Tír Na HiFi

HiFiFan, you mentioned a little earlier in the thread that you had upgraded from the Berkeley Alpha DAC to the Chord DAVE. I should probably ask this in a new thread but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the strengths of the DAVE over the Alpha DAC. Was the DAVE in a totally different league to the Alpha ? I had read the Alpha was quite a standard setter itself although never had an opportunity to hear it.

I have the opportunity for a home demo of the DAVE and may well take up the offer. But hadn't previously been really contemplating a DAC upgrade so would be interested to hear about your experience. Did you also have a number of other DACs in the mix when making the upgrade?

Here we go...

;-)

Will get the popcorn out

Steve wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:45 pm HiFiFan, you mentioned a little earlier in the thread that you had upgraded from the Berkeley Alpha DAC to the Chord DAVE. I should probably ask this in a new thread but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the strengths of the DAVE over the Alpha DAC. Was the DAVE in a totally different league to the Alpha ? I had read the Alpha was quite a standard setter itself although never had an opportunity to hear it.

I have the opportunity for a home demo of the DAVE and may well take up the offer. But hadn't previously been really contemplating a DAC upgrade so would be interested to hear about your experience. Did you also have a number of other DACs in the mix when making the upgrade?

Hi Steve, Thanks for your earlier comments. I think you nailed it - I think I am now getting everything I can out of the Sashas.

I'll keep the DAC reply fairly short, basically the 3 DACs I tried were the Ayre QX something or maybe the Q5-20, the DAVE and the BADA Reference Series II.

Compared to the Ayre and the original BADA the DAVE was orders of magnitude better. It is was difficult with the BADA Reference Series II. I think the BADA RS II sounded nicer on vocals at least female vocals (I think it was a skew away from accurate reproduction to a more analog/vinly/warmer sound) but lacked the detail the DAVE pulled out. I think the DAVE soundstage might have been better too but I can't fully remember. I oscillated over and back between these for a while but decided overall that I preferred the DAVE.

I don't know if you look there but there is a long and interesting thread over at https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/ ... tt-2-r781/ on a guys search for a new DAC.

You probably know this - but in case if care about MQA the DAVE doesn't support it and doesn't appear that it ever will.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing HiFiFan! Hadn't seen that DAC thread before so plenty of reading there.

Must admit I haven't really heard MQA in anger so as to speak. I guess it's certainly a factor to consider. Although pretty clear that the DAVE has it's own strengths. Food for thought!

Steve wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:57 pm
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Must admit I haven't really heard MQA in anger so as to speak. I guess it's certainly a factor to consider. Although pretty clear that the DAVE has it's own strengths. Food for thought!

Sorry to jump in the thread, but my personal thoughts are, that MQA would not be a huge factor. Didn't give nothing more, that you can't get from high resolution lossless files.
Give you some false sense of better sound quality, but in reality is not.
I did compare MQA with flac, WAV & DSD files, and in ferness didn't find to be superior quality from any of them, but that is how I felt it, Just me. :)