Devialet pro and Chord technology

[Frnch]

Hi,

I did made a mix of Devialet pro 1000 and Chord Dave DAC and Mscaler, the result is just unbelievable, yes it may seems a bit crazy to use pro 1000 just as a power amp but...
I was just wondering if anyone had the same idea and eventual feedback.

Happy to share experience

F

[flohmann]

Hm, so you connected the DAVE/mScaler to the analog input on the 1000Pro? If so, then the 1000Pro used its AD converter to convert back to digital, no? Of course, if it sounds great, it sounds great. But if the DAVE/mScaler is already doing the DA conversion for you, you might get even better results with an amp that doesn't impose an other A-D-D-A conversion on things?

[Frnch]

Hm, so you connected the DAVE/mScaler to the analog input on the 1000Pro? If so, then the 1000Pro used its AD converter to convert back to digital, no? Of course, if it sounds great, it sounds great. But if the DAVE/mScaler is already doing the DA conversion for you, you might get even better results with an amp that doesn't impose an other A-D-D-A conversion on things?

Yes the Dave analog goes to 1000Pro analog, the idea was to get the full benefit of the Mscaler upscaling up to 768 which is not possible with the 1000Pro dac limited to 192 digital input.
I tried different combinations, Mscaler digital connection to 1000Pro direct do bring already an significant improvement, but putting the Dave DAC is a revelation.
I do not know how internally 1000Pro handle digital and analog signal input and to which extend the dac chip is involve with analog input.Would be interesting to find out.

[Confused]

@Frnch - It is very good to see someone arguably crazier than me trying different things with a 1000Pro! One thing I have learnt over the last year is just how much very subtle changes to the source can influence the subjective impression of the sound. Switching between two bit-perfect sources, the microRendu to the sMS-200Ultra, subjectively made a significant difference tonally to my system. Then we had another tonal shift with the Neo upgrade of the sMS-200, and apparently this is a capacitor change in the power supply. The point is, these very small changes appear to make significant differences to how the system sounds, and ultimately how enjoyable the system is to listen to. Of course, @flohmann is correct, you are using the Devialet to perform analogue to digital conversion, then another digital to analogue conversion in the ADH DAC, so you are still listening to a Devialet DAC, but the ultimate source has been changed (improved?) by the M Scaler upsampling. I am aware of the magic that the "1 million taps" M Scaler is reported to produce. This is a form of hardware upsampling, and a very fine form of upsampling at that, which I am sure can do something that is less subtle than a capacitor change in a network endpoint. So despite the fact that this goes against the purist "shortest signal path" approach, I can see that this would sound subtly different, and potentially in a way that sounds subjectively preferable. It reminds me a little of listening to the dCS Upsampler with a D800, this sounded better when upsampling to DSD 64, which makes no sense when the Devilaet's DSD "MAT" algorithm is converting back to PCM for the ADH. It is also interesting that the dCS hardware approach sounded superior to me versus doing similar with HQPlayer.

So in other words, you can have an approach which appears technically superior, but sometimes doing something slightly different can yield superb results, generally for reasons nobody seems to fully understand, probably in the realm of psychoacoustics.

With all that said, can I ask if you have tried your M Scaler feeding the Devialet via the optical connection? The reason I ask this is that with my REF10 / Mutec MC3+USB combination, I have found the best results when feeding the Devialet 24/192 via HQPlayer upsampling. One curiosity of the M Scaler is that it can be set to upsample to 176.4 via the S/PDIF output, but you can only fix to the Devialet preferred 24/192 via optical. OK, I know that some people think Toslink is not preferred for jitter reasons, but the Chord optical out is reportedly excellent, you get full electrical isolation, and you can set your M Scaler to deliver the Devilet preferred 24/192, upsampled from 16/44.1 or whatever else your source material might be. Have you tried this?

[K4680]

"The layman is amazed and the expert is surprised"

[Amelot75]

I did the same experience with Lumin and SQ is good that I skip the D’s upgrade. No surprise for me. Few reactions around here  because it’s a new paradigm and clearly D’s are very good solid amplifiers. Enjoy

Hm, so you connected the DAVE/mScaler to the analog input on the 1000Pro? If so, then the 1000Pro used its AD converter to convert back to digital, no? Of course, if it sounds great, it sounds great. But if the DAVE/mScaler is already doing the DA conversion for you, you might get even better results with an amp that doesn't impose an other A-D-D-A conversion on things?

Yes the Dave analog goes to 1000Pro analog, the idea was to get the full benefit of the Mscaler upscaling up to 768 which is not possible with the 1000Pro dac limited to 192 digital input.
I tried different combinations, Mscaler digital connection to 1000Pro direct do bring already an significant improvement, but putting the Dave DAC is a revelation.
I do not know how internally 1000Pro handle digital and analog signal input and to which extend the dac chip is involve with analog input.Would be interesting to find out.

[muski]

With all that said, can I ask if you have tried your M Scaler feeding the Devialet via the optical connection?  The reason I ask this is that with my REF10 / Mutec MC3+USB combination, I have found the best results when feeding the Devialet 24/192 via HQPlayer upsampling.  One curiosity of the M Scaler is that it can be set to upsample to 176.4 via the S/PDIF output, but you can only fix to the Devialet preferred 24/192 via optical.  OK, I know that some people think Toslink is not preferred for jitter reasons, but the Chord optical out is reportedly excellent, you get full electrical isolation, and you can set your M Scaler to deliver the Devilet preferred 24/192, upsampled from 16/44.1 or whatever else your source material might be.  Have you tried this?

I just tried this, and it sounded wonderful. My chain was Roon->UltraRendu->Curious USB cable->Chord M Scaler->optical->Devialet D800-> Wilson Watt Puppy. I mostly tried 44.1 FLACS upscaled to 176.4. The difference was very noticeable—less harsh, beautiful mellow vocals, more bass. I don't have a very good toslink cable and sometimes had some drops at 192. I might try an upgrade to a glass one.

I have a DAVE, but hadn't thought of trying analog out into the D800. I also have my old Bryston 4BSST amp, so I could compare an analog only vs the extra A-D-A step of the D800. Both worth trying when everyone's out of the house.

[salk61]

Hm, so you connected the DAVE/mScaler to the analog input on the 1000Pro? If so, then the 1000Pro used its AD converter to convert back to digital, no? Of course, if it sounds great, it sounds great. But if the DAVE/mScaler is already doing the DA conversion for you, you might get even better results with an amp that doesn't impose an other A-D-D-A conversion on things?

Yes the Dave analog goes to 1000Pro analog, the idea was to get the full benefit of the Mscaler upscaling up to 768 which is not possible with the 1000Pro dac limited to 192 digital input.
I tried different combinations, Mscaler digital connection to 1000Pro direct do bring already an significant improvement, but putting the Dave DAC is a revelation.
I do not know how internally 1000Pro handle digital and analog signal input and to which extend the dac chip is involve with analog input.Would be interesting to find out.

I have the Devialet 1000 pros as well and a roon nucleus plus. I’m very pleasantly surprised by your findings and I am thinking of getting the Dave and the M scaler. I Imagine the connection is going to be like this: USB cable out from Roon nucleus to M scaler which connects to the Dave and ends in the Devialet. Right now my Roon nucleus talks wirelessly to my dCS Network Bridge which is connected by AES/EBU cable digitally to the Devialet. If I go with the new connection with the chords that means I would have no use for the dCS Network Bridge, right?
Look forward to your response

[Jean-Marie]

[...]
I do not know how internally 1000Pro handle digital and analog signal input and to which extend the dac chip is involve with analog input.Would be interesting to find out.

The Devialet runs all analog inputs through an ADC, by default at 24bits/96kHz (which i believe you can configure to 24/192 in the configurator if I remember correctly) and then handle them as any other digital stream or input.

The ADC -> DAC operation is fully transparent except that low pass filter around 48kHz to avoid aliasing (96kHz if you use 24/192), so I am not surprised that the Devialet lets any characteristics of the analog sources connected to it faithfully flowing through. 

Jean-Marie

[salk61]

[...]
I do not know how internally 1000Pro handle digital and analog signal input and to which extend the dac chip is involve with analog input.Would be interesting to find out.

The Devialet runs all analog inputs through an ADC, by default at 24bits/96kHz (which i believe you can configure to 24/192 in the configurator if I remember correctly) and then handle them as any other digital stream or input.

The ADC -> DAC operation is fully transparent except that low pass filter around 48kHz to avoid aliasing (96kHz if you use 24/192), so I am not surprised that the Devialet lets any characteristics of the analog sources connected to it faithfully flowing through. 

Jean-Marie

We have communicated before and I value and respect your knowledge about high end audio. Since this topic has come up again, let me rehash the issue. If the chord Dave and M scaler work so well with the 1000 pro, would it be safe to assume that so will the dCS Vivaldi Upsampler? Thank you