The new Chord Mscaler officially has a name.

[Fourlegs]

And, because of all the RF filtering, he said it is not sensitive to the BNC cable so you don't need expensive ones.

Indeed. But then he said the exact same thing when the original Mscaler was introduced compared to the Blu mk2 so let’s wait and see what transpires.

 

[Fourlegs]

How is that possible?

I’m pretty sure he explained in the interview I saw. The route is via the power supplies and mains. To get proper isolation from fibre/optical one needs to use batteries to power the devices.

 

[tuga]

I’m pretty sure he explained in the interview I saw. The route is via the power supplies and mains.

That makes more sense.
But maybe/also the problem is that Toslink doesn't do high rates and using network fiber would require a bespoke interface solution?

 

[Fourlegs]

That makes more sense.
But maybe/also the problem is that Toslink doesn't do high rates and using network fiber would require a bespoke interface solution?

Correct, one could not use toslink but there are people who have done diy solutions to convert the dual bnc from the existing mscaler to dual fibre and then back again to go into the Dave dual bnc. The convertors are readily available parts and are not large so these diy solutions have in effect just gone in the space occupied by the bnc sockets. So if he wanted, RW could have incorporated dual fibre output in the new Scaler as well as dual bnc. A separate little matchbox sized unit could then convert the dual fibre back to dual bnc at the dac end. But what he is saying is that the fibre isolation would be defeated anyway by the noise just going through the power supples route instead. Bear in mind also that Innuos say that they decided to only offer usb output on their higher end streamers because they measured the noise in the optical conversion circuits and decided that a well implemented usb circuit was lower noise. One might then ask why RW does not use usb output from the mscaler rather than dual bnc because usb can cope with the mscaler output data transfer rate into the Dave (and indeed into other manufacturers dacs) but I do not know the answer to that.

 

[sq225917]

An aversion to rely on 3rd party silicon and or resource to make their own. As well as a touch of uniqueness from the focus on bnc.

Any maybe it'd show the usb is a better solution....

 

[adamdea]

An aversion to rely on 3rd party silicon and or resource to make their own. As well as a touch of uniqueness from the focus on bnc.

Any maybe it'd show the usb is a better solution....

USB might just encourage people to do it in software instead and/or try out side by side comparison?

 

[adamdea]

Or capture the stream

 

[AndyU]

Or capture the stream

A very good point.

 

[Juancho]

TV

I suspect that the high levels of jitter measured by ASR are the result of S/PDIF
That S/PDIF is better only shows that Chord needs to improve the performance of their USB interface.
I won’t go into people’s preferences because you have all sorts.

All depends how the double BNC is being used. If one is data the other timing info it won't be that

 

[tuga]

TV

All depends how the double BNC is being used. If one is data the other timing info it won't be that

It’s always worse to have the clock on the transport than on the DAC side.

 

[Juancho]

It’s always worse to have the clock on the transport than on the DAC side.

You're making an assumption it's not using one of the devices as master clock. Also we are talking DAC + scaler not transport

 

[martin clark]

What was old, is new again...

Remember RobW, at Deltec / DPA designed:

• CD transports that were slaved from the DAC clock (I still have one & a couple of compatible DPA dacs; works a treat)
• The DPA PDM 2: a two-box dac: transport data input to the bitstream modulator (SAA7350); then, six optical interconnects, to connect that, to the actual bitstream DAC (TDA1547 iirc) in a 2-box setup. Possibly the most elaborate & best implementation of that Phillips 'DAC7' chipset ever; sounded great.
• also note: shades of MScaler: Dave relationship there already... ~32yrs ago.
• Except - to make that work then, even then he had to reach for AT&T glass optical sender units to get the bandwidth (trivial now in comparison to MScaler requirement ) - and with such a rare/single-source: when they fail - this unit is irreparable.

So maybe there's no small seasoning of 'been there; done that' involved also...

 

[tuga]

You're making an assumption it's not using one of the devices as master clock. Also we are talking DAC + scaler not transport

So the MScaler does not send the word-clock with the signal? I think it does.

 

[Juancho]

So the MScaler does not send the word-clock with the signal? I think it does.

You think.........

 

[tuga]

You think.........

Well, if connects with S/PDIF and can be used with non-Chord DACs then it has to, doesn't it?

 

[sq225917]

It has to be an option, maybe theres a divining handshake?

 

[Juancho]

I don't know. Genuine question: how does a non Chord DAC output to two bncs?

 

[HiFiman]

It doesn't

 

[adamdea]

I don't know. Genuine question: how does a non Chord DAC output to two bncs?

Input from surely…?

 

[Juancho]

Input from surely…?

Yes you're right! So even more sense in driving the scaler with a master clock but I have no knowledge of Chord gear never having heard one