Chord Qutest

[buonassi]

Thanks @Miska.  A very helpful response.  I now know more than I did yesterday!  

 

When I had an SD Dac, I did rather enjoy PCM>DSD conversion prior to sending to the DAC.  I was was floored by a DSD128 original file I got from Blue Coast sampler/test download.  So, I may have to revisit conversion to DSD once again.  I really should've kept that iFi iDAC2 🤦‍♂️

 

I realize your position on AUs and how it doesn't quite fit with your value prop for HQP.  I am still intrigued by your player and may get it to use with my upcoming 2ch setup.  It'll be modest hardware to start (some passive KEFs and an amp yet to be decided).  

 

Is anyone here using their Qutest with DSD?  Any thoughts on how it handles DSD vs PCM?  

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, buonassi said:

Is anyone here using their Qutest with DSD?  Any thoughts on how it handles DSD vs PCM?  

 

All Chord DACs other than Dave convert incoming DSD to PCM.

 

Here he discussed Hugo2 but it's the same for Qutest. You can ask him directly on the Qutest thread if you like but Dave is still the only one that doesn't convert incoming DSD to PCM.

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread.831345/page-651#post-13950774

[buonassi]

well there goes that thought.   I guess the lesson here is to avoid as many format conversions in the chain as you can - feed the DAC what it processes natively.  If a conversion must take place, do it with the best tools you can.  IE HQP, etc.  

[asdf1000]

5 minutes ago, buonassi said:

feed the DAC what it processes natively.

 

Yep first step is to find out what the DAC is doing internally.

 

Not many people know that all but Dave convert to PCM internally (in the Chord lineup).

 

There are many people on Head-Fi that swear Mojo/Hugo2/Hugo TT etc all sound best when fed DSD via up-sampling software.

 

The info is buried there in the forums but can be easy  to miss without digging around (or just asking Rob directly - he's pretty easy to reach). 

 

[Miska]

For Chord, I would just convert DSD content to 705600 PCM before sending it to the DAC... (or 352800 for the older models)

 

I'm not sure how the DSD Plus mode or what ever it was called exactly works on Dave. But IIRC, other models don't have such mode.

 

[w1000i]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

For Chord, I would just convert DSD content to 705600 PCM before sending it to the DAC... (or 352800 for the older models)

 

I'm not sure how the DSD Plus mode or what ever it was called exactly works on Dave. But IIRC, other models don't have such mode.

 

I thought you know all about it to criticize it before. 😅

[Miska]

33 minutes ago, w1000i said:

I thought you know all about it to criticize it before. 😅

 

How did I criticize the DSD Plus mode? I can't remember. But if Rob or someone is saying it doesn't work well, then it maybe doesn't work well and could use some improvements. I criticized some other things though. For example the DSD to PCM conversion in Mojo. And false claims about DSD made by Rob Watts which are not even related to a DAC or SDM used to create the bitstream, but attempt to generalize.

 

[w1000i]

28 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

How did I criticize the DSD Plus mode? I can't remember. But if Rob or someone is saying it doesn't work well, then it maybe doesn't work well and could use some improvements. I criticized some other things though. For example the DSD to PCM conversion in Mojo. And false claims about DSD made by Rob Watts which are not even related to a DAC or SDM used to create the bitstream, but attempt to generalize.

 

Which claim ? I read most of his ideas and sound logical for non-expert like me, if can elaborate about his DSD to PCM !

[ecwl]

My understanding is that all modern Chord DACs upsample to 104MHz 5-bit before sending the signal to the pulse array DAC to be output at 104MHz (at an obviously lower bit-rate through additional noise shaping)

 

Hugo2/TT2/Qutest/Blu2/M-Scaler all take DSD signals and convert it to 705.6kHz, 24-bit??? before being upsampled to 11.3MHz using another WTA filter and the being upsampled to 104MHz 5-bit.

 

Chord DAVE DSD+ mode takes the DSD signal 2.8/5.6/11.3MHz and converts it to 2.8/5.6/11.3MHz, 24-bit???, does some sort of filtering on the signal and to 11.3MHz and then to 104MHz 5-bit

Rob Watts the Chord DAC designer discontinued the DSD+ mode for Hugo2/TT2/Qutest/M-Scaler/Blu2 because he finds that with an improved decimation filter to convert DSD signals to 705.6kHz, 24-bit???, he finds the DSD files to sound better (which i can attest to based on my testing comparing DAVE DSD+ mode vs Blu2 DSD playback).

 

So the official Rob Watts recommendation is that if you want to listen to DSD files on Chord Qutest, you should just send the file directly to Qutest to get the best sound. Obviously, people can manipulate the file in whatever way they want for playback.

 

[jos]

27 minutes ago, ecwl said:

My understanding is that all modern Chord DACs upsample to 104MHz 5-bit before sending the signal to the pulse array DAC to be output at 104MHz (at an obviously lower bit-rate through additional noise shaping)

 

Hugo2/TT2/Qutest/Blu2/M-Scaler all take DSD signals and convert it to 705.6kHz, 24-bit??? before being upsampled to 11.3MHz using another WTA filter and the being upsampled to 104MHz 5-bit.

 

Chord DAVE DSD+ mode takes the DSD signal 2.8/5.6/11.3MHz and converts it to 2.8/5.6/11.3MHz, 24-bit???, does some sort of filtering on the signal and to 11.3MHz and then to 104MHz 5-bit

Rob Watts the Chord DAC designer discontinued the DSD+ mode for Hugo2/TT2/Qutest/M-Scaler/Blu2 because he finds that with an improved decimation filter to convert DSD signals to 705.6kHz, 24-bit???, he finds the DSD files to sound better (which i can attest to based on my testing comparing DAVE DSD+ mode vs Blu2 DSD playback).

 

So the official Rob Watts recommendation is that if you want to listen to DSD files on Chord Qutest, you should just send the file directly to Qutest to get the best sound. Obviously, people can manipulate the file in whatever way they want for playback.

 

Yes, you are right! Do not upsampling or oversample, send them directly to the Qutest, as I do too. The DAC is doing the rest.

[CJH]

If one sends pcm 705kHz using HQ Player with Sinc M filter, will the filter be completely discarded by the Qutest or willl there be a sonic difference?

[barrows]

4 minutes ago, CJH said:

If one sends pcm 705kHz using HQ Player with Sinc M filter, will the filter be completely discarded by the Qutest or willl there be a sonic difference?

There will be a difference.  The oversampling step form 44.1 kHz PCM to 705.6 kHz PCM will be the most audible step, and that step will feature whatever filter chosen in HQplayer, so the HQPlayer filter will dominate the sound.  For the most part, oversampling from 705.6 upwards in the Qutest will not (or at least should not) have any audible filtering artifacts because all possible artifacts from filters operating at such high levels will be very far outside the audible bandwidth.

Bottom line: if you oversample in software before the Qutest to 705.6 PCM, what you hear will be the sound of the software based filtering and not the filters in the Qutest.

So one can compare if they prefer HQPlayers filters, or the Qutest filters, send oversampled data at 705.6 from HQPlayer to hear how HQPlayer oversampling sounds, and send native data (44.1, etc) to hear how the Qutest's filters sound.  I would recommend doing this test with 44.1 kHz files, as this will maximize the differences in filter sound.

[ecwl]

12 minutes ago, CJH said:

If one sends pcm 705kHz using HQ Player with Sinc M filter, will the filter be completely discarded by the Qutest or willl there be a sonic difference?

The Qutest 49000 taps only refer to the filter that takes you 44kHz to 705kHz. So if you use HQPlayer to upsample to 705kHz, you’re getting the HQPlayer filter rather than the Qutest filter. 

That said, Qutest would still take the 705kHz and upsample to 11.3MHz using either the WTA or FIR filter depending on which filter color you use (white/green WTA is optimal whereas red/orange FIR is less optimal) and then it’ll upsample again to 104MHz to the pulse array DAC for playback. 

And as @barrows said, you should hear a difference between the native Qutest 49000 taps WTA filter vs HQPlayer’s filter. You’ll have to decide for yourself which one you prefer.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, ecwl said:

Rob Watts the Chord DAC designer discontinued the DSD+ mode for Hugo2/TT2/Qutest/M-Scaler/Blu2 because he finds that with an improved decimation filter to convert DSD signals to 705.6kHz, 24-bit???, he finds the DSD files to sound better (which i can attest to based on my testing comparing DAVE DSD+ mode vs Blu2 DSD playback).

 

So the official Rob Watts recommendation is that if you want to listen to DSD files on Chord Qutest, you should just send the file directly to Qutest to get the best sound. Obviously, people can manipulate the file in whatever way they want for playback.

 

Did you compare also DSD converted to 705.6 PCM in software before sending it to a Chord DAC? At least Mojo objectively (measured) performs much better this way than sending DSD there.

 

[ecwl]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Did you compare also DSD converted to 705.6 PCM in software before sending it to a Chord DAC? At least Mojo objectively (measured) performs much better this way than sending DSD there.

 

I did try to convert DSD to 705.6 using JRiver or Roon in the past. With DAVE in PCM+ mode, I concur with you that the DSD to 705.6 conversion, particularly with Roon sounds better than DAVE’s own decimation from DSD to 705.6 which presumably uses the same filter as Mojo. But DAVE in DSD+ mode sounds better with the DSD file than with 705.6 from Roon/JRiver. 

With Blu2 playing DSD directly (so same DSD to 705.6 conversion as Qutest), the Blu2 conversion clearly sounds better than Roon doing the DSD to 705.6 conversion. 

Obviously that doesn’t preclude the possibility that there are better DSD to 705.6 conversion algorithm with other software. But I don’t listen to recorded DSD tracks much so I rarely bother to compare or seek different software for this purpose

[skatbelt]

3 hours ago, CJH said:

If one sends pcm 705kHz using HQ Player with Sinc M filter, will the filter be completely discarded by the Qutest or willl there be a sonic difference?

 

With any Chord DAC, it is best to feed it with the native resolution of the source and let the WTA filtering do the trick. That's what makes them unique.

[buonassi]

30 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

With any Chord DAC, it is best to feed it with the native resolution of the source and let the WTA filtering do the trick. That's what makes them unique.

 

I'm getting some interesting results using one round in software (44.1 > 88.2), then allowing the 2Qute (not the Qutest YET!) to continue using the Watts filters to oversample.  I say 'interesting' because I haven't really critically evaluated it yet.  But there's no law prohibiting a hybrid approach.

 

Ultimately, you're right.  When you buy a chord DAC, the filtering is one of their differentiators.

 

What really got my attention was that a straight hookup to my mac using USB didn't sound bad, like other DACs I've owned.  Dare I say it sounds even a little more full and 3D than the BNC.  Anyway, the plan is to use 2Qute as a proving grounds, then I'll drop some coin on the Qutest if I still like this presentation after a month or so.  

[jos]

8 hours ago, skatbelt said:

 

With any Chord DAC, it is best to feed it with the native resolution of the source and let the WTA filtering do the trick. That's what makes them unique.

Indeed! Even Darko said in his Qutest review video: ‘it’s a lot of noise about nothing’. 

[kbkaran]

18 hours ago, buonassi said:

 

I'm getting some interesting results using one round in software (44.1 > 88.2), then allowing the 2Qute (not the Qutest YET!) to continue using the Watts filters to oversample.  I say 'interesting' because I haven't really critically evaluated it yet.  But there's no law prohibiting a hybrid approach.

 

Ultimately, you're right.  When you buy a chord DAC, the filtering is one of their differentiators.

 

What really got my attention was that a straight hookup to my mac using USB didn't sound bad, like other DACs I've owned.  Dare I say it sounds even a little more full and 3D than the BNC.  Anyway, the plan is to use 2Qute as a proving grounds, then I'll drop some coin on the Qutest if I still like this presentation after a month or so.  

 

Interesting, I had a Mutec and still have Bel Canto ULink, but I dont think it made a difference feeding via BNC vs USB. So I am going straight to my 2Qute, but with a Audioquest Jitterbug and a Ifi iUSB in the chain. I am also waiting on the sidelines for the move to Qutest. The micro-usb for the power is something I am not fond of. 

I will try the hybrid sampling now (I have set my JRiver set now to max out to 352 of 392K). Anyways, the native vs 352K, the native seems relaxed but less resolved. It is a very subtle difference, it could all be in my mind.

 

[nick77]

I havent been able to get HQP to work with my new Qutest, could someone please send me a screenshot of your settings?

Thanks for the help. 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, nick77 said:

I havent been able to get HQP to work with my new Qutest, could someone please send me a screenshot of your settings?

Thanks for the help. 

 

What OS are you using? On Windows it should work fine with Chord's ASIO driver. On Mac and Linux with the built-in driver.

 

[nick77]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

What OS are you using? On Windows it should work fine with Chord's ASIO driver. On Mac and Linux with the built-in driver.

 

 

I am using Win10, where do I find the driver?? Ive looked at Chord website. The Qutest didnt come with a thumb drive with driver like the 2Qute.

 

[ecwl]

8 minutes ago, nick77 said:

 

I am using Win10, where do I find the driver?? Ive looked at Chord website. The Qutest didnt come with a thumb drive with driver like the 2Qute.

 

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/product/qutest/

 

Or more specifically

 

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Windows-10-768KHz-driver.zip

[asdf1000]

21 minutes ago, ecwl said:

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/product/qutest/

 

Or more specifically

 

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Windows-10-768KHz-driver.zip

 

Yep it's there on the right @nick77, in case you're wondering...

 

[nick77]

Duh!! I was off under "support" tab and didnt find anything. 

 

Thank you so much!