Chord Electronics Qutest D/A processor $1895 Review
January 8, 2019 Comments Off on Chord Electronics Qutest D/A processor $1895 Review
“Overall, a win on points to the PS Audio, but of course, it ought to sound better than the Chord, given that it costs more than three times as much. I therefore reached for our review sample of the original Mytek Brooklyn, which Jim Austin reviewed in November 2016. The Brooklyn cost $100 more than the Qutest (footnote 4) but includes a phono preamp, volume control, and headphone output, as well as offering MQA decoding. For the comparisons I set the Brooklyn’s reconstruction filter to MPh (Minimum Phase), which I felt dealt most gracefully with the overcooked Queen album. Even so, the Mytek’s balance was slightly more forward than the Chord’s, which meant it sounded a little louder despite the levels being matched.”
AVM Ovation SD 6.2 Preamplifier-DAC-Streamer $9990
December 24, 2018 Comments Off on AVM Ovation SD 6.2 Preamplifier-DAC-Streamer $9990
‘As I listened more, I began to concentrate less on the performance of the SD 6.2 within specific frequency bands. For instance, when I tried to focus on what the AVM was doing in the bass, I realized I was assessing more the sound of the speakers than of the electronics. This became obvious when I swapped out the EgglestonWorks Kivas, which are fairly large, three-way floorstanders, for Monitor Audio’s smallish, two-way, Studio stand-mounts, then swapped the Kivas back in again. My takeaway from all of that was that the Ovation SD 6.2 had no problem of bass lightness or heavy-handedness. Its sound seemed perfectly neutral, feeding each pair of speakers exactly what it needed to produce excellent bass within that model’s capabilities.
Eventually, as I began to focus more on soundstaging, I came to find out that this largely depended on how the SD 6.2 handled high-frequency subtleties. Basically, the AVM’s reproduction of the treble was so delicate and precise that its re-creations of the subtle cues of the acoustics of live venues were stunningly realistic. Concert recordings took on a more holographic nature in terms of soundstage depth, and my perception of the AVM’s ability to reproduce the ambience that placed me at the center of a soundfield — as opposed to looking in at it from a distance, from the outside — also increased.”
Chord’s Qutest is *the* DAC to beat at $2K
November 20, 2018 Comments Off on Chord’s Qutest is *the* DAC to beat at $2K
Playback Designs MPD-8 Dream DAC Review
October 9, 2018 Comments Off on Playback Designs MPD-8 Dream DAC Review
“Andreas Koch believes that DSD is a first-class file format capable of providing excellent sonics. While most of the DSD (dsf) files available for download are DSD64, superior sound can be obtained from Double DSD (DSD128) or Quad DSD (DSD256) files. The MPD-8 has the capability to play Direct or Native DSD as opposed to DoP. Playing DSD files under the DoP (DSD over PCM), results in a 30 to 50 percent increase in CPU processing overhead. This might affect the sound when the DAC is driven directly by a computer. Also, the DoP implementation for DSD256 requires support for PCM at 705.6 kHz and 768 kHz. These high sampling rates pose a significant challenge for both the computer CPU and USB audio interface. Most DACs, including the MPD-8, support DoP with a top limitation of DSD128. Playback Designs provides an ASIO driver for Windows that allows one to play DSD files directly without DoP allowing DSD256 capability. There is also support for Linux playback of DSD256 in products like the Sonore Signature Rendu SE. OSX users will be limited to DSD128 using DoP with the MPD-8. DoP sounds quite good when heard with the MPD-8, but Native playback sounds a little better to me.”
Chord Qutest DAC preview
October 1, 2018 Comments Off on Chord Qutest DAC preview
” Chord has packed the Qutest with a lot of technology and it just plain works right of the gate, being compatible with OSX, Linux, Windows, Android and iOS devices I could run it from pretty much anything. Chord has crammed in one of their custom FPGA DACs with variable output available upon startup – I chose the 3v option (2v and 1v are also available) because the bass depth was far deeper to my ears. The filter selection button is easy as pie to use and gives me four option
AURALiC VEGA G2 DAC REVIEW
September 28, 2018 Comments Off on AURALiC VEGA G2 DAC REVIEW
“Using the Streaming input, I called on Roon’s back-end DSP to upsample all files to DSD512. The Nucelus+ was handled the extra processing without issue but to achieve glitch-free performance, I had to select the Parallelize Sigma-Delta Modulator setting in Roon that enables the use of multiple CPU cores on the Nuclues+.
Being somewhat a purist when it comes to digital playback, I don’t often employ this kind of file modification when listening but upsampling everything to DSD512 sounded very nice and I suspect that many users will enjoy this feature. I heard a little more presence to the midrange as well as a slight increase in the prominence of the bass. The soundstage came on as even larger in terms of front to back measurement with the extra depth coming from a slightly more forward presentation. I felt that converting the PCM and (lower-rated) DSD files to DSD512 lent a more pleasing bloom to the overall sound.”
Audiophilepure 
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