Hey, always room for a few more piccies of HH’s Ercolani products, High Wycombe’s finest!
ATB, J
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Just mention active speakers and Atom HE, things will calm down.
As for peas, I’ve mistakenly read as pears - no native British here - and wondered if pears give me a bad stomach. Peas certainly don’t, guess both are healthy food.
Ukp 800 for a Mana copy rack sound crazy.
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My wife loves pears and has one with her breakfast every morning. I have a portion of blueberries with my breakfast. I’m hooked on those.
When you bought your Dave, have you made a blind test between it and several other dacs at similar prices and even less expensive ?
I remember you had the Hugo and when you heard the Dave to decided instantly to marry with it.
How do know for sure that it was the best ? Perhaps you were hypnotised by all the colours lights and its millions taps?
Yoh have asked me that before. But at this momeng I can’t trace my reply to you then. Perhapz you can as you keep good tabs on what peopld post?
If would have bern along the following when I first heard Dave there was blind support instantly in the dealer’s room, when my musician son sitting next to me uttered a “wow!” under his breath echoing my own instant unvoiced reaction within seconds of hearing - but my son didn’t having a clue as to what we were listening to. I’d gone just to audition TT against Hugo, and my son difn’t even know what that was, having no interest whatsoever in hifi). However given the considerable cost I needed to be certain it was the right thing to buy. I had a week’s trial of Dave and TT against Hugo ag home. I was trying to persuade myself TT would do and the improvement with Dave didn’t justify the extra expense - but the blind confirmation tests convinced otherwise! And my wife in another room. Not even listening, was also convinced!
As for the coloured lights, it was positioned out of direct sight (and Hugo’s lights are not flashy anyway!)
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This is the sort of thing that leaves me bemused. If the improvement was so obvious, then why on earth would you need a blind listening test to convince yourself of it? Do you really mistrust your ears that much?
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No mistrust, however I recognised there was a potential risk of sone degree of expectation bias given the rave reviews Dave had had, even though I felt I wasn’t biased towards it before hearing. But the cost of Dave was horrendous - the most I have spent even up to today on anything other than home or motor vehicle, so I was hoping that I might find TT good enough, at half the cost. However every time Dave came on I could instantly hear the magic, and the monetary consideration simply vanished, Dave was simply right and worth the money.
From 2023. You wrote: “What do you count as modern, and have you heard Chord Dave? Obviously what differences anyone will hear depends on the rest of the system, which includes the room, but to me Chord Hugo was noticeably better sounding than the DAC in ND5XS, while Chord Dave was dramatically different - so much so that my musician son sitting next to me at the dealer when Hugo TT was changed to Dave, he having no idea what we were listening to, nor in what order, said “wow!” just a few bars into the first piece of music, echoing my silent reaction. (That was fed with Audirvana on Mac Mini, output direct into Bryston 4BSST2 power amp driving PMC Fact 12 speakers, in a dealer’s room with some acoustic treatment.)”
Absolutely, never need to touch a fraim lite
That post describes my first encounter with Dave. No it isn’t the post I was thinking of - but I haven’t been able to find it either so it may have been a more oblique query, or possibly I am mixing up with someone else. No matter, it was just that I thought I remembered virtually the same question from you before.
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That’s what I meant. It was so obvious to you that it was right for you and worth the money but you still felt a need to indulge in blind testing. You say “no mistrust” of your ears, so why? There’s no harm in it and if it makes you happy to do it then why not? To me it just seems daft, but we all have to do what we feel is right for us.
Just out of curiosity, and I’m not being facetious here, do you have similar approach to choosing other things in life, or is it confined to hi-fi?
Hi, a voice from the past here just to prove I ain’t dead. I met John Watson at some Hifi show around the late 1980’s, sloshed a load of his best wine down my throat, had a good old “discussion” with him and he sent me a Mana stand to go under my Linn Briks and they were delivered by a mate of his who assembled them for me. There was no doubt that they improved the top end but the bass was the same. They weren’t beautiful but they looked a lot better than the Linn stands.
I later acquired a Mana stand for my SBLs, which I still have, and once again they really improved the top end but did nothing for the bass.
I heard a few Naim systems under Mana but the Fraim was way better by far.
So my view is that one level of Mana is good under speakers and that is all.
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It was during the blind testing that it became obvious that it was right for me and worth the money. As I said, I was trying to persuade myself TT would do, but it was best I didn’t know what was playing - of course it was not long at all before I knew instantly when it was Dave, but I really didn’t want to spend that sort of money. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered, but I did.
As for other things, I’m not sure I could blind test a car, nor a house! And I don’t think there would have been an opportunity to blind test a coffee grinder or garden hose, nor greenhouse, and wines would be interesting to blind test but since for most wine I taste at the vineyard there isn’t the opportunity, however with my wife tasting as well we only buy what we both agree is best, and her palate is better than mine.
Thanks Mick. That’s interesting and helpful.
I have to be completely honest with you and admit that I think I’ve lost the plot here.
You earlier said this:
So you knew it was something very special indeed within seconds of hearing it for the first time. But now you say:
So it wasn’t obvious that it was right for you and worth the money when it blew you away on first hearing it? Despite it sounding so obviously special to you? This only became obvious later when you blind tested it? If that were me I would have to conclude then that it obviously wasn’t that good if it only became obvious that it was right for me during further blind listening sessions. I would have to conclude that it obviously wasn’t worth the money if I was in that much doubt.
Not at all. Dave was stunning, but hugely expensive and way outside the budget I was considering spending. It was in the land of never never. To me the £4k I was considering spending on TT was a huge amount, equalling the amount I had spent secondhand on speakers, and that having come from an inheritance from the person who introduced me to music, and the most I had spent on any hifi item up to that point, and I needed a lot of convincing it was better than Hugo. Double that simply didn’t feature, but after going home I couldn’t get it out of my head. After a few weeks trying vainly to forget it I played with finances and saw it was indeed possible, but I felt I needed to have a proper evaluation at home instead of ten minutes in the dealer’s room, so I arranged to get both TT and Dave. In doing that I decided I should do it properly, so set up for blind hearing to be certain. I didn’t have to, but it was easy to so it simply made sense at the time, actually making it more interesting. (Hugo actually did surprisingly well, better against TT than I thought at the dealer, TT actually not much better at all.)
It certainly makes perfect sense to me to want to hear it in your own system before committing to the purchase. Your own approach though is very different to mine. When we were considering upgrading from the entry level Melco to the N50-S38, which at £5K was a lot more expensive and for us a huge amount of money to be spending in one go on hi-fi, I had decided something beforehand. If it didn’t sound obviously and immediately better then it wasn’t worth the spend. If it was something that required swapping back and forth to determine if it sounded that much better then we would reject it. I was really hoping that it wouldn’t sound that much better TBH as it really wasn’t sensible to spend that much money. However I knew literally within 30 seconds of hearing it that I just had to have it. There was just no doubt at all. It was so much better in every way and just blew our existing Melco out of the water. No further consideration was required after that. It was then simply a question of “can we really afford it?” rather than “is it worth the money?”
@70sPete I see your constant stream of posts and comments and disagreements and debates with others and it makes me wonder why? It’s strange you ask for opinions then spend thousands of words discussing the same things over and over. I don’t get it
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I have had a few racks including Quadraspire and Fraim/Frame lite. Nowadays I have Manas for all electronic. Are they beautiful; no, but they’re “bringing” a lot of PRaT to my system in my room with my ears. However they are very sensitive to installation. First installation was not good at all so I teared it down and started all over, well worth the effort.
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Have to say, threads like this make me so happy that I’m comfortable with a simple setup (streaming amp. music server and speakers) and ordinary, domestic furniture solutions for system placement.
KISS, baby, and just enjoy the music.
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