would not be appropriate to share much of the discussions here, but some of my points were met with a boyish grin and not disagreed with… for the avoidance of doubt he told me he loved what the mscaler could do for his taste in digital audio reproduction for certain recordings… … which is why at the time perhaps he wanted to move more into audio production systems… as he saw that being the bottle neck.
I kind of agree, a 48/24 transfer from a late 60s 4 track is probably the mscaler’s sweet spot (my view) … its just such recordings are a minority in my collection.
Oh I remember reading somewhere that the mscaler is usually preferable to use with DAVE if you listen a lot to DSD files (as opposed to PCM) - as its DSD filtering and DSD noise shaping is more advanced than DAVE’s apparently… but I don’t know the details.
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Just had a google and a dealer near us stocks Chord. So maybe a home demo, or extended audition, would be possible.
Trouble is our black box kit is now obsolete, so going forward any naim demo room is going to be new classic - which we already know changes the sound signature dramatically from our current system.
So maybe a home demo is the only sensible option. Haven’t really looked too hard at other DACs, other than Weiss has also been recommended.
A Dave is also against SWMBO’s rules on aesthetics, still working on that…
But then why not try the dcs Lina as well? It’s supposedly vastly superior to the Dave and has a built in streamer. Also the shoebox format is enticing.
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Where did you find that out?
I was curious about that too - general web browsing tends to suggest the DAVE is one of the best and advanced DACs on the market currently - and I saw no general mention of another DAC available on the market being vastly superior to it… of course that doesn’t mean you will necessarily enjoy it the moat - as has been discussed many times before.
But the dcs Lina looks like a DAC with similar pushing the technology envelope as DAVE albeit in its particular direction of conversion. I am sure they are both equally as good as each other subject to personal tastes of the listener…
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Maybe I should have emphasised “supposedly” but here goes: stevehuff the-dcs-lina-dac-review-with-speakers
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I think the DCS Lina is a fairly new product so there probably isn’t many reviews about it yet.
Also to get the most out of the Lina Dac you would probably/possibly also need the Lina Master Clock which is more expense.
Well he likes the dCS
“The Dave gets very very close in sound to the Lina but the Dave leans a bit leaner and sharper where the DCS Lina is fuller, thicker, smoother with more density …”
So the dCS matches more his personal tastes, horses for courses - but ‘very very close’ doesn’t sound like vastly superior to me … I guess we need to watch those hyperboles
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What’s the rule? No hifi gear that looks like it came from Captain Nemo’s Nautilus 
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interesting points, however its been a few years for me, I have compared Dave bare to Mscaler many times, for me there is no doubt that the processing of Mscaler makes Dave a much better and enjoyable experience for me with all recordings.
I am not doubting your findings, but just giving my experience. I compared both quite a lot, and find the beginning and ending of notes more easier to hear (as much of what Rob Watts is trying to achieve is transient accuracy, which is a time issue, how far back and forth his filter looks in trying recreate the missing samples (apparently 15 extra samples for each sample at 44.1/16). So I do hear what Mscaler does in that way (better bass, more density in the music (if we can call it that, and better attack in the notes that require it) and I wouldn’t be without it now. In fact looking forward to the new Choral Mscaler on the way
of course - its all about our tastes and systems and there is a huge variation on that - I was just countering that mscaler automatically makes all things better - because it doesn’t necessarily from a SQ perspective … but it can change the presentation that might match a system better. I quite enjoyed the sharper brighter and more intricate presentation from mscaler/DAVE with my Empyrean planar headphones on several recordings - but less so with Naim application and ATC speakers - but that was my personal preference. Others will be very different. But I prefer the fuller more organically dense and marginally slower sound of the DAVE bare as opposed to the sharper more intricate mscaler variant - even though without mscaler it might not be as accurate in the limit in its reconstruction in very fine details and air encoded within the digital signal of certain recordings. (that is using an NDX2 via 75 ohm SPDIF coax)
BTW I also preferred the Chord bundled coax leads in the longer term as opposed to the Wave High Fidelity Storm Reference BNC cables between mscaler and DAVE - I guess I am not the typical punter the marketeers go after with my tastes… I found the bundled leads gave a slightly slower presentation which I preferred… now some of this could have been physical coupling from the heavy Wave Storm leads - but I guess we are talking these sort of subtleties.
The dave dac is a great dac, but at the same time it’s showing it’s age now.
It does have a leaner sound to it, and it can sound clinical. Both off these points are well documented and i totally agree with that.
That doesn’t mean it’s not good, as that might be just what you are looking for in a dac, but most aren’t. Plus add into that you might need the mscalser to carm it down a bit, plus you also need a streamer if you actually want to hear anything, also some spending big money on power supplies for it. Then suddenly it all starts to look messy, expensive, and that’s without the expensive cables you will probably feel you need to connect it all.
The dCS lina dac is getting fantastic reviews especially as it was ment really for headphones, but then it does share the same ring dac, so no reason why it should sound fantastic, and now finding homes in more than just headphone rigs.
Plus you can make it better if you wish with the clock.
Plus it won EISA 2023/2024 award for best high end headphone solution.
Also isn’t chord bringing out a higher dac next year ? If so then you can expect to see the dave even cheaper, and that then makes it better value for money
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dCS Lina requires a separate headphone amp if you want to use it for headphones and there is also a master clock available so not necessarily any cheaper or less messy!