zorbs

I used to run a Linn MagikDS. It was a great unit - very mellow sounding and inoffensive, so a great upgrade from CD for me. I then started experimenting with outboard DACs, using the DS as a transport. Both Naim and Chord QBD76HD DACs were a significant improvement and I preferred the Chord. I then started looking at the transport side and built a CAPs2 with the SoTM card. Direct comparison between this and the Linn as a transport (both into the Chord) showed the Linn to sound a little slow, undynamic and slightly veiled - pleasant, but a bit too mellow and soft. The combination of CAPs2 and Chord is very impressive. I had a Linn Akurate at home for a while, and it was certainly better than that by a clear margin. Not sure what your current DAC is, but if I was starting again, I actually reckon one of the best sounding combinations for the money would be would be the Chord Chordette CuteHD and a CAPs2, which come in somewhere around £1500 for the two and plays native DSD! It's really not far short of the combo I have at a fraction of the price... I hope this helps a bit.

To JonP and Crimsondonkey, I think you're both right. In my opinion Chord are voicing (if that's the right expression) some of their kit differently these days. I've read numerous reviews both in the press and from users stating that their streamers and DAC's are very analogue sounding now. But... the QBD76 before the HD upgrade was a bit "in your face" as a musical experience. Personally, I didn't mind this as I have a fairly laid back system and there was a good synergy. However, having had the HD upgrade, I'm certainly not the first to state it seems to really change the character of the DAC. You still get the amazing speed and resolution, but with more weight and a far more balanced sound. Apparently Chord are releasing a top end streamer, the DSX-1000. I'm hoping to hear it at a dealer open day in July. Maybe Chord can send one to Chris for review....

Hi Chris, I'm pleasantly surprised that you've got round to reviewing the Chord and enjoyed your write up today. Your perspective is very different to what I've read previously in mainstream publiction. Also, I've never heard the DCS Debussy or Alpha DAC so those comparisons were interesting. I bought my Chord a few years back after not getting on with the Naim DAC. I've always loved the 76 but the HD upgrade took it into another league - especially with the CAPS 2. This combination is the first digital setup I've heard that finally bests my vinyl setup in every area whilst still retaining that beguilling analogue quality that draws you into long listening sessions... I'm interested in the DSD chip and whether that's a general upgrade in sound quality or simply facilitates the conversion? I didn't know if was available at all.

TKL, I think Jason was interested in the above case I have spare, but was after a silver rather than black one. If he can confirm that he's not after mine then you have next dibs on it I'm based UK, London/Kent. £50 plus postage or welcome to collect. Regards Mark PS. Sorry Chris C. if I shouldn't be doing this here... Just PM me to advise correct protocol if necessary.

Hi Guys, I've had a few requests for the parts list so I've pulled it together. There may be a few connectors/adaptors too many as I was experimenting, but they're cheap so don't worry.. Apologies for the formatting but it was a cut and paste from my orders. Part numbers are in there. I've listed by supplier, but you may be able to consolidate better with hindsight... I'm based UK but used Europe and the US for the purchases. Wesena: 1 x AD-7690H, Sony Optiarc AD-7690H 8x Slimline Black Bare Slot SATA 1 x ITX6B, Wesena Mini ITX6 Case Case Colour: Black Logic Supply: Jetway NF96FL-525 Dual Core Atom Mini-ITX Mainboard NF96FL-525 1 € 119.95 Transcend DIMM DDR2 800 Memory 2 GB JM800QLU-2G 2 € 49.90 Insight: Product Description Quantity Price Ea. Total ============================================================================== SRKNA086QO 12IN SLIMLINE SATA TO SATA W/ 1 5.99 5.99 LPOWER CABLE ADAPTER Mfg Part #: SLSATAF12 SRKLP4SA00 SATA TO LP4 1 4.99 4.99 POWER ADAPTER Mfg Part #: LP4SATAFM6IN LinITX: 1 x FSP 12V 7A 84W AC Adapter - 2.5mm x 5.5mm Jack @ £23.87 ex VAT = £23.87 ex VAT Simple Design (Sonore): Purchased from: Simple Design 8828 nw 169 terr Miami Lakes FL 33018 UNITED STATES http://sonore.us Delivery Status Qty Item Price Not yet shipped 1 Payment request from Simple Design - SOtM tX-USB pci to usb audio card USD352.98 Tax : USD0.00 Total: USD352.98 2 Jul Refund : -USD39.00 Total charged:USD313.98 Delivery Status Qty Item Price Not yet shipped 1 Payment request from Simple Design - SOtM - SATA Power Line Filter USD65.00 Ebuyer: Qty Product Description QuickFind Status Cost (ex VAT) Line Cost 1 x OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read = 285MB/s, Write = 275MB/s 50,000 IOPS 225415 £69.15 1 x Startech LP4 To SATA 15 Pin Power - Adapter F/M 141092 £1.55 1 x StarTech.com 6in SATA Power Y Splitter Cable Adapter 0.15m 265991 £2.25 1 x NZXT Molex to 3 SATA 200mm CB-43SATA 224059 £5.10 1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate - Complete package - 1 PC - DVD - 32/64-bit 173022 £139.96

I've built a CAPS 2 with the Wesena ITX6 case and SotM USB card. Here's my summary: - The Wesena case works really well and looks great. - The build includes a CD-Rom and runs cool enough without fan. - The SotM card make a difference according to my tests against the standard USB port. I sourced my SotM card from Jesus at Sonore and paid via Google checkout. It was very easy. The rest of the components are available easily on the net but you need the right power adaptors and connectors. I've got a list somewhere if you decide to go ahead. I also have a brand new black Wesena ITX6 case that's unopened in the packaging if you're interested. Regards Mark

Yes, you'd be forgiven for thinking the buffer is a great leveller of transports, but the Chord is still surpringly sensitive to differing transports and even inputs. Some other owners also bear this out. For example, my Linn DS feeding coax sounded inferior to my CAPS through a v-Link. Way too soft and muffled! Also, if I feed either of the Chord's USB inputs from the CAPS standard USB output port and compare against the SOTM USB output port there's again a significant difference. Interesting stuff and food for thought. I'm hoping to hear from the other Chord owners on here for their thoughts on both this and the difference between HD Async and Adaptive USB on the Chord DAC.

I'm very interested in details of this chip upgrade. I had my QBD76 upgraded to HD in September. The first completed upgrade developed a fault with the clock, so I'm wondering if when I sent it back in late September I got the different chip back or not. The reason I wonder is as follows: I have a CAPS server with the SOTM USB card. It's by far the best transport I've tried yet. Since it has two outputs I did some testing last night between the adaptive (USB1) and assync HD (USB2) inputs on the Chord. I was surprised to find that they were very close and if anything the old input sounds more balanced, smoother and with more body to the vocals in comparison, without losing any resolution or dynamics. The HD input should easily best the standard USB input in my view, so I'm not feeling I've got the best from the uprade either. I'm using a fairly inexpensive Wireworld USB cable on the standard input. Chord's support are fabulous, but I'd appreciate your thoughts before I approach them. Regards Mark

Interesting thread and one I've been seeking the answer to as well. My experience thus far: I started with a Linn Majik DS streamer a few years back. Fantastic device and very convenient to use. Then, someone bolted a Naim Dac onto it's SPDIF output and it was a huge improvement (although not perfect). Realising the internal DAC could be bested, I tried others and ended up with the Chord QBD76. Reading this site made me wonder whether the DS could be beaten as a transport, although I was sceptical that a DIY solution could better a factory product. Plugging in a laptop and Musical Fidelity V-Link was about the same level if not slightly ahead of the DS so I took the plunge and built a CAPS2. The CAPS2 is significantly ahead of both DS and Laptop with V-Link in every area with no downsides. Dynamics, resolution, timbre, drive, soundstage - all without sounding even the remotely harsher. The only updside of the DS or V-Link combination was that the colouration in the bass added some perceived richness to vocals, but this was hardly accurate... With CAPS2 I'm running JRiver 16, using memory play and WASAPI Event Style into USB input of DAC. The upshot is that there is no WAN activity during replay or even reading from the internal SSD. I'm very impressed. Putting things in perspective, I've also tried an Naim NDX streamer. Great device, but very much improved by an external DAC (both Chord and Naim). I've also heard the NDX against the new Akurate DS streamer and preferred the latter greatly. More weight and much rounder, less analytical sound. The NDX seemed harsh and a bit thin by comparison. NDX with Naim DAC was slightly better than Akurate though... So, in conclusion the DAC's and transports in the streamers can be improved at the Majik/Akurate DS and NDX level. For the money the computer transports are suberb value and very flexible if you don't mind the extra work. Only test I haven't done is comparision of CAPS2 as a transport against NDX or a really good CD as transport! But then I would imagine a Sonore or similar dedicated music server would be better than a CAPS2 as well...

I forgot about all those asio settings - so much for doing it all from memory .... You've got all the right options de-selected. I found changing the others (latency, buffers, kernels) from stock made no difference to the sound but if you want to practise your Chinese then you can increase the buffer and latency size as they're only set low for studio monitoring. Glad you heard the difference after all that voodoo - it really is a step up. You'll be wanting a CAPS 2 next

It does seem counter intuitive but you have to select Asio as the output. Not sure if I remember correctly but you may actually have to assign left and right channels. When configuring the asio driver offline be sure to disable the options you don't want

Hi Zoldar, I have a V-Link. On it's own does nothing to ensure bit perfect output - you need kernal streaming, asio, etc selected in Foobar. I downloaded the asio.dll plugin for Foobar and then used Asio4all (free download) as the driver. When installing Asio4all remember to install the offline settings... Once both of these are installed you then configure the Asio4all driver to output to the V-Link. You then configure Foobar to output to the Asio4all driver as I remember. I'm away not back with my setup until next Saturday so if you're still having problems can do so screenshots for you then.

Good to hear that I wouldn't be losing too much convenience. Since moving to digital sources I've listened to far more music simply because it's accessible. Just out of curiousity, what is the iPad/iPhone solution you use? I wouldn't know where to start with modifying the DS! I'm quite attached to it though so will probably move it to another room for less than critical listening. I phoned my dealer today and asked them to verify the price so I'm hoping it will come down. They actually send the unit back to Chord rather than carry out the modification themselves. Interestingly, they said that Chord had taken the opportunity to make general improvements to the DAC for the HD model/upgrade. I have no other verification of this, but it does bear out what you're finding sound quality wise that it's possibly not just asyc USB and higher sample rate addition in isolation but a general upgrade too.. Chord are apparently very happy with it! I'll let you know how I get on over the coming weeks.

Thanks for all the really useful information. Your initial feelings about the upgrade are very interesting. I've found when experimenting with sources/cables there's often a trade-off between dynamics and smoothness (apart from with the Starlight USB cable which was better all round) so this is good news. With regard to the Linn DS, I bought it as a complete solution so was originally using it's in-built DAC. When a dealer attached a Naim DAC via SPDIF it was obvious the DAC part of the Linn could be improved, but actually it sounded best of all via a directly attacheched USB stick. This is what made me think the Linn could be bettered as a transport. I guess in reality that Linn has no real incentive to provide an outstanding SPDIF output considering they have no stand alone DAC of their own. This is a shame as the thing I'll miss about the Linn setup is the ease of use and convenience of full control via iPod touch. In conclusion, I'm still keen on building a good silent PC, but am going off the idea of the soundcard route based on your comments and others I've read. USB seems the way to go now for quality/convenience. I'll be really surprised if even second generation converters can beat the direct asyc input into the Chord if they've implemented it well, but I look forward to your comparisons... Either way I think I'm going for the HD upgrade. Can you let me know how much you paid and where you had it done (by PM if necessary)? I've had conflicting pricing.

Hi Quest (and everyone else), I'm a QBD76 owner as well. I upgraded from a Naim DAC last year. Probably unusually though I currently use a Linn DS as the transport, so effectively ethernet/SPDIF conversion with remote via iPod touch. I'm interested whether this can be bettered as a transport so this site and particularly this thread have caught my eye. I've plugged a laptop straight into my DAC via a Starlight USB cable (bypassing the mixer stuff) using Foobar and this is around on par with the Linn DS. I also have a Musical Fidelity V-Link that I'm experimenting with, but only minor differences really and not enough to lose the convenience of the Linn DS control. I'm not entirely convinced it's any better than direct USB connection either. The availability of the QBD76HD upgrade has complicated things now as I was going to try building a silent PC with a soundcard such as RME 9632 or AES32 and try it out. If this didn't better my Linn DS then I could use it for other things anyway (particularly the 9632 to rip my vinyl). So many questions now though... Is the new HD upgrade for the Chord a better choice?? I was quoted £480 by Chord and £680 by a dealer so don't know which is the right price! I'd love to know if this would sound better than the silent PC optionwith soundcard or even if the HD upgraded DAC would further benefit from it anyway even via USB, working on the "everything counts" approach? Looking forward to your further summary of the upgrade.