DAC dilemma solved ??

How can I pass this one up ?

Chord DAC 64 £1100. Perfect condition. It's even within my budget !

:banana: :boogie:

 

Good stuff Jeff, I'm sure it will complement your Amps beautifully The Dac 64 does respond to power conditioning rather well, worth a thought later on mate. WM

 

Hi Jeff,

Welcome aboard the Chord Dac64 owners club.

What colour is your new dac?

What ever the colour you should have some good fun with it.


SCIDB

 

Dean,

Glad to be aboard !

Its a silver one :groupies: - - none of yer black box nonsense for me

Jeff

 

Well, done the deed! Should arrive tomorrow

Just been thinking though, dont think the Chord has an RCA in (presumably a MK1) and my i/c is RCA/RCA. The simplest way would , I assume, be just to use an adapter but would it be noticably better to reterminate my AZ MC2 ??

 

Jeff - welcome to the club

What colour? I thought they were available in "any colour as long as it's silver" ? A black version would look quite cool though :MILD:

The MkI has a single BNC input (and TOSLink and AES/EBU) and the MkII (which I have) has twin BNC inputs primarily to allow a 192Khz input (which requires 2 connections).

My mate in Portugal who has a MkI uses a BNC to RCA adapter which came with the DAC (I picked it up for him from Walrus in London ex-dem so I don't know if it was Walrus or Chord that supplied it). It looks bloody high quality either way and didn't seem to be doing any "damage" to the sound.

Mine didn't come with an adapter and I use AES/EBU anyway so it wasn't a problem. Now I've got the TEAC transport though unless I fit it with an AES/EBU output along with all the other mods I'm planning I'll need to use a single ended cable and will probably get one with RCA at one end and BNC at the other.

Michael.

 

See here



The top one looks like the job.

Michael.

 

Cheers Michael,

I've got the vendor to stick an adaptor in with the DAC so... sorted !

Must admit I thought they only came in your choice of compulsory silver but IIRC the one Dean brought along to Chris's bakeoff was black.... or maybe the heats got to me

Must admit though, not having been able to demo it in my system, I'm a little bit apprehensive not having changed my CD end for 5 years. One kinda gets used to a sound after all that time! But I'm sure it'll do the biz !

 

Don't forget if you want an isotrans wiget let me know andI'll build you a mark III version. THis is built onto an RCA plug socket combo. I sent bottleneck one recently, he might lend it to you. I've also a fine sounding DAC [duck?] cable if you want to have a listen. Anyway pm if your interested.

 

Hi Jeff,

Are you still using your old transport, or a new one now?

Ironically enough, the balanced A/Z I bought from you is siting around at home as a spare part at the moment!! Can't decide if I want to sell it or not...

 

Wonder why that might be Henry

 

Henry, still the old faithfull M'mega Drive but I guess at some stage its gonna have to go. No idea what i'd replace it with though.

Was my old MC2 balanced ?? I've forgotten. My current one is RCA although I read somewhere that balanced is supposed to be a better connection for the DAC64. Fancy a swop

 

Or maybe not!

Well, DAC 64 has arrived and...erm... well..... the jury I have to say is still out! It doesn't seem to have the body of my Parsaound and does seem a bit bright. It also doesn't seem to be particularly more dynamic. All of which I must say was a bit of a surprise as they were the improvements I was looking for
. CONFUSED ...MOI.. CERTAINLY. Any suggestions??

On the positive side , it does have more detail but does seem less robust, less presence , less "warmth" suppose. Overall more detailed but "thinner" and brighter. I keep casting my mind back to Chris's bake off trying to figure out where the difference really lies.

 

oh dear!

well, if it doesnt work out you should be able to pass it on without losing too much dollar.

You have got it on the 4 second buffer dont you?

It might sound better balanced? - I have a balanced XLO cable spare that you could try if you want to see if it makes a difference..(its even for sale if you like it ! )

Chris

 

Looks like Jeff's potentially got the offer of a number of balanced digi i/c's to play with then!

I wonder if the CAL DAC might have been more suitable then. No, that's probably not helpful advice. Maybe, we could tune the DAC64 to give it a bit more warmth?

I've briefly heard Jeff's system and it is certainly much leaner in balance than yours Chris, the room and the Audio Physics that Jeff uses produces quite a different sound balance. It's an almost transistor sound IMHO in that clean sort of way, but the mid-range harmonics (desirable malifluousness?) is what still marks it out as a valve amplified system. A fair assessment Jeff?

 

Re: Or maybe not!

Jeff I'm surprised you say it's bright
I feel maybe a slight techincal hitch in the rest of the pack some where?, may be the Silver knights are 'tempering the frey a touch mate?, I couldn't accuse the the 64 of being less Dynamic or presence, might be worth a look at speaker cable???? Tone

 

Hmm

Tricky isnt it?

I mean, what do you do when you buy something and it isnt quite right in your system...(if it stays that way and doesnt get better)...

Do you flog it on, or spend more money trying to change some other things?

Its a shame we didnt have your parasound at the bake off, so we could have got more of an idea of the difference in sound between the two.

IF it were me and I wanted to try some things to get an idea of what would happen... I think Id look at some Isolda/variant of speaker cable, and try a few other transports to see if another would be a better fit too.

Hope it works out for you.

Cheers
Chris

 

Re: Or maybe not!

Hmmm....most odd

My experiences with the DAC64 are almost completely the opposite. Not bright at all, plenty of warmth in fact. Loads of body and especially presence and dynamics in bucket loads. Thin and bright are absolutely the last thing I think of when hearing my DAC64.

Jeff - might be worth checking with Chord with the serial no, there was an early batch that had a fault in them which caused them to sound harsh and bright (like the first review sample that Sterophile got and hated - when they had it replaced with the sorted model it was a different story ).

Michael.

 

Hi Jeff,

How are you getting on with the Chord Dac64?


SCIDB

 

Are we talking about the same version dac64. Was the one we heard at the bakeoff the latest?

The cal dac was warmer but in my opinion less open. The two were of a similar level of dynamics and detail.

I prefered the 64 with my cdt...which incidentally has been transformed following the clock up grade and it sound pretty good then !!

If your unhappy with it I might be intrested in having a listen to it with a view to buy ?

Alternatively there are always things that can be done to them to squeeze the last nth of performance from the unit.