Chord Qutest

[Ron Scubadiver]

10 minutes ago, barrows said:

 

I have no interest in attacking you, but at the same time if I am listening to speculation based on no direct experience then i would appreciate knowing that.  Especially considering that your "view" is actually opposed to my direct experience of listening to Chord DACs.

It could be artifacts or euphonic colorations.  My view is many things subjectivists say they hear are not what they describe, but something else.  They may say they hear a particular improvement, but some will later admit there was a loss somewhere else.  I don't have a Chord DAC around here to listen to, so I have to rely on the comments of others.  You may feel that invalidates my opinions, but much of what we know is based on the observations of others.  Perhaps you would toss the theory of evolution having not seen all the species observed by Darwin?  Some find Chord DAC's to be too analytical.  That gets back to my original statement that there is a house sound associated with DAC chips from different manufacturers.  Many have reported this.  I have observed it myself with ESS chips being very different (and not for me) from AK.

 

Obviously, my views do not line up with those who make large investments in electronics.

[jos]

4 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

It could be artifacts or euphonic colorations.  My view is many things subjectivists say they hear are not what they describe, but something else.  They may say they hear a particular improvement, but some will later admit there was a loss somewhere else.  I don't have a Chord DAC around here to listen to, so I have to rely on the comments of others.  You may feel that invalidates my opinions, but much of what we know is based on the observations of others.  Perhaps you would toss the theory of evolution having not seen all the species observed by Darwin?  Some find Chord DAC's to be too analytical.  That gets back to my original statement that there is a house sound associated with DAC chips from different manufacturers.  Many have reported this.  I have observed it myself with ESS chips being very different (and not for me) from AK.

 

Obviously, my views do not line up with those who make large investments in electronics.

In mine opinion Barrows is not attacking anyone, but is just giving his opinion and although all DAC’s sound different, Chord DAC’s are, in general, retrieving much more details. If those details apparently excist you could say it is a better DAC, in mine opinion.

[barrows]

34 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

It could be artifacts or euphonic colorations

Sure, it "could" be!  But the measurements of Chord DACs say otherwise, and the efforts of Rob Watts in designing them also say otherwise, if you read any of his design approaches, he concentrates on eliminating noise, distortions and artifacts.  Chord DACs eliminate many distortions which are present in other DACs, such as noise floor modulation.  The same can be said of the engineers at ESS, if you do some research on their approach to designing, and improving their DAC chips, they have both the listening panels and the measurements to prove such.  To suggest that Chord DACs add euphonic colorations to the sound is pretty much suggesting they do the opposite of what they actually do.

 

Personally I am in the industry, and do not make the same "large investments" as many do, but that does not have any influence on my experience listening to products and learning about their approaches and engineering.  I go to shows, to dealer visits, and listen to many components in other's systems as well.  I build ESS Sabre based DACs myself and can make them sound soft and forgiving (transformers based output stage and leaky MQA style MP filter), or hard and harsh.  The current ESS 9038 DAC I am working on now is sounding spectacular, but it still has a little way to go (I think) to get to its best performance, next step will be a new power supply for the I/V stage.

 

An audio system should be "analytical", as far as I am concerned, as it is a tool for listening to music.  The audio system itself should not be creative or artistic, that is the job of the musician, recording engineers and producers.  The audio system should get out of the way and let the music speak for itself.  This brings me to something I have been thinking about trying to elucidate: when a listener criticizes something as "analytical" perhaps they really mean something else.  Whenever we have a very high resolution component, we can have perceived problems, I encountered this many, many times when working with customers at PS Audio.  A customer would add (let's say) an AC regenerator to their system, and then be unhappy that they spent the money and now their system sounds "bad".  After some analysis, running down system details with the customer, we could usually get to the bottom of the problem;  adding resolution may throw a system out of balance, with the added resolution actually revealing other problems in the system.  The higher the level of resolution in any system, the more the audiophile needs to pay attention to the details of set-up, and proper component matching.  In the case of our customer with the new AC regenerator, the additional resolution has now unmasked other problems in his system which need to be addressed; this could be as simple as a slight re-postioning of the speakers to something as involved as finding out his amplifier actually sucks!  This is also one area where reviewers need to be really careful, as just dropping a component into a given system context may not reveal what said component is really capable of, in fact it may showcase a problem in the system.  Good reviewers (the late Harry Pearson comes to mind) will spend time optimizing the system to bring out the best (or not as the case may be) in the new component.  The same problems apply to audiophiles adding new components to their systems; they may be disappointed that the new component is not a world beater in their system before they have addressed problems which the new component has unveiled.

[Ron Scubadiver]

1 minute ago, barrows said:

 

An audio system should be "analytical", as far as I am concerned, as it is a tool for listening to music.

That's a completely reasonable objective even if it is not my objective.  Actually, I have a lot of respect for Chord products and may buy one some day. 

[jos]

6 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

That's a completely reasonable objective even if it is not my objective.  Actually, I have a lot of respect for Chord products and may buy one some day. 

If you try one, you will known, they are ahead of the competition.

[asdf1000]

On 06/05/2018 at 2:02 AM, barrows said:

The power supply design and I/V (in the case of Sabre) or analog output stage will have more influence on the sound than the conversion chip.

 

But, Chord does things quite differently.  I have listened to both Mojo and DAVE, and it is clear to me that Chord is onto something with their approach (wish I could afford DAVE here!).  As their DACs combine both super high resolution playback with a lack of artifacts which is quite stunning to me.

 

For others, some posts from Rob Watts about how/why he does things a bit differently, especially the output stage:

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-26#post-11963747

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-132#post-12395944

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-301#post-12838057

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-94#post-12262339

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-qutest-dac-official-thread.869417/page-3#post-13966089

[Ralf11]

that was well put, Barrows

 

but....  paragraphs will help people read it

[barrows]

13 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

that was well put, Barrows

 

but....  paragraphs will help people read it

Sorry, I was in a hurry and it took a bunch of words...

[rickca]

On 5/5/2018 at 1:56 PM, barrows said:

The same problems apply to audiophiles adding new components to their systems; they may be disappointed that the new component is not a world beater in their system before they have addressed problems which the new component has unveiled.

And sometimes a new component shows you how good the rest of the system is by removing a previous performance constraint.  This was my experience with the Innuos Zenith SE.

[barrows]

1 minute ago, rickca said:

And sometimes a new component shows you how good the rest of the system is by removing a previous performance constraint.  This was my experience with the Innuos Zenith SE.

Absolutely!  But even in this case some slight tweaks are often necessary to get the bets out of the system with the new component in place.  Often slight tone balance issues might need ironing out, sometimes just a slight adjustment to things like speaker toe in, or not, may be all that is needed.

[rickca]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

Absolutely!  But even in this case some slight tweaks are often necessary to get the bets out of the system with the new component in place.

Yes I agree.  I found some things that never made a difference before now did what they were supposed to do.

[iansen]

Hi Jos,

 

Just wondering:

(a) which output voltage have you chosen for your Qutest?

and

(b) did you try the different voltage output settings and did they affect sound quality?

 

 

[jamesg11]

Any thoughts on how well the Qutest is handling dsd music files, say, as compared to pcm? /& which player is being used?

[jos]

7 hours ago, iansen said:

Hi Jos,

 

Just wondering:

(a) which output voltage have you chosen for your Qutest?

and

(b) did you try the different voltage output settings and did they affect sound quality?

 

 

At first i used the middle one, but that was to loud in combination with my Amplifier, the Yamaha A-S2100, so I took the lowest setting. I didnt hear a sound quality change. The purpose of these settings are also to make a match with other source components. I don’t have any, so the lowest was the best choice in my case.

[ecwl]

2 hours ago, jos said:

The purpose of these settings are also to make a match with other source components. I don’t have any, so the lowest was the best choice in my case.

 

Actually, the main purpose of the settings is not to match other source components but to accomodate for preamps that would clip the signal if you feed the preamp 3V (or in some cases even 2V). I made the mistake of recommending a friend 2Qute which is fixed at 3V to be paired with his Krell preamplifier. He later switched to a Marantz processor and when I dropped by next time, it was clear that in all loud passages, the Marantz processor was clipping the 3V signal. The problem was fixed with 6dB attenuators. Chord recognizes the problem which is why Qutest has the option to output 1V, 2V or 3V to match the preamplifier to avoid clipping.

In theory, because of the Chord DAC design, the highest voltage that your preamplifier can handle would offer the best signal to noise ratio. So 3V should in theory be better than 2V which should be better than 1V in theory (but not by much). In practice, even if your preamplifier does not clip the 3V signal, because you need more attenuation, it is possible that at the lower volume setting, your preamplifier would be less linear and have worse SNR so listening at the same volume, you may still find that 1V sounds better than 3V without clipping. Most preamplifiers/volume knobs sound best when they are at the 12 o’clock position. Ultimately, the “best” Qutest voltage setting would be one where your preamplifier doesn’t clip the signal AND what sounds best to you. If you’re not sure whether your preamplifier/volume control is clipping, it is best to listen to 1V first so that you get used to what non-clipping sounds like and then crank up to 2V or 3V to see if you can hear the clipping in any loud notes.

[ecwl]

10 hours ago, iansen said:

Hi Jos,

 

Just wondering:

(a) which output voltage have you chosen for your Qutest?

and

(b) did you try the different voltage output settings and did they affect sound quality?

 

 

For example, with your Linn Akurate Kontrol, based on the specifications, it almost definitely will not clip at 2V (middle setting) and it probably (though I’m not sure) will not clip at 3V (highest setting). So I would try setting it at 2V first, listen to lots of music, get used to the sound, and then listen to 3V at the same volume and see if you hear any clipping. 

[ecwl]

3 hours ago, jos said:

At first i used the middle one, but that was to loud in combination with my Amplifier, the Yamaha A-S2100, so I took the lowest setting.

 

I just found the Yamaha A-S2100 specifications. It can handle up to 2.8V input so lowest or middle one should work fine either way from a clipping standpoint. If 1V at the lowest setting sounds best to you, that’s the setting to use.

[jos]

2 hours ago, ecwl said:

 

I just found the Yamaha A-S2100 specifications. It can handle up to 2.8V input so lowest or middle one should work fine either way from a clipping standpoint. If 1V at the lowest setting sounds best to you, that’s the setting to use.

Thanks for the additional information. I didn’ look in the manual and It’s a matter of taste too; I do like to start with a low volume setting because of my wife. She likes to listen softly.

[jos]

3 hours ago, ecwl said:

 

Actually, the main purpose of the settings is not to match other source components but to accomodate for preamps that would clip the signal if you feed the preamp 3V (or in some cases even 2V). I made the mistake of recommending a friend 2Qute which is fixed at 3V to be paired with his Krell preamplifier. He later switched to a Marantz processor and when I dropped by next time, it was clear that in all loud passages, the Marantz processor was clipping the 3V signal. The problem was fixed with 6dB attenuators. Chord recognizes the problem which is why Qutest has the option to output 1V, 2V or 3V to match the preamplifier to avoid clipping.

In theory, because of the Chord DAC design, the highest voltage that your preamplifier can handle would offer the best signal to noise ratio. So 3V should in theory be better than 2V which should be better than 1V in theory (but not by much). In practice, even if your preamplifier does not clip the 3V signal, because you need more attenuation, it is possible that at the lower volume setting, your preamplifier would be less linear and have worse SNR so listening at the same volume, you may still find that 1V sounds better than 3V without clipping. Most preamplifiers/volume knobs sound best when they are at the 12 o’clock position. Ultimately, the “best” Qutest voltage setting would be one where your preamplifier doesn’t clip the signal AND what sounds best to you. If you’re not sure whether your preamplifier/volume control is clipping, it is best to listen to 1V first so that you get used to what non-clipping sounds like and then crank up to 2V or 3V to see if you can hear the clipping in any loud notes.

Thanks, very interesting to read! 

[iansen]

Thanks for the explanation ECWL.

 

Certainly when feeding a Chord 2Qute into my previous pre-amp - the Linn Kairn - something was not right with the sound, and that may well have been clipping. Interestingly, when this was raised with Chord via my dealer, Chord offered to mod my 2Qute to ensure compatibility - which impressed me no end.

 

Of course the three output settings on the new Qutest addresses this issue, and I have the Qutest on order. shame there's a six week waiting list for it over here in the UK...

[ecwl]

23 minutes ago, iansen said:

Certainly when feeding a Chord 2Qute into my previous pre-amp - the Linn Kairn - something was not right with the sound, and that may well have been clipping. Interestingly, when this was raised with Chord via my dealer, Chord offered to mod my 2Qute to ensure compatibility - which impressed me no end.

 

Yes, looking at the specs, Linn Lairn would probably clip at 2V and 3V. Chord probably attenuated the 2Qute output for you to 1V. Very cool.

I’ve listened to 2Qute and Hugo 2 and Hugo 2 is a big leap forward. You’ll enjoy Qutest tremendously. 

[dbq5anlxj]

On 3/17/2018 at 11:45 AM, mentt said:

After one week with qutest + allo USB bridge streamer I can confirm that it is noticeable better than my Naim ND5 XS + Naim XP5 XS  streamer. Naim combo costs 3 times more so good job Chord!

are you able to play native dsd use this setup? thanks

[asdf1000]

31 minutes ago, dbq5anlxj said:

are you able to play native dsd use this setup? thanks

 

Native DSD only via Windows using the Chord ASIO driver. But....

 

...with all Chord DACs (except Dave) DSD is converted to PCM anyway.

 

 

[pl_svn]

2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

with all Chord DACs (except Dave) DSD is converted to PCM anyway.

 

please point to an official statement or evidence of the above!

 

someone posted the very same a few days ago in another thread and now this *rumor* is spreading ?

[asdf1000]

Just now, pl_svn said:

please point to an official statement or evidence of the above!

 

Fortunately, you can ask the DAC designer directly yourself, by joining this thread:

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-qutest-dac-official-thread.869417/

 

You can get the information straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

 

Then you don't need to believe what anyone else says

 

If you're lazy, you can trust me because I've already done all the above ?