Chord DACs are all FPGA based DACS designed by Rob Watts who started out as a design engineer for Zetex semi conductors. Really nice guy did some work with him about 20 years ago. He also did the development of the Zetex Class D chip amp which sounded incredible back in the early 2000's when the only other alternatives were things like the ICE chip and the TRIPath

@aaronmoore3050

Ай бұрын

To what extent does the audiophile industry know that most of their customers have moderate hearing loss, particularly in the high frequencies where the differences in fidelity are measurable?

@gr4eme1975

Ай бұрын

As some one that works in the Highend and Ulrtra high end industry hearing loss isn't the issue, the fact the customers are dying is the bigger issue 🤣@@aaronmoore3050

@lasskinn474

Ай бұрын

@@aaronmoore3050 man they just say they feel the notes you can't hear.

@seanp2k617

Ай бұрын

Hypex are another in that space making high-quality chip amps, or maybe that’s who you’re referring to?

@gr4eme1975

Ай бұрын

@@seanp2k617 hypex are the current go to but zetex were in the game 20 years ago. At that time you had Tripath,B&O Icepower and then Zetex and D2 Audio. This was the infancy of the Class D amps.

Alan Parsons quote - "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music... Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment. "

@onemanshow4116

Ай бұрын

That's a damn good quote!

@MrKelaher

Ай бұрын

perfect !

@christopherleubner6633

Ай бұрын

Yup same with pro audio stuff. The use of a wall wart smps is a big mistake for most audio applications in my opinion. They produce all kinds of electronic noise. 😂

@perkulant4629

Ай бұрын

So true, when you get to a certain price per device (speakers, amp etc) it’s all just scams and snake oil. Can have amazing setups these days for not much money. The audiophiles can keep their overpriced parts.

@oturgator

Ай бұрын

Ummm… Actually it is not his actual quote (ref. Reddit)

those battery terminals are awfully close to each other.

@thomasandrews9355

Ай бұрын

Looked one wire wanted to touch the other

@RandyLott

Ай бұрын

Duh, they needed a few pF extra capacitance 😂

@JanCumps

Ай бұрын

@@thomasandrews9355 yes, the plus of the 2nd battery has a copper pube that wants to touch the other side

@buckstarchaser2376

Ай бұрын

@@RandyLott If you don't preserve the differential signalling quality of your batteries, you may as well listen to a CD like a cretin.

@GodmanchesterGoblin

Ай бұрын

​@@buckstarchaser2376But it's a wasted effort unless you twist and screen the cables....

Finally, after all these years, Dave apologises for his voice!

@trickyrat483

Ай бұрын

He should have used a better DAC. :)

@BM-jy6cb

Ай бұрын

Have to say, I prefer it! (Sorry Dave).

@jardel_lucca

Ай бұрын

​@@BM-jy6cb I was thinking the same LOL

DAC by Hugo, the new perfume for Audiophiles

@KeritechElectronics

Ай бұрын

(sniff sniff) smells like... yeah, you got it right... bovine excrement! :D

@christopherleubner6633

Ай бұрын

Based on the circuit design and cheap AC to DC converter it smells like fine rotting fish.😂😂😂

@Dutchamp

Ай бұрын

Never ever paying that kind of money to this design. Unbelievable that people pay anything.

@marcdraco2189

Ай бұрын

@@christopherleubner6633 Surströmming?

0.0000000000000000001% THD, -10000000dB noise floor, $5 switchmode AC adaptor with 100mV of ripple

@kyoudaiken

Ай бұрын

Who would win?

@bevis71

Ай бұрын

100mV? That is very optimistic (China always surprise!)

@chrisridesbicycles

Ай бұрын

@@kyoudaikenPick your fighter. 😂

@MikeDawson1

Ай бұрын

Chord DACs don't claim to have exceedingly low THD, they claim to sound good. Also, this one is powered by batteries so your point is like a cow's opinion (it's moo)

@circuitsmith

Ай бұрын

@@MikeDawson1 A $45 DAC can sound good too.

“You will hear the difference! Just don’t expect your friends to.” Omg lol you funny

$4500 and they couldn't spare a few extra cents for a connector to make the battery removable.

@phillyphakename1255

Ай бұрын

But see, a connector could be a source for noise to enter the system. On the DC power bus. Before your filtering and bypass caps. Gosh I hade audiophile logic.

@christopherleubner6633

Ай бұрын

That would be an extra failure point and for portable audio stuff that must have extreme relability you either want the batteries wired in with solder or extremely reliable methods of connection. This is more of an issue with pro audio gear rather than something like this with its generic Blutooth lol though 😂

@onemanshow4116

Ай бұрын

You’re not supposed to fix it.

@bloviatingbeluga8553

Ай бұрын

that wouldn't make cents

@floodo1

Ай бұрын

connector has insertion loss soooooo (-8

Audiophile forums are fun. I have found people hearing all kind of improvements after wrapping the power cord of their devices in aluminium foil, sound from speakers going out of phase when using different length of speaker cables in a setup ... etc

@JMMC1005

Ай бұрын

I can only really enjoy the budget / DIY audio forums. Much more time devoted to real, measurable differences between hardware (though not necessarily audible), and much less wasting of money on snake-oil pseudoscience. It's unbelievable how easily some people convince themselves of their ability to hear things which simply don't exist.

@Bourinos02

Ай бұрын

As long as they don't talk about "audiophile router"...

@captainwin6333

Ай бұрын

There's a guy on the Naim forum who has a pre-listening ritual where he uses ear drops, then holds his nose and pops his ears and has a whole heap of other guff for his "critical listening sessions" and swears by it. He sounds like the sportspeople who have lucky underpants and believe they can't perform without them. Snake oil in the main although there is some quality stuff out there but I believe they think of a price then multiply it by 10.

@rocketman221projects

Ай бұрын

That must be one really long speaker cable to cause a noticeable phase shift at audio frequencies.

@markn866

Ай бұрын

Most of what people think they hear in the audiophile world only exists in their heads.

Made in England... $4500 $300 for the compnents and case. $4200 to figure out how to make it not leak oil...

@peterhaan9068

Ай бұрын

For that price you are pretty much guaranteed not to find the dreaded word Lucas anywhere!

@74HC138

Ай бұрын

@@peterhaan9068 You find the dreaded word Lucas on aircraft electronics these days. Just let that thought settle next time you're on an Airbus!

@williamnot8934

Ай бұрын

Please Tell me Lucas is not still around. Owned a Mini and an Austin Healy Sprite back in the Sixties and Seventies. English made Crap.

@LBCAndrew

Ай бұрын

The components for that DAC are well under $300

@rosssissons5062

Ай бұрын

Lucas the prince of darkness… Lucas headlamp switch. Off, flicker and dim. 😂

I'm a bit surprised by how you soldered those connections. You decided to keep the leads long, but then did not take advantage of that. It would be so much easier to solder the leads with the batteries out of the case, taking advantage of the long leads by holding them with your fingers. It would avoid the insulation damage and also make it easier to do a good soldering job (because there is no tension on the leads that you have to counteract all the time). After finishing the soldering and testing, you can flip the batteries into place, possible because the leads are longer.

@cebruthius

Ай бұрын

He's got a cold. Probably a bit of brain fog going on.

@duroxkilo

Ай бұрын

puzzled by the same aspect :) also on thin wires w/ sub-optimal insulation i have better results by not tinning: i dip the wire in flux, melt the solder on the pad/connector and than introduce the wire (held by hand of soft tweezers). the solder appears to wick onto the wire quicker than it takes to melt the solder on a tinned wire (probably a better thermal contact). no-clean fluxes don't seem to encourage wire corrosion on old audio cables i've made many yrs ago...

The weird battery behavior could be a rebalancing circuitry going crazy when only one battery is connected.

@Ismsanmar

Ай бұрын

The weird battery behavior IS him touching the positive lead with the non floating soldering iron tip. It's funny how he is not gonna know this, but how he knows that he should cut one by one the battery cables to avoid shorting the terminals, or how he blames the circuitry. Instead of using the Pace, he should have picked up the T100. But that what happens when you praise the USA company and mock on the chinese one, that the karma comes to bite you.

@EEVblog

Ай бұрын

@@Ismsanmar LOL, you need to engage your brain before trying such embarressing comments.

@jusaca01

Ай бұрын

@@Ismsanmar And what do you think is a non-isolated iron doing with a completely isolated set of batteries...?

@mikeh7704

Ай бұрын

@@EEVblog Haha. Good comeback! ​ @Ismsanmar, it looks like your comment came back to bite you! 😀

@bluecar5556

Ай бұрын

@Ismsanmar Is the soldering iron tip connected to mains ground? Are the batteries connected to the mains? If your answer isnt both yes, where is this completed circuit? Imagine taking someone emotionally and or personally on the internet. Pathetic. When I talk to people, I stick to asking questions and stating facts.

Audiophiles! Do they really think the recording studios use $10 000 A/D/A converters and $1 000 microphone cables? Newsflash! If you think they make a difference, the music you are listening to is already ruined in the location is was recorded.

@steveroberts1861

Ай бұрын

You have to remember that audiophiles only listen to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. They live in the B/W era.

@TassieLorenzo

Ай бұрын

Cables? I would hope not. I do think $1000 Neumann condensor mics have advantages over $150 Shure condensor mics. But for a hobbyist/semi-professional (like a cover band on KZread) who is just trying to make their stuff sound good, the Shure is more than adequate -- it still sounds good. What bugs me more is the horrible compression wars production (or effects on the vocals etc) that makes the official studio album tracks often sound terrible compared to say an "as live" version recorded for some radio station on cheap(er) Shure mics. The album version is supposed to be the main archival version of the song, and is supposed to sound good, gosh darn it! (Less is more with the production, don't suck all the life out of the song/vocals and make it too "perfect" -- smh some of these big-name producers can really ruin releases you were looking forward to, having heard the artists perform the songs live when the songs sounded great.) 🥲

@TassieLorenzo

Ай бұрын

@@steveroberts1861 Why do many audiophiles like vinyl records, even though it's objectively a terrible performing format with horrible signal-to-noise ratio compared to reel-to-reel tape (or nearly any digital format)? It doesn't make sense! They seem to forget that the whole point of vinyl records was to be a cheap consumer format, when compared to high-speed reel-to-reel.

@usopenplayer

Ай бұрын

Link to microphone comparison tests. Trying to find what makes a good mic. kzread.info/dash/bejne/Znahw5SNdZDeZrA.htmlsi=2ZzBX0B5xmU3xWRY

@TheUglyGnome

Ай бұрын

@usopenplayer Nice comparison. Many of those mics I have were included. As expected, the reference curves of the best small condensers were almost perfect inverses of the real frequency response of the SM57.

At the mentioning of the 0-8-15 BT module I spilled my coffee 😀

Found one used £399 boxed with charger……that’s more like it! But can you imagine what the audiophiles are paying for headphones to plug into these puppies!

@andymouse

Ай бұрын

Shit Tons.

@GregM

Ай бұрын

I always look on eBay sold side of things to see what people are willing to pay for stuff. Lots of people selling stuff on eBay think the stuff is worth alot more.

@rhalfik

Ай бұрын

As someone who's heard some expensive headphones all I can say is I want a pair. Money aside, good sound is rare and they were lovely. Whenever someone says there is no difference - there is. There is also a difference between microphones. The good ones cost $3k... Neumann U87. It's a classic mic that's used everywhere and on all the music. Nobody questions it's quality yet headphones are about as difficult to make.

@rhalfik

Ай бұрын

@@GregM Thats the way. Advanced, sold, then laugh.

Feel better Dave!!

I was always impressed by the audiophile speaker cables made with unicorn bone and human skin that cost $100 a foot. Macintosh owners usually fall for that stuff.

@peterhaan9068

Ай бұрын

I had a customer that would cover the edges of his DVD audio discs with a green felt tip marker. Swore it made a difference!

"Don't just cut the cables like that..." "..that would be rather unpleasant." I learned that the hard way when I THOUGHT I had disconnected power to the electrical cable I was cutting. ("Romex" or NM-B in the US) Ruined my cutters and burned my hand, but that wasn't as bad as the embarrassment.

@michaelslee4336

Ай бұрын

“Test for dead” obviously not part of your normal routine. Imagine if someone had a big box of spinning gears and they said stick your pecker in through this glory hole cause I’ve turned it off and you were pretty sure they had stopped spinning would you still do it without checking? Ha ha. 😮🙂

@johanneswerner1140

Ай бұрын

Ha! Done that as well. Some eejit pulled a wire from another room (on another fuse) through the wall. Mighty flash and bang and a hole in my cable cutters. We had to strip out all cabling (done in the 60s on the cheap...) when we got the house. The previous owner also did some... very questionable wiring himself.

@SomeMorganSomewhere

Ай бұрын

Yup, I've done that too, took a good old chunk out of my dikes before the breaker popped (didn't cop anything fortunately, though it was an RCD/GFCI protected circuit so might have been quick enough to not notice. Switched to using exclusively certified VDE tools at that point...). FWIW We call that cable "TPS" here, never really got the hatred for it in the US, we use it for pretty much all fixed single-phase cabling here.

I kinda love the audiophools, they put my tool and measurement equipment spending into perspective. :P

@edmaster3147

Ай бұрын

I find it more challenging to understand what and how to measure and understand the outcome as often my ears are telling me something different. Then I try to measure again and fail again. I seem to be to stupid or my mind fools me. Perhaps one day I'll own all the best equipment and knowledge to get it right. Like one stupid thing, why do germanium diodes in an audio PSU sound better? :p

DankPods had a Chord Mojo. I think his also broke. Was thinking a repair/teardown collab sort of thing with EEVblog would be really interesting.

@ThatGuy-bx4yi

Ай бұрын

I've been watching him since I was kid. That could happen: c

@alleycatjack4562

Ай бұрын

Yeah, but he also cranks that thing to 11 to destroy earbuds constantly. Not exactly normal use, so I wouldnt judge durability based on his unit eventually breaking.

@ccoder4953

Ай бұрын

@@alleycatjack4562 Oh, I'm not saying it's unreliable, at least not based on DankPod's experience. Like you said, he abuses those things (though not anymore since he got the Maraca Cracker). But would be fun to see Dave fix it. Bonus points if Wade and James are in the room during the repair.

@geoffgranger718

Ай бұрын

Dankpods already broke the maraca cracker!

Selling $200 device with a $4300 markup. Should we clean all the THT flux off? Nah, that would cost too much.

Who needs enemies when you have audiophools for neighbours and they rope you in to repairing their insane expensive stuff?

@stever7638

Ай бұрын

Hey Drew, why don't you walk over with Dave to return it, give the owner your thoughts. Better yet, maybe venture out and audition some high end 2CH gear. So many Pied Pipers leading sheep down a road while wearing a sign on their back that reads... "Follow me to hypocrisy" For the record, people can do and believe what they want....but why be judgemental?

@Drew-Dastardly

Ай бұрын

@@stever7638 ...found Dave's audiophool neighbour here

@jameslawrence8734

Ай бұрын

@@stever7638 A great reason for OP to be so judgmental is those are also the sort of people who think they should have free use of my time and skills to fix their shit. Pay for a new one or pay to have your overpriced garbage fixed. It may not be the case with Dave's neighbor but I've been around too many audiofools to disagree with OP. OP is doing the Tech Gods' own work. You, however, are quite hypocritical.

@stever7638

Ай бұрын

@@jameslawrence8734 I wasn't referring to the OP, I was replying and referring to Drew.

@stuarthardy4626

Ай бұрын

the big problem with audio is it cannot sound better than the source , GIGO . no matter how much you spend the result cannot make a bad source song better. a mate I used to work with was black disk fanatic and swore by a new vinyl noise filter , until it was pointed out to him that if there was vinyl noise in the audio spectrum then that filter was removing information from the sound track as well

I would not have touched this. $4500 sucker price. One wrong slip of the soldering iron and your neighbour would be expecting you to replace it. No matter what. He was probably quoted $4000 to replace the batteries by OEM.

@aaronmoore3050

Ай бұрын

We are all losers from time to time. The biggest scam we all have fallen for is called "open dialog".

You should have used audio grade batteries. They are made with a wooden case around them to reduce resonances as the lithium floats around the cell.

@Tokaisho1

20 күн бұрын

They also have the solid silver cables so the electrons can go through faster

It has an in-house FPGA as a DAC which is pretty esoteric as far as most Hi-Fi DACs go. And probably why it has a following, high price etc, as it likely has a unique sound signature.

I still remember in the mid 90s some professor did a blind test in an auditorium with a load of audio experts and enthusiasts. the equipment that won overall was a cheap off the shelf amp with doorbell wire to connect the speakers :D

@michaelslee4336

Ай бұрын

And they’ll come up with some fluff as to why they were fooled or just completely ignore it and keep on motoring on.

@johnnytacokleinschmidt515

Ай бұрын

Any reference? I'm curious.

@finbenton

Ай бұрын

Best audio thing I ever got was A/B tester box for blind testing, saved me so much money when I realised theres no real difference between a lot of equipment.

@johnnytacokleinschmidt515

Ай бұрын

@@finbenton ah ha... Makes sense. What type of A:B? Whole systems speakers and all? Or just RCA signal switching? I remember it was said especially with speakers the sales person supposedly would try to make the volume higher on the pair they hoped the buyer would purchase. So many subjective aspects to "better." And our brains are in control. I liked how Davey said, "If you paid x (exorbitant) Dollars for these wires or that item you'll hear the difference!" And with a big cat who ate the canary grin. Absolutely true.

@tubastuff

Ай бұрын

Reminds me of the late Bob Pease open challenge. Two boxes with speaker cable in them--one has plain old lamp "zip" cord, the other has the gold-plated solid silver audiophile cord. Random A-B switching. Tell from the sound which is which. I don't think anyone ever took him up on it.

That bluetooth module is the weakest link in that audio foolery chain. Its a $10 US part on mouser. Neighbour likely just paid more than that for the two replacement batteries. Not impresed.

@veryboringname.

Ай бұрын

You don't have to use Bluetooth.

@wtmayhew

Ай бұрын

That’s OK. Two or three FPGAs and several handfuls of polypropylene capacitors should fix up the unspeakable artifacts introduced by the Bluetooth module.

@christopherleubner6633

Ай бұрын

Yup I 😂 when I saw that.

@geoffgranger718

Ай бұрын

@@veryboringname. If you didn't want to use Bluetooth you'd buy the $600 mojo over the $4500 Hugo! 😉

@mor4y

Ай бұрын

Is it actually used for audio? Their poly unit uses WiFi for shuffling music about, and Bluetooth as a control channel for the companies own app, which you don't actually use for playing music

Love how KZread subtitle makes it audio file. „Files off all the sharp digital edges of“. I remember reading something along the lines of „the noble 32 bit high end chip“ in a audio magazine and it was just a normal ARM7 micro.

I love Audiophool videos. The audio cable fanboys are the best. I once watched a video of someone gushing about how audiophile cables improved the sound quality in their system, so being an electronics geek, I thought I'd test one of my RCA / Phono cables that I have on my bench, and respectfully post a comment on the video: '' I've just tested a standard, cheap, homemade RCA cable on my lab bench using a Hewlett Packard 3314A Function Generator, a Keysight U3402A Digital Multimeter and a Siglent SDS 1104X Digital Storage Oscilloscope. The negative 3dB points ranged from below 20Hz to several Megahertz, and the resistance of both conductors in the cable was around 0.1 Ohms. The sinewave didn't change at all until the negative 3dB points were getting close'' I think he said that he can hear a difference between cables. 🤔

@edmaster3147

Ай бұрын

Have you tried listening on a nice sounding system? On a quantum computer setup they take advantage of the capacitance of the insulation of the leads of a sensor wire, for instance. On the cable side, I don't understand why very thick and insulated cables sound better, nor do I understand why a bit of cobalt in magnets makes speakers sound better (alnico). I have no more than guesses.

@CammyFi

Ай бұрын

Audiophools believe they can hear the difference between USB and Optical Cables as well as fuses

@edmaster3147

Ай бұрын

@@CammyFi can't or can? Cables and wires do sound differently. But I haven't found an expensive cable that sounded really good. A thin cable often sounds better and almost nobody uses them. Kinda strange.

@CammyFi

Ай бұрын

@@edmaster3147 meant can

@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty

Ай бұрын

Sinewave testing is like testing a 4wd on a freeway.

I like his creative use of the word 'wank'. Excellent stuff lol

But, made in ENGLAND!! For that money i would have expected it to be made in Japan at least.

@user-yk1cw8im4h

Ай бұрын

Made in England by Chinese.

@nbx2au

Ай бұрын

@@user-yk1cw8im4h amazing how the battery is soldered in :)... you have to cut off connecters to solder the thing in on wacky pads that are microns apart. Made in UK? You are right it needs small hands of a child to do that.

@pebbleschan6085

Ай бұрын

⁠Dyson & Hornby - Designed in the UK and made in China. 😅 Value add!

@Audio_Simon

Ай бұрын

Maybe you need Nagra gear.

@GodmanchesterGoblin

Ай бұрын

​@user-yk1cw8im4h Last time I checked (2019 or so), Chord were using a very good electronic assembly contractor based on the edge of Basildon in Essex.

I am a recovered audiophile who then converted to "pro" (studio) gear as it is better value, fits my job and I prefer "flat" sound it turns out. Not sure what headphones you neighbour has but that is often where the real money is, the headphone amp is kind of just an accessory to that price wise. The price of amps is often just a 1:1 map to older headphone amps that were genuinely expensive to engineer before the "battery hack" lithium cells allow, FPGA and class D etc has largely made a headphone amp a "software" exercise, though the proprietary FPGA bitstream is still valuable I guess. What you are really paying for is the expensive staff of the manufacturer - the scale is tiny for audiophile, unlike "pro".

after paying full price for a Dragonfly Red, I soon realised that it truly is audio-foolery !

You can build a hell of a lot of electronic stuff for cheap using quality components, but getting the programming of FGPAs right takes a lot of time and experience and that is where the costs mount up.

So it costs as much as an 4 Ch Oscilloscope with 10000x the bandwidth.

Nice video, thank you :)

Audio Science Review tests dacs, surprise surprise, the very best performing ones don't cost the earth.

@stever7638

Ай бұрын

I applaud their efforts, however they look at a graph and think they now how a product sounds without hearing it. Comical, which is why we amuse ouselves on the content.

@shakeit995

Ай бұрын

​@@stever7638and listening to something with your astonishingly subjective ears is going to characterise dacs better? "Oh yeah it gives a fuller, clearer sound" wankery

@josslaypeg3884

Ай бұрын

@@stever7638We’ve got a live one!

@TassieLorenzo

Ай бұрын

@@stever7638 Are you talking about how frequency response plots don't tell you anything about transient response rates (i.e., the dynamics, whether the speaker diaphragm can keep up and how the music sounds etc)? Frequency response plots are only a time-average after all. GR Research mentions this too.

@jeremyglover5541

18 күн бұрын

Actually, while in general you are right, you dont have to spend silly money to get great performance, ASR did recently have the opportunity to test an exception to this rule when given a MOLA MOLA DAC, by Bruno Putzeys, which is the new performance leader by quite a margin, has an fpga based dac like this one and has quite an eye-watering price.

It's a fake! There isn't a single ECC83 to be found 🤣🤣🤣

@Drew-Dastardly

Ай бұрын

6.3V is not part of the USB-C standard

@samuraidriver4x4

Ай бұрын

There is no USB-C on this thing so no need for its standard🤔

@chrisridesbicycles

Ай бұрын

…with only the heater connected for the warm campfire glow…

@jeremyglover5541

10 күн бұрын

Just a note, Chord has never put a tube in a single product. Dont mistake my comment for defending CHORD, but when trying to sound smart, do better.

totally OTT and often dont even measure that well, but yes, they roll their own dac in FPGA

I just did almost the same thing for a neighbor. I did not realize how expensive they were. He also wanted me to add a super capacitor in parallel with each battery to do something to make the audio better. Evidently it was done by somebody on a forum. It was a bear getting those super capacitors in there. I also found that there is a difference between a ‘protected’ lithium battery and ‘non-protected’ batteries. These units need ‘protected’ lithium batteries. Also, as you saw, on that one battery, the pos and neg are stupid close to each other. (I did short it out accidentally but just a small spark). I used Orbtronics protected batteries.

@lasskinn474

Ай бұрын

huh they didn't put a low voltage protection circuit on the board and rely just on the batterys own?

@onjofilms

Ай бұрын

@@lasskinn474 Evidently. He brought me just plain 18650 batteries, but when I dissected the old battery I saw that tiny pcb and dug further to find they needed the protection circuit. I was amazed that the tiny pcb did all it does. 2 Orbronic protected batteries were $33 usd.

Those battery pads are too close for comfort.

It has a very 2000s tech look to it and not in the "OH COOL RETRO" way, like the, "OH that's why we don't make things look like that, anymore."

@floodo1

Ай бұрын

srsly, got that cheap plasticy design look LOL

@peterlarkin762

Ай бұрын

Very tacky designs.

@tdata545

Ай бұрын

@@peterlarkin762 This might be a very USA reference point but look up Nickelodeon Kids Tech from the 2000s, same aesthetic vibe. I forgot Late 90s and Early 2000s were all about bubbles and circles. Even had a wallpaper that was poorly rendered bubbles.

I like this new Dave’s voice module better than the legacy one! 😅 Get well soon!

Chord uses a FPGA DAC. I had to look up what that meant and found this: "FPGA-based DACs use a combination of digital signal processing and analog circuitry to convert digital signals into analog signals. FPGAs are essentially reprogrammable logic chips that can be configured to perform a wide range of digital signal processing tasks."

Yes... $4500? I would imagine a top-quality very ruggedly built one to cost maybe $500. (Think of professional gear for recording studios or traveling musicians.) There's high-end and then there's H$GH-end!

i'm an audiofool. i have the mojo 2. i can hear the difference. i swear. 😀 - also the clicky noise is a relay. the mojo at least has a relay that connects the dac to the amplifier after some kind of internal self test. the mojo 2 has a bunch of blikenlites that show you some kind of debuggery of a self test.

$4500 and the plastic case looks like a $5 thing. But since I have seen "actively shielded" audio cables with batteries and blue LEDs ($200 each) I believe everything... Or a $1000 power cable.

@jeffreydoujon638

12 күн бұрын

The case is CNC'd Aluminium

@jeffreydoujon638

12 күн бұрын

THough to be fair it looks like a cheap platic case !

Can you test the capacity of the old batteries in case the high drain on the upper cell is the actual problem rather than the cell itself?

@EEVblog

Ай бұрын

Possible, not really worth the effort though. Otherwise reported to work fine, so I think it's just age not a fault.

Man the genious placing of those pads on the board... Could have been ever closer too eachother -.-

$4500 of inductive hum. Just what the audiophool will NOT hear. LOL!!! You should charge $500 for the battery change👍👍 A bargain at twice the price!!

I've got their Mojo and Poly unit, it's for running some big old headphones that my amplifier will barely touch, some classic jobs from the 70's that look far nicer than they sound! :) But oh boy when I run my in ear monitor speaker things with it, it's sounds *beautiful*, but it's a tad impractical for that kinda use

You just gave unknowledgeable audiophiles a boner by saying "something weird is going on there" :D It has to be MYSTICAL!!!

I'm a viewer in the Old Dart!! This video really spoke to me when Dave said "Hi to all the viewers in the Old Dart"!! That's ME!!!

oooo! they even sealed it with eight screws to keep special audiophiliac air inside. but it's gone forever now.

At least the thing makes sense from a electronics point of view. Using batteries and linear regulators as a low noise power supply is actually kinda smart for audiophiles. I would have expected them to go all out on the soundwood and directional cables in this :D

Really £4500? Wow the case must cost £4300!

I've seen and listened to some BS setups - guy at work had spent literally TENS of thousands of pounds (UK) on Cyrus CD player, pre and mono block amps, Chord DAC costing over 10k and something like a grand on two RCA cables. The speaker cables were as thick as my thumb and were raised above the floor on special 'ceramic things' whatever that cost I have no idea. All of this hooked up to some boomy/flappy sounding 1970's floorstanders - it sounded absolutely bloody awful!

@njm1971nyc

21 күн бұрын

🤣🤣🤣 a friend's neighbor had some big old 1970s speakers that she was quite fond of. Fair enough...but all she really needed was a $200 CD player and a $300 amp. She went shopping, by herself, and got talked into buying an entire Mark Levinson system, costing many, many thousands of dollars. Tragic, sad, exploitative...and definitely not cool 🙄

ugh! 😦 the soldering of the battery wires was terrible! I would of been rather upset to see that if it was my unit !

😂 I like your voice. And the electrons don’t fall out when you put it upside down if it’s make in the old da😂

Looks like a project box from China with £40 worth of electronics, and that's being generous.

I was just looking at a "valve" preamp box, with, of course, separate power supply box, with full bridge tube rectifier, Hand wound transformers... starting price: €22,000

@TassieLorenzo

Ай бұрын

Wow! What are your thoughts on most electric guitarists/electric bass guitarists still using vintage or reproduction vintage tube amplifiers even though a digital modelling amp would demonstrably produce a 100% accurate simulation of the tube amplifier, without the hassle of carting heavy tube amplifiers around? Is it just a part of the Fender Stratocaster and Fender Precision Bass and the rest of the range becoming effectively classical instruments (the design hasn't changed for 70+ years and probably never will), therefore the original amplifiers that went along with these are (in a sense) classical instruments too?

@N4CR5

Ай бұрын

@@TassieLorenzo I've heard some really high end tubes, really high end PA systems in my industry as well as stuff like the Axe effect box that can do what you said, it simulates everything and it is basically bang on the money and very impressive.

A super expensive device turned into a brick because the batteries died... so just like an EV! :)

@jerther_

Ай бұрын

Or cell phone. Or tablet. Or laptop. Or BT speaker. Or keyboard. Or mouse. Or coffee scale. Or dust buster. Or flashlight. Or headphones. Or portable Atari console. ;)

Imagine paying $4500 and getting that cheap-o looking power lead, they can't even be assed to make something that at least looks fancy with a braided fabric jacket or something...

Send it to Amir - Audio Science review Would be interesting to see where it sits on the scale But 4500,- is just completely bonkers

Chord use a proprietary FPGA based DAC based on 'taps'. It might also have an active cell balancing circuit.

@lolilollolilol7773

Ай бұрын

That wouldn't even justify a £400 price tag. We are in the same business model as luxury goods like Louis Vuitton hand bags, where the price tag is entirely artificial.

@meskisable

Ай бұрын

@@lolilollolilol7773 You are speaking about topic that you don't know anything. Item price is not reflected by how much components cost. Most of the price comes from RnD. You can't get that sound for 400. Good converters are used by studios and audiophiles. Yes you can get decent DAC for few hundreds, but if you want high end specs it will cost you.

@BlankBrain

Ай бұрын

The most difficult problem to solve on an audio DAC is the filter at the top. The FPGA allows them to have very long FIR filters.

@Farull

Ай бұрын

@@BlankBrain Yes, they run some digital filters in the FPGA that can have a sharp cutoff. But the FPGA is not a DAC, so they must still use some external conversion to analog. Probably with an off the shelf DAC, since I don't think they use a custom resistor ladder or PWM implementation.

The multi-cell battery may be balanced using a management system. A quadcopter drone battery pack has a read-out that shows the individual cell voltage as a health check.

There goes the audiophility of the whole thing if some Shenzen crap gets in instead of the original branded batteries.

Had a laugh too with the record player. All that expensive stuff with a medium that has a lower bandwidth than a CD.

@bradallen8909

Ай бұрын

Except it doesn’t. If you think a CD is superior to a record, you’re either deaf or stupid.

These ridiculous little windows make me very angry! 😄

Equipment like this surely does sound good, as you say, but as an audio person myself, I can say with relative confidence that whatever ultra fine-grain benefit this product supposedly bestows (as compared to its lower-price competitors), is completely dwarfed by much simpler (cheaper) to fix issues, that themselves are ultimately dwarfed by the actual recording itself. If you're really interested in the highest level quality of output (within reason), get some decent speakers, shielded cables (no need to spring for gold-plated), and a good amplifier with an EQ that you like. And remember: whatever equipment you have, you're always limited by the quality of the recording itself, what microphones were used, how it was mixed and mastered, etc. There is never a one-size-fits-all solution to audio. (And if you are using a record player, make sure it's reasonable quality build so that the rotational speed is consistent, make sure that the needle is in good shape, belts aren't loose, and clean your records before you play them; just know that the sound quality of a record degrades with every playthrough.)

@BlankBrain

Ай бұрын

The reason for gold plated connectors is that they corrode less. You can spray DeoxIT every six months to a year or buy gold. If you frequently plug and unplug your equipment, it's not an issue. Once I get things the way I like them, everything sits for years.

@natedawww

Ай бұрын

@@BlankBrain If you're worried about potential corrosion then gold will definitely prevent that, though I have to say I've never run into corrosion on standard plated cables. However, gold-plated cables seem to also be marketed with the idea that they will somehow provide superior quality transmission of the signal versus standard plated cables, and if you're having that much trouble with keeping a good connection, it's probably down to the connector port, not the cable. So if you're putting stuff outdoors, then maybe gold-plated is warranted, otherwise I wouldn't personally worry about, though I suppose the gold plating is not the real expense in cables.

@BlankBrain

Ай бұрын

@@natedawww I never had problems with speaker cables, but RCA connectors were the worst offenders. I mostly use balanced ¼" TRS cables, and even those would sometimes act up. Channels would go low volume or crackle. Just unplugging them and plugging them back in worked. Sometimes I'd wipe them off with alcohol. The best connectors would be pure silver for a few days. Then they'd start tarnishing. Silver oxide doesn't conduct as well as silver.

@natedawww

Ай бұрын

@@BlankBrain Ah yes, RCA connectors. I was indeed thinking of 1/4-inch speaker cables. Thankfully, RCA cables aren't used as much anymore, but they do seem to tarnish in a way that the 1/4-inches don't, so I could see getting gold-plated for those specifically if you needed. And if they were silver-plated, they would indeed tarnish almost immediately... Sadly alcohol isn't going to be much use, but having polished silver dishware before, I can't imagine using it on cables without making a horrid mess!

@urugulu1656

Ай бұрын

the record does not degrade. it has a very slow dynamically changing self powered low pass built in that dynamically adapts to the frequency response of the main listeners ear... jk😂

Change those capacitors for knockoffs, see if they notice

@bevis71

Ай бұрын

Dr Evil! kzread.info/dash/bejne/aZ2Gm5qCh6qWndY.html

yes if the cells are in series you need to disconnect the high side cell 1st and reconnect high side last otherwise the bms may crowbar due to the loss of ground reference (depends on topology but just to be safe) and never disconnect/reconnect fully charged cells 4v is nearly fully charged (4.1-4.2v)

$4.5k !!! some people are a danger to them selfs

Being the dual rails, if the insulation on the batteries was compromised, it would short the one battery. Negatives shorted together, the one positive would be shorted to the negative. Hope I didn't make it confusing. Doubt that both batteries insulation was damaged.

Buy something value for money like the Ultimate Preamp 2. Made in Australia by Australians.

I reckon it has some sort of balancing circuitry (the old batteries were pretty much identical voltage) and that was going a bit bananas when just one battery was connected

I can blame, taking things apart, for the knowledge I've acquired. Just finished my BIG LED project. 2'*2' addressable 5050 RGB. Just have to fabricate 4 aluminum solder paws for the footprints. 😂😆

I bet its an anti-repair feature they added to make you send it to them to have the batteries replaced. Then they charge you extra for attempting to change the batteries yourself.

Could it be that you need to put it in some power off state before servicing it? Like holding the power button in for 10 seconds to completely powering it down and not just soft-switching it of?

All these opinions about audio quality makes me want to listen to my music collection on C-90 cassettes from the 80's. Unfortunately my mint Sony TC-KB920S has a mechanical problem...

These days you have to work quite hard to find a DAC that is subjectively "bad". A few years ago, things were rather different. The temporal resolution of human hearing has been estimated as on the order of microseconds, and this is related to the need to determine the direction of sound sources in nature, so clocking may actually be a factor.

I think the BMS was going a bit crazy while trying to cope with the imbalance during battery change

It does not matter how much or how good that DAC is. Its the headphones you listen on that reall matters. 😝 Daves DACs ... Something too that.

I'm wondering if on the other side there might just be some somewhat larger electrolytic capacitors as filter capacitors in the power chain, which, would potentially register as a short when they're not charged? I think that might explain the sort of behavior you are seeing. If the thing was getting external power when you put the batteries in, or, just had been charged recently enough, then the protection circuits on the batteries might not trigger, but, with the caps empty, maybe they would, and sort of get stuck that way until it's put back in without that problem? I could definitely imagine a scenario like that. It's kind of too bad that we couldn't see the other side of the board. I was really surprised with all the weird stuff that came up in the process that you didn't at least look at the circuit there, though, I do sort of understand why it would be potentially risky to unscrew things.

I would be worried the weird behavior was a fault that made the old batteries discharge quickly and seem bad.

what dvm and psu setup are you using? i love the onscreen display and control.

Love the new voice Dave, if yer lookin for feedback :D

Do I want this fancy DAC or a down-payment on a new car? Hmmm...

Yet another time when Dave has no bloody idea what he does. Plus, this funny behaviour made me thinking if it was really a problem with battery capacity. Or maybe something else is broken causing batteries to die over time. Or maybe batteries are not die at all. But we will never know, because Dave didn't bother to measure old batteries with one of dozens dummy loads he has.

@EEVblog

Ай бұрын

Without a schematic or reverse engineering the circuit of course I'm not going to know exactly why the cell was shorted out. As for the capacity I believe my neighour when he said it's lost capacity. He used to the full 8 hours or whatever it is and now he's lucky to get a couple. Totally expected for a rehcragable product used daily. Think before you criticise.

This is a Triller episode!

Probably linked with the fact that those cells ain't in paralelle but provide 2 different rails, if minus voltage is there first maybe it cause a problem, something like that.

Your soldering was kinda shoddy on the second battery, with the cables extending way past the pad... I'm sure you shorted the positive pad to the ground pour around it.

Personally I got a Vantec NBA-200U for $20 brand new. The only issue I have with it is a DC offset issue. Honestly it sounds really good for the price. There's no way I'd pay what that that Hugo thing costs.

4.5k retail for simple Hugo model is too much, the question is how much does it really cost removing all dealers and a profite chain..

is the battery problem active cell balancing? pulling one cell down to match the other.

I always said. If you buy it, you'll hear the difference. No one else will, though.

I hope you get better soon. Very weird "fault" indeed. I wonder if there's a battery balancing circuit at play, but it certainly shouldn't create a dead short across the cell. You might look into some non-serrated wide-jaw pliers for handling wire with low temp insulation (knipex 35-12-115 for example).

@EEVblog

Ай бұрын

I suspect something like that.

1) NUTS to have the power pads so close to each other!, 2) That price is WAY WAY BEYOND INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dave! howcome using the wirecutters to cut both strands of battery wire can short the battery, but when installed in the misbehaving circuit board suddenly the built in cell protection circuit can prevent shorting the battery.?

@jaro6985

Ай бұрын

In both case the battery will get shorted out, in both cases the protection circuit would protect it. Its still bad practice to short out lithium batteries regardless of what type they are.

@EEVblog

Ай бұрын

It's a general tip. Not all cells have a short protection circuit like this one. This one happens to, so should be protected, but not good practice to cut both wires at once in any case.

Nice dac