If you've read about a Chord DAC before you'll know that Rob Watts follows his own way when designing a DAC. He is not using one of the commonly available ready-made DAC chips but instead programs his own algorithms into a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), even in the small and affordable mobile DAC Mojo. During his visit in Gröbenzell Rob shared so much information about that with fellow staffer Roland Dietl and me that this warrants a separate article. For now, without further ado, we'll jump right into describing the sonic performance of the new 'big' Chord.

Immediately after returning home I hooked up the DAVE with the Auralic Aries Femto via USB, with power and with the balanced input of my Einstein amp. I let it run continuously for 48 hours before using it in in some experiments that would result in the redecoration of my listening room. Since the arrival of the Melco NAS my trusted iMac is no longer needed as storage and source for my digital music files. So at first I tried to find out which influence its position between the loudspeakers, in front of the cd shelf at the back wall, had on the sound in my room. With the iMac removed, I realized it had noticeably limited the perceived depth of the imaginary stage, and even the width of the stage benefited from removing it from the room. Now, and also thanks to the DAVE, I can now enjoy an exquisitely vivid and three-dimensional musical experience with the right recordings.

When a friend visited later I went back to using the Chord Hugo TT which – as you might have noticed – for a while was for me the reference in terms of DACs. I'm happy to report that both Chord devices share the same character in sound but with DAVE it's simply a little more of everything. More spaciousness in the (imaginary?) room, more and better defined colors, more 'black' in quiet parts of the music, more punch when needed and more dynamic range. But importantly, none of these aspects are dominant at all, and when compared to his larger sibling, the Hugo TT by no means feels flawed in any way. The DAVE's performance is very similar to that of the Hugo TT, as mentioned before, but just elevated to an even higher level. A level that's very hard to leave again once you've been there. So I made the most of the short time I had before the DAVE had to be moved into the photo studio and then sent back and went on a search for forgotten gems in my collection of by now 1.500 albums on hard disk.

I own the Reference Recording vinyl as well as the RYCO CD edition of Airto Moreiras' Däfos and have used the percussion spectacle that is “The Gates of Däfos” many times to assess the dynamic abilities of products. But this time I sat down and listened to the entire album from beginning to end. And it was immediately obvious that the DAVE's speed and spaciousness are extraordinary. Especially impressive – and surprising – was the track “Psychopomp”. This track uses a unique instrument, made of an aluminum pipe and the bass strings of a grand piano, complemented by a pick-up, volume pedal and a large subwoofer, and filled my listening room with low frequency energy like never before. This made me curious and I switched back to the Hugo TT which manages to keep most of the recording's depht but loses a little in width. But the furious deep growl of the instrument, boosted by huge amounts of controlled feedback noise, had lost some of its terrifying nature. This effect is hard to describe in the usual hi-fi terms but the Hugo TT does not manage to achieve quite the same emotional impact as the DAVE. The big Chord just gives you a little more goosebumps. Needless to say, I wasn't even tempted to try the vinyl in comparison.