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The new Chord Mscaler officially has a name.

Mozart said:
Very interesting discussions. Great thread. So many swear that upsampling and reclocking revitalises digital with a more natural tone and wider more complex soundstage whilst in the opposite camp people swear by non-oversampling tda1451 with a few caps, a transformer and tubes. Recent discussion to be found on Pinkfish about the Audial S5. Is it the technique or implementation… Can you the get same sonic results with quality parts and attention, irrespective of the technology?

Has anyone visited both camps?
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I have and, presuming you mean the TDA1541, I landed on reclocked and upsampled as far and away my preference. I had a highly regarded and lightly pimped Sony CDP using the “legendary” 1541 but it sounded, well, of its era.
My dCS Puccini and U-Clock are not exactly in the same price bracket though…
 
Mozart said:
So many swear that upsampling and reclocking revitalises digital with a more natural tone and wider more complex soundstage whilst in the opposite camp people swear by non-oversampling tda1451 with a few caps, a transformer and tubes.
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It might be worth highlighting that we will find so many in the over- and up-sampling camp and so few in the opposite camp.
 
tuga said:
In Economics there is something called the Dave Wilson mk. X method: fabricate a highly-hyped product and then sell it over and over again to the same people every few years by claiming significant improvements which result from insignificant changes.
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One will have to take your word on that because the world wide interweb is silent on that when searched for information . . . .
 
I don’t think it’s an accident that on audiophile forums, people are wising up to the nonsense of perpetually better DACs. A problem that was resolved 20+ years ago but somehow according to the hifi press and marketeers keeps giving like the stone that keeps bleeding. Deep down we all this cycle of improvement is nonsense. The industry is invested in sustaining problems for which solutions are needed and where there is a journey of infinite improvement. DACs surpassed audible improvements a long time ago and at best now deliver marginally different ‘flavours’ of sound for which they ask thousands or tens of thousands every few years from customers. A few posts back a discerning chap focused his finances on speakers where the biggest gains from distortion laden transducers is to be had. Chord have run out ideas. Had they been more honest, they would admit that the greatest contribution to sonics is room-speaker interaction and would be shifting to this issue, not peddling another algorithm.
 
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But ... who decides at what point transducers become not too distortion-laden that it's even worth trying audibility tests for DACs through them? I find all this not quite as simple as advertised.
 
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Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. In a second part to the video Rob Watts gave more detail about the new Quartet Mscaler with the pertinent headline bits being:-

5 FPGA's Xilinx 200T
4 Mtaps
Heavy heat dissipation
Separate PSU with extensive RF filtering
Improved BNC output filtering
Said to be launched at Munich show in May

So we can see an answer there for all the people wondering whether the new Mscaler would retain the dual BNC as used in the original Mscaler and the answer is a yes.
 
Fourlegs said:
Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. In a second part to the video Rob Watts gave more detail about the new Quartet Mscaler with the pertinent headline bits being:-

5 FPGA's Xilinx 200T
4 Mtaps
Heavy heat dissipation
Separate PSU with extensive RF filtering
Improved BNC output filtering
Said to be launched at Munich show in May

So we can see an answer there for all the people wondering whether the new Mscaler would retain the dual BNC as used in the original Mscaler and the answer is a yes.
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Anything about jitter?
Everything else sounds underwhelming or what is to be expected...
 
karlsushi said:
Is that suggesting a 2 box device possibly? Maybe not.

Do we think an SMPS or is he finally going to bite the bullet with a proper linear PSU!?
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Yes, two box device seems exactly what separate psu means in this context.

I think that with John Franks as chief boss it is unlikely to be anything other than smps.
 
Fourlegs said:
Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. In a second part to the video Rob Watts gave more detail about the new Quartet Mscaler with the pertinent headline bits being:-

5 FPGA's Xilinx 200T
4 Mtaps
Heavy heat dissipation
Separate PSU with extensive RF filtering
Improved BNC output filtering
Said to be launched at Munich show in May

So we can see an answer there for all the people wondering whether the new Mscaler would retain the dual BNC as used in the original Mscaler and the answer is a yes.
Click to expand...
Given the Xilinx chip seems to running at between 300 and 400 quid each, it would seem this is going to be a mighty expensive set of boxes.
 
Fourlegs said:
Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. In a second part to the video Rob Watts gave more detail about the new Quartet Mscaler with the pertinent headline bits being:-

5 FPGA's Xilinx 200T
4 Mtaps
Heavy heat dissipation
Separate PSU with extensive RF filtering
Improved BNC output filtering
Said to be launched at Munich show in May

So we can see an answer there for all the people wondering whether the new Mscaler would retain the dual BNC as used in the original Mscaler and the answer is a yes.
Click to expand...
It will be interesting to hear your thoughts when you get one. Is there any speculation on price other than alot? My guess is £12,995.
 
As Rob Watts gets his money from Royalties (he is not a Chord employee) I wonder if he earns more from flogging lots of Mojos than from a few MScalers? But then, he's got do something to keep busy :)
 
andrewd said:
It will be interesting to hear your thoughts when you get one. Is there any speculation on price other than alot? My guess is £12,995.
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The interviews from Munich very clearly state the price will be “more than Dave” but that the actual price is not yet decided. Much seems to being made of the new separate box power supply which RW says is all designed by himself and is not just a collection of commercially available SMPS.

It was interesting to hear RW say that he considered dual optical for the link to Dave but rejected it because noise can bypass optical/fibre connections and also he wanted to keep compatability with DAVE and the other Chord DACS.
 
Had an interesting chat with the designer in the Chord Electronics room (Munich trade days) - unfortunately only a quick headphone listen.
 
Fourlegs said:
It was interesting to hear RW say that he considered dual optical for the link to Dave but rejected it because noise can bypass optical/fibre connections and also he wanted to keep compatability with DAVE and the other Chord DACS.
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And, because of all the RF filtering, he said it is not sensitive to the BNC cable so you don't need expensive ones.
 
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