I honestly don’t know… it was in one of the mags that did the measurements, and only occurred in certain scenarios.
To put in perspective it’s unlikely to be specifically audible.
as good as Dave is, I found the Mscaler to be the best hi fi component that I own
I did some tests with Mscaler into Dave and Mscaler into Mojo2 (I own all of these), and while the Dave is of course another league than the mojo 2, I found the Mscaler into Mojo 2 to be rather good, and can clearly what what Mscaler does.
I won’t sell my Dave, and I don’t sell the Mscaler, as a combination it really brings music to life, which is what it is all about for me.
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I like my mscaler with the tt2 but much preferred Dave by itself and moved the mscaler on
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Yes that is what I found when testing Mscaler into qutest against bare Dave
But with the benefit of listening to all the combinations., I would keep the Mscaler and run that into even a mojo 2 now. If I had the choose between Mscaler and Dave
Hi Ali, it’s funny for me I simply didn’t get on with the mscaler. I kind of liked it with the TT2, but to me it seemed to make the audio unnatural with the DAVE. I ended up disabling it more often than not… in the end I felt it was silly, so I sold it.
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Absolutely the same as my experience… so I wasn’t the only one 
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I also moved my MScaler on, now run the Dave solo - the Dave on its own sounds soooo good.
Looking forward trying the new Quartet later this year on home demo.
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I understand what you are saying, but I still think the Mscaler is the best hi-fi component that I own. Yes Dave sounds really good on it’s own, but Mscaler into even Mojo 2 I can hear the difference
In another room I run a 2Qute (Hugo 1) and it does sound really good by itself
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I prefer DAVE with MScaler, looking forward to trying the Quartet Scaler at the end of the year.
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Hi,
As requested.
Weiss 204 vs Qutest
Qutest powered by Sbooster + Ultra.
Src = ultraRendu powered by Krisdonia battery at 8.4V
HQPlayer
705.6 kHz to Qutest
384 kHz to Weiss
Playlist:
https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/22769600
The Weiss has a more 3D sound-stage.
The whole presentation is more relaxed.
Instruments have more body.
The bass is tighter, and so other musical detail is more apparent.
Vocals have more presence and detail, vocal technique is more apparent.
None of this is to denigrate the Qutest, which is a great bit of kit. It has lots of positives.
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I think the Weiss costs more than the quest?
How about transient accuracy (how solid or dense does a snare drum sound on the qutest vs the Weiss)
I think the Qutest is really good at playing the way a snare drum sounds, and for me a dac that makes is sound a bit softer than it should… well that is what a Chord Dac is really good at.
it is hi-fi chacun a son gout (everyone likes what they like)
I came to my Qutest from using the internal DAC of my Moon 340ix amp. Completely different sound and far superior. Extremely musically involving and just incredible sound. What it won’t do is smooth things out or warm things up. So if you’re looking for that kind of effect then it’s probably not your best choice. But if you want realistic, dynamic detailed and thoroughly musically involving then I really do doubt that anything near the price can equal it. It’s that good.
I’ve no idea how it compares to the more expensive Chord DACs like the Hugo TT2. I can’t really afford a TT2 anyway, and DAVE is just fanatasy for me, but I was kind of put off by some reviews of the TT2 stating that it had a somewhat lean sound.
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As far as using the Qutest with a LPS goes, Chord, as I’m sure most will know, strongly advise against this. It also will void your warranty. My experience with LPS’s elsewhere in my system suggests to me that they can sometimes work extremely well, as did the Plixir with my Melco N100, but that they can also cause degradation i some instances compared to a SMPS. It’s easy to get seduced by a smoother warmer sound, but this can sometimes come at the expense of dynamics, speed and excitement. I don’t propose to experiment. The Qutest sounds incredible with the supplied PSU so no need to change. And I’m not made of money.
yes indeed I am now listening to my 2qute, and it sounds incredible to me. I have Mscaler/Dave in another room. but the 2qute sounds so good as it is…so musically involving to me… the fluidity of the music is just like live music and pure analog replay… quite a bit softer and less resolution/bite to the sound the Mscaler/Dave, but that’s ok…
Of course, and even more so with the PSU102.
The comparison was requested.
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Per Rob Watts, it will not void your warranty. Per Chord, any quality 5v/2A power supply (i.e. that meets their spec) is approved for use.
I don’t know where the whole “warranty = VOIDED” rumor came from.
I vaguely recall the manual for my Mk1 Hugo saying that using a third party charger may void the warranty. Chord would, of course, need to demonstrate that any third party power supply had actually caused a breakdown if they were to refuse a warranty repair.
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Thanks again for sharing your impressions, quite interesting. Which HQPlayer filters did you use in the comparisons?
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Not so.
This is from an email I received from Chord Electronics when enquiring about the possible use of a LPS:
“Note: using anything other than the supplied Chord Electronics PSU will also invalidate any warranty.”
So from the horse’s mouth and quite clear.
Rob Watts is not an employee of Chord Electronics and he is not and never has been a director. Therefore whatever he says with regard to warranties will carry zero weight as he doesn’t work for them.
Curiously a look at Companies House reveals that Roger Cook, of ‘The Cook Report’, an investigative TV program from years ago, is listed as a former director of Chord Electronics!
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Not at all. Using anything other than the supplied PSU invalidates the warranty. Period. It doesn’t have to cause a problem. Of course they would have to demonstrate that another PSU had been used. Not sure how they would go about doing that.