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First of all, I will be the first to tell you if I’ve laid an egg on a purchase. I like to tell it like it is, when there’s a very clear and audible impression. If something is hype, or not audible to me, I will say so. Hopefully that has come across in some prior posts I’ve made. I am also not affiliated with the audio industry...just an audiophile seeking out ways to get more and more from my music playback system.
The Chord Blu Mk2, or should I say, the MSacler in the Blu2, is a significant achievement in digital. The Dave is already an excellent DAC that separated itself considerably in the areas of focus, timing, staging width and depth, and lifelike energy compared to the PSAudio DirectStream and Bricasti M1SE I owned before landing a Dave.
Robert Watts Of Chord, in lots of listening tests on different well-known distortion factors found high returns by zeroing in on the importance of digital “timing” to address problems inherent to digital recordings called “pre-echo ringing”. Sometimes a DAC manufacturer will refer to these capabilities as time domain or phase digital filters, and MQA mastering algorithms.
With the Watts designs in current Chord gear, there is something called “tap length” which the term associated with processing capacity for both upsampling and applying algorithms largely aimed to perfect timing, which is a crucial element for restoring the original analog event.
Chord’s research showed that benefits more upsampling and taps ran out to about 1 million before they couldn’t hear anymore benefits. The Dave DAC has a tap length of 164K. Power requirements for the 1 million tap processing in MScaler technology would compromise the on noise floor in Dave...This is why 1 million tap MScaler is either packaged in Blu Mk2 transport, or an MScaler in Hugo TT2 dimensions, due out in 4th quarter.
The Blu2 is the real deal. It’s the rest of the Dave package, that unlocks a very significant boost of Dave type of rightness...timing, focus, separation, spatial qualities, transient attack and decay in the very small but human perceptively critical microdetails. It’s not a subtle improvement...it’s apparent upon listening to the first well known reference song title. Then you’re left completely engaged, and wanting to listen to everything. I could sit here holed up in my Audio lair for a week.
A few other things I believe are noteworthy that I’m still sorting out. With the Dave, high res files, and MQA files became a less important factor. In other words, the Chord filters and Dave’s 164k of tap processing for timing had brought Standard RBCD (without absolute certainty on same original master sources) up to the level of 96 or 192 KHz PCM, or MQA mastered PCM.
With the Blu2 MScaler’s 1 million taps, renders both high res and MQA become even LESS relevant... and I’m very tempted to say they ARE IRrelevant. So all this dogma about adding data that wasn’t there bla-bla-bla is shortsighted thinking in a box...and dispelled from my own audiophile sensibilities. I can go way more technical why i think this is true, but keeping this review short, and I’m telling you purely from the listeners perspective here.
The BluDave does not sound dithered, or unnatural in any way. It brings me closer to the original event in a very transparent, uncolored and highly dimensional for 2 channels way. It was hard to imagine that Dave can be improved this much...but you don’t know what you don’t know until you hear it.
At this point in time, Chord, or at least Robert Watts, is a company or digital innovation presence that I listen to intently for whatever the new developments are. This is the best digital I’ve heard personally whatever Jon comes up with from MSB). In any case, this was an all good experience...except the remote. The remote is more versatile than the Dave remote, but the quality of the materials is still cheap. I’m not sure why they let a detail like the remote tarnish what is otherwise excellence in spades. Anyway, I hope they can include a remote worthy of the Chord name and digital pedigree in the future.
Final word...I don’t get into global statements about whether it’s worth the price. Proce/Value proposition is a highly individual circumstances, sound preferences, and importance of getting into the last 10-15% of what is possible. For someone like me in my situation, it’s worth the cost and there are no regrets at all.
The Chord Blu Mk2, or should I say, the MSacler in the Blu2, is a significant achievement in digital. The Dave is already an excellent DAC that separated itself considerably in the areas of focus, timing, staging width and depth, and lifelike energy compared to the PSAudio DirectStream and Bricasti M1SE I owned before landing a Dave.
Robert Watts Of Chord, in lots of listening tests on different well-known distortion factors found high returns by zeroing in on the importance of digital “timing” to address problems inherent to digital recordings called “pre-echo ringing”. Sometimes a DAC manufacturer will refer to these capabilities as time domain or phase digital filters, and MQA mastering algorithms.
With the Watts designs in current Chord gear, there is something called “tap length” which the term associated with processing capacity for both upsampling and applying algorithms largely aimed to perfect timing, which is a crucial element for restoring the original analog event.
Chord’s research showed that benefits more upsampling and taps ran out to about 1 million before they couldn’t hear anymore benefits. The Dave DAC has a tap length of 164K. Power requirements for the 1 million tap processing in MScaler technology would compromise the on noise floor in Dave...This is why 1 million tap MScaler is either packaged in Blu Mk2 transport, or an MScaler in Hugo TT2 dimensions, due out in 4th quarter.
The Blu2 is the real deal. It’s the rest of the Dave package, that unlocks a very significant boost of Dave type of rightness...timing, focus, separation, spatial qualities, transient attack and decay in the very small but human perceptively critical microdetails. It’s not a subtle improvement...it’s apparent upon listening to the first well known reference song title. Then you’re left completely engaged, and wanting to listen to everything. I could sit here holed up in my Audio lair for a week.
A few other things I believe are noteworthy that I’m still sorting out. With the Dave, high res files, and MQA files became a less important factor. In other words, the Chord filters and Dave’s 164k of tap processing for timing had brought Standard RBCD (without absolute certainty on same original master sources) up to the level of 96 or 192 KHz PCM, or MQA mastered PCM.
With the Blu2 MScaler’s 1 million taps, renders both high res and MQA become even LESS relevant... and I’m very tempted to say they ARE IRrelevant. So all this dogma about adding data that wasn’t there bla-bla-bla is shortsighted thinking in a box...and dispelled from my own audiophile sensibilities. I can go way more technical why i think this is true, but keeping this review short, and I’m telling you purely from the listeners perspective here.
The BluDave does not sound dithered, or unnatural in any way. It brings me closer to the original event in a very transparent, uncolored and highly dimensional for 2 channels way. It was hard to imagine that Dave can be improved this much...but you don’t know what you don’t know until you hear it.
At this point in time, Chord, or at least Robert Watts, is a company or digital innovation presence that I listen to intently for whatever the new developments are. This is the best digital I’ve heard personally whatever Jon comes up with from MSB). In any case, this was an all good experience...except the remote. The remote is more versatile than the Dave remote, but the quality of the materials is still cheap. I’m not sure why they let a detail like the remote tarnish what is otherwise excellence in spades. Anyway, I hope they can include a remote worthy of the Chord name and digital pedigree in the future.
Final word...I don’t get into global statements about whether it’s worth the price. Proce/Value proposition is a highly individual circumstances, sound preferences, and importance of getting into the last 10-15% of what is possible. For someone like me in my situation, it’s worth the cost and there are no regrets at all.
