bcpropes In Z’s defence, Dave wasn’t the computer with the “eye” that the Chord product looks like. If they called it H.A.L2000 there my have been some copyright issues, tho.
I bet you use an iPhone. Now they are really overpriced . And as feeding placebo needs go...they are king. Bet you listen to your music thro one too..as prob this reviewer did til he discovered adding his first cheap dac made his headphones sound better . And he has never looked back.
Its unfortunate how outrageous the prices for chord products are outside of the uk. Its almost half the price here, and you can find it on the used market for lower still. You can get a mojo for under £300 regularly.
Croft When I heard it, I could immediately tell a difference between each one of its filters. So, I venture to bet, I could also here a difference between it and his Enog 2. If its was priced around the same point as the rme dac, which is around $800 now, I think that would be just fine as a alternative. I've heard both, and believe they sound different enough for it to be a worth while alternative for a particular setup or taste. But more than double that? Its really down to how these companies can markup the cost because of there reputation or heritage. So long as these companies are held at such high esteem, they can charge whatever they wan't exclusively for the badge, much in the same way apple does.
Rabbi Goldovich Unfortunately, I have not heard the l1, but zeos give it a positive review. However, if its for portable use then the mojo is an absolute no go. Way too heavy and bulky to be stored anywhere let alone run a cable to constantly.
It's not really brave, almost everyone agrees with what he's saying except for a few crazies. The "all DACs beyond ~$100 are equal" opinion is held by most. Maybe SBAF disagrees but they're insane
@@rafaelmaldonado1337 : No, the "all dacs are equal" bullshit is proclaimed by people who are ignorant. Until you actually hear this for YOURSELF how the hell would you know?
I have Chord Qutest, tube amp Dubiel HV-1 and Sennheiser HD650, I can EASILY hear the differences between the filters.. so I can't agree with you. ok, it-s very expensive DAC but it's the most accurate DAC I've ever heard :) Greetings from Poland!
I own the Qutest to, have the THX AAA 789 and the HD800S, HD6XX, Focal Utopia. Not at problem to hear the difference between the filters, you dont even have to try to hear it.
Sound Ideas Correct 👍🏻 I use the white filter. But that wasn’t the point, its easy to spot the difference between the filters, that was the point. I can’t understand how Z can’t hear the difference between them or the difference between the dacs. The Qutest is the best dac I have heard below 20.000 SEK, 2000 USD. My girlfriend who has tinnitus hears the difference between the filters and between the Qutest and other Dacs. I also have the Hugo TT 2, its in my stereo setup. Magic!
I would be Chord’s potential customer, but creating a UI that relies on color makes this unusable for me and for approximately 10% of people who have some type of color-vision deficiency. Maybe ignoring 10% of potential market doesn’t matter in hifi world, but luckily there are many other DACs that are smarter.
Although I am part of the 90% I still agree, I can't get how a company uses coloured marbles as interface. The more intense the light the higher it is until it switches to a dimmed other colour with no real meaning!
Steam Stories - That was my point. I have to buy something else. How can that be good for the maker of this device? It is pricey, so that alone will result in limited appeal. Now you cut even that potential market by 10% because you rely exclusively on color in your UI.
Color alone shouldn't bar you from trying a Chord DAC. I've got a chord DAC and the color thing is the tiniest part of what they offer. Listen to one and let that be your guide. Once set-up they require no interaction with the user, you're only missing the "light show" if you can't perceive the different colors. It's their sound that makes them great. Mine is a few years old and still sounds better than a competitor's $3500 offering I just tried last week.
If you have a good resolving system, then you will hear differences between DACs, and also between the filters. That DACs is for audiophiles who already have good resolving speakers and amplifier.
@@steamstories1279 however, would not the scaler inducebsignal degradation? And how about using a standalone VMV D1 to get 95-99% of the experience? After all, to hear the difference you would REALLY have to be a top .001% golden ears with a Shangri-la or a Sonoma One, and top interconnects... And even then, I'm not 100% sure... more like 54... .002619371918351828302000172618162561e^-10.%
Actually, not this. This is really well engineered stuff. I wouldn't say you can hear huge difference. But in measurements this is really clean and impressive. In contrast, audiogd has shit products and are expensive. Probably in this case people can hear a difference because the measurements are too bad that's audible.
@@johnyang799 The differences are huge as you say. I own Marantz high-end amp and the moment I hooked it with the Qutest everything improved enormeously. I felt Chord hate by a lot of reviewers on YT for years, same here.
@@audiofreak3453 It's not that Qutest isn't a great DAC. The point here is that a good 200$ DAC (which is still over 10x more expensive than most consumer DACs) will have the same clean audio output as this almost 2000$ one. A DAC's purpose is not to alter the audio signal in "pleasant", "warm" or whatever means, that's the amplifier's job. A DAC has to output a perfectly flat line at any frequency, otherwise it's tricking the users into hearing what they want to hear so that they can justify the price tag. However if the price is irrelevant to you (which isn't the case for 98% of us), then maybe the difference between 200$ and 1800$ is not worth fretting over...
@@nicktan4530 he is doing the "make believe". making up things to attract people to buy. also he judges "sound difference" based on the price of the product.
Thank you for not being an audiofool and actually honestly listening instead of letting marketing phrases make you think its so much better than a good quality normal DAC. That and your personality make me keep coming back :)
Like you, for me there is a line, and while the quality might be improved beyond that line, I'm not comfortable investing heavily in the wrong end of the diminishing returns graph.
The Crushgroove Its not even cost itself that is most frustrating to me, its the horrendous markup these companies can allow because of their heritage or reputation. Companies like schiit, chord, and metrum even make expensive dac's like the smsl d1 and rme dac look like complete bargains. Witch comparatively, they are. Each of the dac chips in the d1 cost's $50, yet the the benchmark dac3 is twice the price yet uses an inferior ess chip, and only one of them. It doesn't even have a partially better output stage as noted by many of the measurements going about. If that thing was made by any of the companies I just mentioned, it would somewhere around $3k. So long as these companies are held at such high esteem, they can charge whatever they wan't exclusively for the badge, much in the same way apple does.
To here the huge difference you need a high price system that lets you here the huge difference.HUGE !!! Good enough AMP . Good enough Speakers. and good enough wires between the amp and the speakers. O.k Also connect the DAC to Standing or Shelf speakers from 800 £ price point instead of Headphones and you will for sure say wooooo what a difference in sounstage and details. Including bass details. 😊😊😊
Although I never heard one of them, I love Chord Electronics. I want to buy gear from them in the future. And that's because I love how they study, publish technicals papers, and push real amount of money and time for R&D, not because they sound much better. Even If they sound better above our human limits, I am still willing to pay more. It's worse than diminishing returns actually, because you gain no performance increase. But 10,000 dollars? If my salary was 20,000 dolars yes but otherwise no. Thanks for the super realistic bam bam bam style review, It is really helpful for me and many others man!
It wasn't a realistic review. It was just an angry rant. The Qutest is not a $10,000 product. Chord does a great job of selling its R&D but the proof is in the sound, itself, not the hype. Convinced he's dealing with hype, Z just blasts away, gritting his teeth off of the sales pitch in the product description. I get his frustration with the filters (I didn't hear any big difference either) but I don't know how Z could have listened to the Qutest for any appreciable time without picking up a collection of cool artifacts in old, familiar tracks.
DACs can only influence the sound so much. All we want is accuracy and most decent modern DACs can do that. Older brands tend to have those snake-oil-loving fans.
The mere mention of Zeos' name on Reddit got me downvoted and ridiculed. Yet, I have purchased Zeos approved products that were very enjoyable. Not sure where the hate is coming from.
The hate comes from idiots that have to justify the money they spent , and the placebo they're suffering from. I stopped going on headfi about 4 years ago. Too much insanity on there.
Zeos is not hyping junk. He is hyping things with a decent price, and telling the truth about things with a retarded price. Which angers a lot of audiophiles who are both rich and retarded, and their cable lifters made from pure precious stone hand-picked by buddhists in the mariannas trench. 10 years ago this may have been a decent price for a decent DAC. Now? Yes, the Qutest has a 114dB SINAD. But the Geshelli also has a 107dB SINAD. And is 200$. The truth is, the audio world has changed. You don't need to be a snobby millionaire anymore to enjoy music.
Rob Watts the designer of Chord Dac must be sick to his stomach after watching this review. That his new baby ( Qutest Dac ) is compariable to a $200 generic Dac lol. I am not a fan of Chord, but their Dac is FUCKING AWESOME!!!!! It is NOT for everyone! Chord Dac you get what you paid for PERIOD!
I have the qutest in my system, running off a MacBook air. It replaced an Astell & Kern AK70 mkii, which I still have. I've A/B'd the Qutest with the AK70 with volumes matched, same tracks, same format, using A remote to go from one line level input to another, back and forth and I truly cannot hear a difference. I'm using it with a Roksan K3 amp and Focal Aria 906 speakers so not a high end set up, but certainly not too shabby either. Either this dac is just too much for my system or it's a beautifully made over priced box with an expensive badge on it. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, but so does my AK70 at less than half the price!. There is so much marketing hype around these products, it's easy to get s wept up in it. I'm glad I have tried the Qutest as I now know I don't need it in my system!. Don't assume more expensive means better!.
I listened to the Qutest going into a Ferrum Oor/Hypsos stack, pumped into the Utopia, LCD-5, Susvara, HE-1000 v2, LCD-4z, SR-009 and SR-007a. I heard plenty of differences - not night and day differences but fresh insights into familiar tracks, music I thought I'd known from repeated auditions over decades. I'd hear a triangle I hadn't heard before. I'd noticed that the marimba track kept running on an old Steely Dan song. I'd make out a whispered message formerly obscured by percussion. If you can't hear a difference, by all means, stick with whatever, but, to my ears, the difference is there, enough to justify the price.
Got my Qutest delivered yesterday and after a day of extensive listening I am questioning your other reviews. You are so off the mark on Qutest that its a joke that you didn't hear any difference, I understand there are financial consideration but to reject something just because there is no kickback makes everything else you say a joke even when you have valid point and people trust your judgement.
@@johenkay1129 I am using USB. Compared it to SDAC, Monolith THX DAC Amp which I had at hands. There are others but that’s from memory so I won’t go there. I hated my THX and how sterile my music sounded, took away all the fun/musicality but Qutest managed to bring back some of it, my Ananda were so much better on Qutest>ThX. But sold ThX now, it’s just crap for my tastes. I have now moved away from “measurement is everything” group and understand that some distortion helps in making your music “musical” for the lack of better word. I just got ZMF Pendant and waiting on Burson Soloist 3x both will be paired with Qutest. Headphones are Arya, Ananda, 6xx, 880 (600), emu teak to name a few. Hope this helps
@@suhaib1249 I'm pretty sure Zeos only uses optical from his source, and when you use optical, you use parts of your onboard soundcard which could be affecting how it sounds. But I do agree that tube amps and more analog sounding amps are the way to go for me as well.
@@suhaib1249 so do you go usb from your dac to streamer? I’m new to home audio and have a blue sound node and I’m trying to determine the best connection route if I bought this dac.
Benchmark dac3 + thx 789 is where it's at. Ben using it for 2 months. Can't really point out the difference between this and a 100 dollar dac which measures really well too. But if you wanna shell out money this is def worth it. There are few more dac but I haven't tried them but they also measure well
Snow Hound I currently have a pair of jbl m2. I can guarantee that I’m able to tell the difference from my Schiit Modi and my Hegel hd12. For me you can hear small differences better on a good speaker system instead of headphones.
@@s7robe297 no I mean both the dac have sinad around 120db which is well above audible transparency level. Cd quality requires around 90db of sinad which the schiit Modi just manages to pass at 96 db. Also there is mains hum , and alot of noise if you see their fft spectrum. The signal isn't as clean as my 100 dollar dac which is the tone board , noise floor is above average and there is noticeable jitter . Small driver headphones might not pick it but big speakers will def pick it. I haven't owned the Hegel hd12 , neither have I seen its measurements to see whether it's a better performer than the Modi or not. But I can certainly guarantee you that once you go above the audible transparency level there will be no difference.
Snow Hound I’m just telling you what I hear. I’m a firm believer that different DACs all have a different audible sound signature, don’t really see the point in arguing since I’m taking a subjective standpoint on this. I have a tone board hooked up to a vim. It’s really good, and beats DACs costing up to $1,000 plus. It also has its issues, notably the good ol ESS hump. Still sounds killer, especially considering it’s $100
Since its only a DAC, why not listen as for speakers in your living room. A good DAC lets you listen for hours with no ear fatigue and to listen to the imaging from the speakers. Went from $500 DAC to Benchmark DA3, and the headphones are the least listened compared to speakers, and the cheaper DAC sits collecting dust.
Dude, if you can't even hear the difference in sound when changing the filters, something is wrong in your system. I know you sarcastically joked about it for 5 minutes, but no, really, something is wrong. I am not saying spend more money on cables, just get it right. Simplify.
CaptainFantastic Big changes - green rolls off the top, warm more so and warmest is cuddly. All of them sound veiled bar neutral incisive which should be the only one you need
@@graphicism looking into any full sized dac of high reputation suggests 50% of the box is power supply, sieving and individual voltage regulation. So, no, not all power is the same, not at all, if you‘re after a certain quality level.
@@gioponti6359 Yeah I've heard that. Racked up some several thousand posts on Head-Fi since 2006. We put that to the test a few years ago and people could not discern a $5,000 Audioquest cable or plethora of Moon Audio cables from a metal-wire coat hanger. I think the power coming into your home is more important that the power inside the DAC.
Thanks for the honest statement of your experiences. Much appreciated in the sea of BS that exists in Hi-Fi. In case this helps anyone, I'm currently auditioning DACs in my main two channel rig. I haven't really thought much about DACs until I started reading and watching a lot of various reviews so I felt the need to jump in and see what, if anything, I was missing. I went right for the Qutest due to the overwhelmingly positive reviews. BUT, I ordered it from a place with a 60 day satisfaction guarantee so I figured I'd just start with something higher up the ladder as opposed to working my way up. I use a Raspberry Pi based Moode/Roon setup with an Allo Digione digital output. The Digione has BNC and coax outs so I split the BNC output and sent it into both the Qutest and my Lexicon RV-6 reciever that has a Cirrus CS42528 "audiophile" DAC. I should state that I am a noise and vibration engineer by trade so I have a really deep background in signal processing, acoustics, data acquisition, frequency domain measurements, etc. Also, being an engineer, I tend to not want to wastefully spend money on things that don't make a difference and tend to purchase my audio gear right around the knee in the diminishing returns curve, basically maximizing value. I'm running Focal Chora 826 speakers with a pair of SVS SB-2000 subwoofers in a dedicated listening room that has one chair. EXACTLY in the sweet spot. Qutest vs. built-in DAC. Is there a huge difference? No. Can I tell? Yes, for sure. I perceive the soundstage from the Qutest to be about 6 feet wider on either side when compared to the built in DAC. As for the phantom center image, it is rock solid and almost a little harsh in the upper mids with the built-in dac. With the Qutest, the center image sounds a little further back and also a bit less harsh in the upper mids. However, it does seem like you have to concentrate a little more to pick out certain things near the center image. The highs are really pleasant with the Qutest and seem to sound just perfect to my ears. Not too bright, not too dull. Perfect. I recently bought some remastered RHCP and Zeppelin Albums from HDTracks and was honestly a little disappointed with them since they seemed overly harsh in the midrange. The Qutest makes these tracks much more enjoyable but I'm not sure it's the right DAC overall for my system. I just ordered the RME ADI-2 DAC so I'll give that one a shot and A-B with the Qutest. Whichever one wins, stays in my system. Bottom line, if you're not going to sit in the sweet spot and listen carefully, I wouldn't bother spending this kind of money on the somewhat subtle differences I experienced. Maybe the RME or Denafrips Pontus II will be the happy medium. We'll see, but I at least wanted to post this to say that with speakers, I heard an improvement. Is it worth it? Maybe, but it would be tough to go back to the built-in DAC now that I've heard something better in my system.
I enjoyed reading your actual reaction to the Qutest, as opposed to Z's reaction to the sales pitch in a product description. I didn't hear night and day differences between it and the D90SE, but if I let it run, I heard artifacts and details in familiar tracks that sold it for me. If I had to pull a number out of the sky, I'd say 95% of the same information was there in both cases, but in that 5% difference, I'd notice something I never noticed before - in tracks I'd heard for five decades. Old Steely Dan was weirdly new Steely Dan. I'd find myself saying, "Is that a triangle?" "Oh, they kept the marimba going." This was the first time I'd heard Doug Fieger whisper, "Don't worry," behind the percussion in "She's So Selfish" off of "Get the Knack."
I have a Chord Qutest DAC and it was an upgrade to my Oppo HA2-SE and prior the that an Audioquest Dragonfly Red. For the record I stream from a laptop using Rega Brio amp and DALI Oberon 7 speakers. This DAC gave a very clear improvement both in acoustic mass, detail and depth and width of soundstage. From what I understand of this reviewer is he has neither the equipment, source material, accessories or hearing to detect a similar improvement in sound quality which is clearly there and available in the DAC. Sorry I have to say this reviewer is lightweight and doing people a disservice. Like with anything is the Qutest worth the extra money? That always depends on both your priorities and how much money you have. For me yes but I am not buying another DAC for another 10 years.
I'll stick with my Mojo. Really can't fault the unit for a compact DAC/Amp. I can't see how the Qutest or Hugo can be worth the price jump to justify them for me.
I have a Mojo and was using it in line level mode to drive a Dark voice and Sennheiser HD800s. I upgraded to the Qutest and its in a totally different league. Sometimes you do get what you pay for!
Kiran Hafeez I don’t doubt the jump in quality I just can’t justify the cost of it. Persoanlly going for a RME DAC/amp for the IEM section and that will be the end game for me - for a while anyway. I mainly just listen to Apple Music/Spotify. I have tidal but hardly use it as my playlists are all in iTunes. With that in mind, a £2k DAC is just a waste for lossy music listening for me.
There is a lot to be said Marty with finding a sound that you find satisfying. The audiophile trip can be never ending and different is not always better. However, I do believe this product offers truly remarkable sound if the rest of your system is capable of using the signal.
I have this conventer in my store, in Poland it costs PLN 5,900. This is one of the best DACs I've heard even up to PLN 10,000. I compared it with equipment from Matrix, Cayin, Mytek, Hegel, Cambridge Audio, Questyle and NuForce. I am totally surprised Zeos, that you do not hear anything interesting in its sound signature. DAC sounds with very high resolution. It has a noticeably better defined bass than its predecessor, 2Cute. The device has a much more organic sound than the Mytek, Cayin or Matrix constructions at a similar price. At the same time, it shows a lot of information in music.
Z doesn't review audio equipment, it's just a Unbox Therapy with a little more in depth rambling about design, construction and use, never about sound adjectives or comparisons.
I don't think that a DAC is worth 2000 dollars, but if you can't hear a difference between any DACs, there for sure is a problem with your setup or your ears. More expensive doesn't always mean better, however there are obvious differences between the DACs that I've heard.
"but if you can't hear a difference between any DACs, there for sure is a problem with your setup or your ears" DACs are not SUPPOSED to sound different as long as they work well and are not broken or polluted by noise/USB power noise!!
Hey Zeos, very interesting review. I appreciate your honesty. I've gone back and forth on the issue of DACs. I often compare DACs by re-digitizing recordings of DAC outputs in ABX Comparator for Foobar. I can easily distinguish by Jotunheim DS DAC from my Gungnir Multibit, but in general distinguishing DACs this way is very difficult, especially over headphones. Personally, I feel like the difference a DAC makes is best reflected in the representation of space, which is of course larger and thus more apparent over speakers. Did you have a chance to test the Qutest with speakers?
Seltzertronics I’m using the Chord Mojo/Poly on my main stereo system and I really love it. My speakers are 110dB sensitivity @1watt (above 200Hz) and so they have shocking dynamic range. Any DAC in my system will drastically alter the sound, even cabling. I don’t even have a pair of headphones. Mainly because I’ve searched and searched and they all sound terrible to me. So this review is kinda funny to me.
To be honest, I can barely tell the difference when using the qutest w/ headphones vs. any other mid-high end ESS DAC. They're all pretty decent. However, with loudspeakers it's a surprisingly noticeable difference. Way more detail with the Qutest than with other DACs I've tried.
just saying would like to know how more dac/amps compare to aune stuff want to know if i should upgrade to something at some point. going to say you still think they are amazing considering they have still to this day survived in ur setup of manny other super amazing and high priced things
I've used this in a few sytems, and compared it to other DACs i hear a legit difference it is a great DAC and instantly hear the change in sound signature when changing filters...not sure why you can't hear it?
@@DaveDodd then don't go and rave about your ability to hear a "legit difference" when people without the bias factor of "it's super expensive so it must be good" think it just as good as dacs much cheaper and testing shows that it is worse (highly marginally) than some cheaper dacs on the market. also to set up a double blind testing it really doesn't take that long and neither do the tests. What don't you have 30-50 minutes of free time with a friend or family me member ever? If that is true I really feel bad for you. Maybe send less money on expensive dacs and go out and have some fun my dude.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez not really in terms of a positive review. He didn't buy it with his own money. It was lent to him by a patreon member. So that removes a lot of the bias. If he bought it with his own money for himself. That is entirely different. He would have some level of bias. Simple fact is that for it's price it didn't impress him where other dacs exist cheaper with similar performance. Even ignoring his experience there are other tests done more scientifically out there that show this dac does perform well, however they also show there are cheaper dacs that perform just as well for less and some beating it for less. Obviously those tests ignored the preset EQ's.
Lot of rave DAC reviews are on speaker systems Ive noticed. Im thinking DACs make a bigger difference in speakers than headphones. Maybe since the more expensive DACS primarily improve soundstage and instrument separation youre more likely to hear it on speakers. Thanks for this honest review, I was looking at blowing a grand on this (used) to replace my current Geshelli (which also really bummed me out bc doesn't sound any different to me than multiple other sub 1000 dacs Ive had). This is probably not worth it.
I have a chord qutest going into a yamaha A S 2100 powering a pair of DeVore Fidelity gibbon 88’s and I can tell the difference between the neutral and warm filters but it is pretty subtle. The gibbons have a pretty wide frequency response and kind of a hot tweeter though so I would imagine the top end roll off is a bit more pronounced due to that. It is well put together and well thought out though so that made it worth it in my book.
I'm not doubting your comments but I've never really been able to hear the nuances between DACs when played through headphones. I think you need to have them hooked up to a top notch speaker system to really appreciate what's going on.
Tbh we have tested the chord epic rca and it just brings super fine detail. We’ve tested the hugo tt2 with M scaler in our full naim separates close to reference level and it’s got more detail but lacks the engaging sound of naim so....
I think when you go past the $500 price point the differences are very minimal. I just got the Burson Playmate with V6 Vivid op amps last week and it cost $650 USD (came out to nearly $900 Canadian dollars) and does it sound better than my $120 Sound Blaster Z ? Yes, it's louder, cleaner, the bass doesn't distort at higher volume levels.. but did my Sound Blaster Z sound bad to begin with ? No. I think Chord is meant for people that spend over a grand on headphones.
Yes and sorta. Some dacs are unique and the end game ones are like that but this is not one of those... This is a spend a lot of money although it sounds pretty much the same as its competitors dac.
One thing I really do not understand about hifi and all the claims surrounding it is this. Sound can be measured far more accurately than any human can hear. If sound stage, imaging, clarity, transparency, low end, vocals can be heard by a human ear then they can absolutely be picked up, measured and assigned a number by audio measuring equipment.
Rather have the 100.00 DAC at my age (56) than a 2000.00 DAC just for the prestige of telling everyone I own one. With age comes wisdom and hearing loss.
We all listern and hear differently, much like eye sight and seeing, but you cannot put glasses on your ears ! therefore, if you cannot hear a difference, you cannot hear a difference, personally I have tried many different DACs on my reference system, and, may be I am lucky, but I can hear differences between almost all DAC's, Amps, Speakers etc. I thought I had found my favorite DAC with the Topping D90 SE, I loved the sound of the Sabre Chips and the ES9038pro in the D90 seemed to be perfect, then a friend let me borrow a Qutest, wow, now I have a new favorite. it is no more detailed than the D90, but it has a toneality and music'ness (if there are such words), So each to your own, I love it. Plus the difference between the filters is for me dramatic, the warm filters are not my cup of tea. So for me it is worth every penny......an awesome DAC. Info:- Music Fedelity M8xi Amp, Bower and Wilkins 804 D4 Speakers, QED 40i cables and Mogami RCA connects......maybe it is just a question of resolution, so perhaps do not put expensive equipment into a cheaper system ??
The best way to assess the quality of decoding for DAC's is by evaluating the detail retrieval and tone & timbre accuracy of well recorded classical music or acoustical instrument music with or without vocals. This DAC could possibly be superior in such cases... but such gains, if any, will always be economically laughable. I would never pay that kind of money for a DAC because the Law Of Diminishing Returns is an implacable one... I got a the D50 for 200$ on Massdrop which is a single ended but dual chip DAC -- one chip per channel. With my 400$ single ended 2.8 W into 32 ohms Class 'A' amp ... I'm good, ... I'm far enough from motherboard audio to justify this little luxury. As it's been said numerous times before; headphone & amp first and DAC is distant second in terms of coherent resource allocation... When push comes to shove, you could maybe even do without a DAC if you have a modern desktop PC with a quality motherboard. Plug a 3.5 mm to RCA in a good amp and get a pair of 6XX and I bet it could probably sound pretty darn good enough...
It's on the same level as the SMSL D1 in terms of measurements. But you really ought to test it directly with a computer, the way it's meant to be used. I know Windows 7 drivers are a mess, I get it. But the perfomance is likely bottlenecked with using the Origen as the first link and the splitter as the second link in your audio chain. With that said, I would never buy a DAC as expensive as this unless I won the lottery.
@@humanbass It's not degraded in any way, correct. But the digital signal could be even better if used directly with DACs that send a higher quality signal in the first place. Still, I'll likely never buy a Chord device of any sort. I'm just commenting on the testing method.
I am curious what the signal chain that you are feeding the qutest from is. Was it direct optical from the PC? Also balanced out from most products is not that big of a deal. It has more to do with professional audio due to long cable runs and signal interference.
Sound quality differences among competent DAC's are at least an order of magnitude less than say, speakers. In fact, IME, SQ quality differences among cables often surpass that among good DAC's. Having said that, I do enjoy the sound quality from Qutest compared to others I have tried, some more expensive, but these types of differences were only audible when everything was optimized in the system, which includes...yes, analogue cables AND digital cables.
It's suggested by chord to use a usb 2.0 cable, and that even an amazon basics cable would work fantastic. But I think it's way too expensive. Maybe a 1000 would be right, ASR has measurements.
going to do a serious AB this evening... 500 dollar Mdac vs 1500 chord 2 cute. Abyss 1226 Cans, headamp gsx mk2 .... will report back... doing it fully blinded
I'd be genuinely interested in you reviewing the Bose 301s ($328/pr) or 201s ($218/pr). Bose obviously gets bashed a lot. But I wonder how bad their "classic" speakers are which are still in production. (The granddaddy 901s finally went out of production in 2016.)
its interesting how everyone thanks him for telling the "truth" but in the end its just another opinion and is just as valid as somebody saying that he loves this dac^^ so what people here do is not different from people just believing others that say the dac is worth it
Don't have much DAC experience, but when I upgraded from Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 (~250$) to Chord 2Qute (prev version of Qutest) the difference was immediate and obvious. Not so much like new speakers or amp, but sound color changed, was more smoother, analogue, more details, better bass control. Don't use with headphones because I almost never hear difference there (have Hifiman H400s, Audioquest Red dragon), only on stereo system (Focal 1028be speakers, OKish cables, up to 100-150$ each) Just my 2c ...
Nop thanks , I bought chord products in the past had some issues , e-mailed chord electronic 3 times never get feedback , u know what they can keep it , their products are expensive and they don't even respond an email ? No thanks it sounds good tho not better than RME adi 2 Dac and RME stand behind their products with support
I'm really floored by the fact that Chord is using a USB-micro for their power supply connection. Seriously! On an $1800 Dac? Not even USB-C? USB micro sucks, in the sense that it's very easy to damage the connector. Damn Chord.
Looking at the specs the M300 is basically an upgrade from the SU-8. Slightly better performance at the same price. I'd wait for the ASR to test it before pulling the trigger.
Thank you for your honesty in this review. I have been debating/shopping around for one of these. Not any more. My other choice was the Mytek brooklyn +. How about a review on this. I really appreciate the blatant honesty. P.S. I loved the review on the PB 16 SVS.. and now own it.
Rly? I cant listen any more ESS and AKM chips so dont make me laugh... Why SMSL and Topping dont make me smile when Im listen music? Even old dac on PCM1794 or WM8740 /8741 give me more pleasure than newest AKM and ESS dacs.
I rly confused to choose between m60s or Ricardos for gaming...u said m60s it's the best ath product, but u said ricardos it's a "gaming headset" now im rly confused af (:
Well, I hope that if someone is at least interested in the Qutest they at least give it an honest and open minded try despite this review. I believe that Z can't tell a difference, but I can without much effort at all, and maybe someone else reading this or watching this review might be able to as well.
Hit play on video... hears " this is an $1,900 DAC", stops video, gives like , closes the window... ( heres a bit of context ... my car was around 250 DOLARS ) thank you for the video tho ... xD
@@skampster it's relevant given you income... I'm not going to spend more than the total amount of my sound sistem in a dac... I don't even have a house... Only a room... That would be the most stupid thing I could do to my sound sistem...
With all due respect, those Chord dacs do deliver. You just don’t have them set up in a proper system. High quality amps, speakers, cables etc etc .I have both the TT2 and Dave with Mscaler. I’ve heard that more money than brains thing and it doesn’t bother me. Some people just don’t have very good manners. I have the TT2 and Dave with the Mscaler and they deliver a spectacular sound. A very special sound. A budget dac can’t do that.
Well I mean the dac will extract a certain amount of bits no matter what so whether the files are 16 or 24 the sound will be almost the same. What details get sampled should change so you might hear more drums on the 16 bit while the 24 might have a little less drums in the background and some whispering voices caught here and there. The main song though will be exactly the same.
I don't hear the difference in filters when using my headphones. My headphone is a 1987 vintage AKG K240DF. I don't listen to music using the headphones much. However, I see a slight difference in the filters when listening on my speakers: vintage 1986 JBL 240Ti. The difference between the filters is slight. I am told the difference is more pronounced when the original recording isn't perfect. And my ears are 1960 vintage.
Hey Z I have this DAC, with the HTVD 820 currently, it’s my high-end desktop set up. I have tested it with the Oppo HA2SE DAC with the HTVD 820 amplifier, I threw the DAC from the ES 100 to the mix, Obviously the DAC from the Sennheiser amplifier itself to,. Using the HD 800 S And the ether flo C I can hear a distinct difference between all of the DACs but the transparency of the amplifier and the headphones makes such a difference that switching from one DAC to another just adds a beautiful Plainfield to the music. But without a doubt the cutest is the most transparent holographic or real sounding natural sounding DAC out of the ones I have tested. Buyers, tested, if you don’t like it, send it back, and if you can’t afford it just move on like you say, I think that’s all there is to it.
The people who spend thousands of dollars on DAC's don't believe in A/B testing, because they know they won't hear a difference, so they try to claim you need to listen to something for months before switching to something else, and listen to that one for months. This is headfi's operational thesis, as well as "if a sponsor, never speak ill", so who gives a shit about them. Chord makes really cool looking stuff, and if money was no object for me, I would buy their stuff, but that's only because of build quality and appearance, their amps are good, but DAC's? Nah, you hear the same shit from 10 grand DAC's as you do from 200$ dac's. As long as you get a good dac, you will be getting max quality from it, and good DAC's do not require thousands of dollars.
I disagree I had a metrum onyx, ak sp1000cu, and hugo tt2. They all have a different sound signature to them. A dac is more than just the chip. There are filters that affect the sound as well.
wcg66 It can if you wan't your amp to sound different. A lot of headphones don't pair very well with competently flat and clinical sounding amps, the elex being a prime example, so having the option to change the sound digitally can be a worthwhile option of some people. Though there are amps, like from ifi, that also do this through a purely analogue filter. It just depends what your setup is.
Well they sound different because they have different amounts of detail retrieval and noise introduced. Dacs will all do 24 or 32 bit conversion but they never tell you how many bits they are actually retrieving from the original sample. The converting and bits that were not effectively converted create noise that is filtered out. To keep it short delta sigma dacs use multiple chips or other methods because you could be getting between 6 and 15 bits most likely the rest is just shaped. In a graph it's a sine wave. This is why most dacs sound good but not real. It's all artificial sounding. R2r dacs give you real sound without guess work but they're different and better and need filters as well.
V1ralB1ack that’s complicated. I think they sound different also because the technology is not perfect. And the imperfections such as more airy sound or more neutral sound are what people think better sound quality.
Z I own the qutest and use it with my stax 007tii amp and l700s (3v setting). I find it absolutely amazing and I recommend using a little better interconnects then amazon basics. I upgraded to some audioquest golden gates (nothing crazy) to see if there was a difference and I found with the qutest it made a significant difference than with other dacs. I also think you should use usb input with the chord drivers. I think chord products handle usb data better than any other input (other than dual data coax that is used with m scaler tech). I think the hugo 2 (same dac essentially) sounds even better than qutest because the batteries give it ultra quiet power. I use the ether c flows out of the hugo 2 and its incredible. I bet the hugo 2 and meze's would be amazing. Thanks just wanted to share my thoughts.
When you hear the true nature of a chord dac, its should present itself in the form of emotion, rather than things like details or soundstage etc. I know that sounds dramatic and gimmicky but after spending time with one you really do feel the music more rather than just hear more of it, which is Rob Watts' ultimate goal with his dacs. I am not a chord fanboy either, I can just hear and feel the philosophy that Watts approaches his dac design with. The timing is better, music sounds almost slower somehow, timbre is pleasant and identifiable in all instruments. But I really recommend usb with drivers and slightly better rca's (I spent like maybe $50 bucks or so on like 1.5ft RCAs and definitely felt a difference in clarity). The qutest was my first real high end dac purchase (then sold and got hugo 2 for portability) after I started watching your videos and I never regretted the purchase.
If you cannot hear differences between two devices, then there are something that destroy the sound. Even two crappy DACs should sound differently. You should actually find the weak links in your system instead of bashing something without knowing why you cannot hear a difference.
@@wp7187 So what else should people use? How much better in terms of capacitance, frequency response, impendance, etc... are those, and how much do those measurable qualities of the copper wire impact signals? If basic cables are universally bad, there should be a universally 'good' set, right? So what are those?
@@jaredkelly4866 It depends how it matches with your system. I have the Qutest hooked up to a Musical Fidelity X150, which then goes to a REL T5i and some DynAudio Audience 52s. My initial interconnects were some £25 Cambridge Audio ones; the sound was nice, but soft and a little lifeless. I then moved to some older Van Den Hul The First Ultimate (Mark One) cables, which were were more open and fluid-like, but had a recessed bite. I then bought some Audioquest Sydneys , which were more detailed, with a quicker sense of rhythm and more attack on the top end; they had a stiff, cold sound which soon disappeared once they were broken in overnight, matching the Van Den Huls’ fluidity and becoming better than the other cables in every other way. They had a slightly too forward sound which was later dissipated by dropping the DAC output from 3V to 2V. That being said, if your system has quite a harsh sound, the Audioquests might have too much attack to be pleasurable; it’s entirely about system matching, and some may even prefer the Cambridge cables in certain circumstances. As for my comment about the Amazon cables, they would sound fine with any system, but they would distort too much of the signal to honestly represent high quality equipment (hence why this reviewer can’t hear an audible difference between this and much cheaper DACs). I recommend experimenting with some Audioquest Towers if you’re unconvinced; I have an AQ Evergreen Auxillary, and it makes a big difference to my DALI Bluetooth speaker (far smoother) - even when using my laptop’s DAC with some 16-44.1 FLACs through VLC. (Apologies for the excessively long comment.)
Love the style & brought it home.....after months of intense listening with dfferent setups comparing the DACs I have like a student working on his thesis, i totally got your point! Now i understand why you are a pro & I am not!
I own the qutest and I also own an Astell & kern AK70 mk2 and through my system I can't hear a difference between the two. They literally sound identical. I think the bulk of your money is going on the case build and R&D cost. It's a really nice sounding dac but so is my AK70 and it's less than half the price. Hmmmm.
What else is in your system? I have an AK SP1000CU and also have a Hugo TT2. The TT2 sounds substantially better than the sp1000. I used to have a metrum o yx which sounded different as well.
I have A-B my current RME ADI2 DAC vs my old Denon DA300 and there was very small difference in high frequencies, Denon sounded more rolled off, but I would be happy with either one of those. The only reason why I actually bought ADI2 DAC is amazing pre amp (which I needed) and DSP Also the integrated headphone amplifiers on both of those units are kinda shitty but in a different way.
@@ZeBubba ADi-2 DAC's amp is perfectly fine for IEMs. But headphones have problems with treble, on more efficient phones like LCD-X and my personal Elear it manifests as reduced sound stage and poor imaging, and distortion is audible at 15.5k test tone. Distortion gets worse with less efficient phones and it starts happening at lower frequencies.
@@Sebastian_Athea Ancedotal, i own the ADI-2 Dac FS, and compared it's headphone amp to Schiit Jotunheim and Liquid Platinum, while the LP's a bit better, I found it quite competitive with the Jotunheim, and very neutral and clean and really quite good. No problem competing with 200-500$ amps imho. Tested with 300 ohm HD650. I noticed none of the distortion you speak of, but I can't hear past 14.8k as im 40 yrs old.
@@mikeweatherford4375 I would call Schiit Jotunheim anything but neutral, It has v shape eq signature, and it sounds compressed aka it reduces dynamics and pushes background way too forward. I had Corda Classic ff, and Lake people rs-08 before I replaced them with 789, and all of those do a better job than ADi-2's amp and Jotunheim, actually Denon DA300 has cleaner amp than Jotunheim and ADI-2, but DA300 lacks power to push anything that's not very efficient, or has impedance higher than 80 ohm.
Yes the qutest measures really well but unfortunately so do dacs like Topping and they cost 300-600 dollars and under matched conditions they probably sound the same!😒
References 2001 a space odyssey, then gets confused when they have a product named Dave. Classic zeos
Haha
bcpropes good call!! That’s totally why they named it Dave!
bcpropes In Z’s defence, Dave wasn’t the computer with the “eye” that the Chord product looks like. If they called it H.A.L2000 there my have been some copyright issues, tho.
love that the buttons gives you different moods and colors to feed your placebo needs on the fly
Lmao
I bet you use an iPhone.
Now they are really overpriced . And as feeding placebo needs go...they are king.
Bet you listen to your music thro one too..as prob this reviewer did til he discovered adding his first cheap dac made his headphones sound better . And he has never looked back.
You didn't even put audio rocks on your amazon cables...
How are you supposed to hear the difference 😂
Do you mean wire lifters that lift the wires off the ground? They make a megavolt of a difference. (/sarcasm)
Its unfortunate how outrageous the prices for chord products are outside of the uk. Its almost half the price here, and you can find it on the used market for lower still. You can get a mojo for under £300 regularly.
That's still three times too high...
Croft When I heard it, I could immediately tell a difference between each one of its filters. So, I venture to bet, I could also here a difference between it and his Enog 2. If its was priced around the same point as the rme dac, which is around $800 now, I think that would be just fine as a alternative. I've heard both, and believe they sound different enough for it to be a worth while alternative for a particular setup or taste. But more than double that? Its really down to how these companies can markup the cost because of there reputation or heritage. So long as these companies are held at such high esteem, they can charge whatever they wan't exclusively for the badge, much in the same way apple does.
Rabbi Goldovich Unfortunately, I have not heard the l1, but zeos give it a positive review. However, if its for portable use then the mojo is an absolute no go. Way too heavy and bulky to be stored anywhere let alone run a cable to constantly.
En Joshi-Godrez '
USD is dying currency..
Unlike apple this video took actual courage. I’m happy to see you are keeping your transparency even as you become a bigger RUclipsr.
this.
Word
It's not really brave, almost everyone agrees with what he's saying except for a few crazies. The "all DACs beyond ~$100 are equal" opinion is held by most. Maybe SBAF disagrees but they're insane
@@rafaelmaldonado1337 : No, the "all dacs are equal" bullshit is proclaimed by people who are ignorant. Until you actually hear this for YOURSELF how the hell would you know?
@@rafaelmaldonado1337 Ignorance is bliss.
Balanced is a Gimick. Makes Zero thing under 20 m length cables. Even a good RCA will sound better then a normal XLR.
So..
14:19 the summary of this review
I have Chord Qutest, tube amp Dubiel HV-1 and Sennheiser HD650, I can EASILY hear the differences between the filters.. so I can't agree with you. ok, it-s very expensive DAC but it's the most accurate DAC I've ever heard :) Greetings from Poland!
I totally with Your words.
Posiadamy Qutesta w Audiomagic.pl i jest on naszym głównym źródłem sygnału dla wzmacniaczy.
I own the Qutest to, have the THX AAA 789 and the HD800S, HD6XX, Focal Utopia. Not at problem to hear the difference between the filters, you dont even have to try to hear it.
H Pol If everything’s set up properly you don’t even need the filters the white incisive will give the best most accurate sound
Sound Ideas
Correct 👍🏻
I use the white filter.
But that wasn’t the point, its easy to spot the difference between the filters, that was the point.
I can’t understand how Z can’t hear the difference between them or the difference between the dacs. The Qutest is the best dac I have heard below 20.000 SEK, 2000 USD. My girlfriend who has tinnitus hears the difference between the filters and between the Qutest and other Dacs.
I also have the Hugo TT 2, its in my stereo setup. Magic!
H Pol how does the Qutest pair with the THX ?
Only $237.50 per rubber foot.
Pando
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@Michael Pandolfo 8feet of quality HiFi real estate In my opinion. Worth every penny.
I think I’d take the rme adi-2 for half the price. That seemed way more impressive to me.
Jon Walsh with way more options, features and functionality. That’s what I ended up with and regret nothing!
Can confirm.
yea i ended up with the Rme. Hard pass for the CHORD.
Rme dac is true endgame. Whenever I see an expensive dac with so few options I just laugh in rme at it.
SnapClik Who cares about features when you have worse sound
I would be Chord’s potential customer, but creating a UI that relies on color makes this unusable for me and for approximately 10% of people who have some type of color-vision deficiency. Maybe ignoring 10% of potential market doesn’t matter in hifi world, but luckily there are many other DACs that are smarter.
Although I am part of the 90% I still agree, I can't get how a company uses coloured marbles as interface. The more intense the light the higher it is until it switches to a dimmed other colour with no real meaning!
Lol, yes, oddly enough, even one year ago, a car reviewer said to -- was it Ford or Chevrolet? -- "I can't SEE the lines on your GPS, I'm colorblind!"
You need to buy something else if you can't use it.
Steam Stories - That was my point. I have to buy something else. How can that be good for the maker of this device? It is pricey, so that alone will result in limited appeal. Now you cut even that potential market by 10% because you rely exclusively on color in your UI.
Color alone shouldn't bar you from trying a Chord DAC. I've got a chord DAC and the color thing is the tiniest part of what they offer. Listen to one and let that be your guide. Once set-up they require no interaction with the user, you're only missing the "light show" if you can't perceive the different colors. It's their sound that makes them great. Mine is a few years old and still sounds better than a competitor's $3500 offering I just tried last week.
It's going to be harder and harder for companies to justify some prices.
If you have a good resolving system, then you will hear differences between DACs, and also between the filters. That DACs is for audiophiles who already have good resolving speakers and amplifier.
*takes deep breath*
Zeos...
...
...
...
...
...
...
The DAVE is a $9000 DAC/AMP.
Plus shipping and taxes, that is...
OVER 9000!!!!!!
I would rather get TT2 + Hugo M Scaler, it offers a way better sound than Dave alone.
@@steamstories1279 however, would not the scaler inducebsignal degradation? And how about using a standalone VMV D1 to get 95-99% of the experience? After all, to hear the difference you would REALLY have to be a top .001% golden ears with a Shangri-la or a Sonoma One, and top interconnects...
And even then, I'm not 100% sure... more like 54... .002619371918351828302000172618162561e^-10.%
I rather buy a nice used car or bike /atv
Idiots buy chord Dave
Sometimes the price brings on a placebo effect, and I think that it applies here.
Agreed! Controlled blind testing can cure the most stubborn people lol. It definitely opened my eyes, and I saved myself a good bit of cash.
Actually, not this. This is really well engineered stuff. I wouldn't say you can hear huge difference. But in measurements this is really clean and impressive.
In contrast, audiogd has shit products and are expensive. Probably in this case people can hear a difference because the measurements are too bad that's audible.
@@johnyang799 The differences are huge as you say. I own Marantz high-end amp and the moment I hooked it with the Qutest everything improved enormeously. I felt Chord hate by a lot of reviewers on YT for years, same here.
@@audiofreak3453 It's not that Qutest isn't a great DAC. The point here is that a good 200$ DAC (which is still over 10x more expensive than most consumer DACs) will have the same clean audio output as this almost 2000$ one.
A DAC's purpose is not to alter the audio signal in "pleasant", "warm" or whatever means, that's the amplifier's job. A DAC has to output a perfectly flat line at any frequency, otherwise it's tricking the users into hearing what they want to hear so that they can justify the price tag.
However if the price is irrelevant to you (which isn't the case for 98% of us), then maybe the difference between 200$ and 1800$ is not worth fretting over...
@@audiofreak3453 that's probably because your previous DAC is far worse than good midrange dac.
"I can't hear any difference!" love your no B.S approach to review...
Thats called hard of hearing.
you should see John Darko's video. He is full of shit
@@adriannasyraf3534 Why ?
@@nicktan4530 he is doing the "make believe". making up things to attract people to buy. also he judges "sound difference" based on the price of the product.
@@adriannasyraf3534 and he said chord quetest makes a difference
Oh fu!k... The amount of hate that this will generate is epic. $1900 with RCA outs only... Was enough for me.
what additional outputs were you expecting?
@@androcci XLR maybe? Ever heard about it?
Thank you for not being an audiofool and actually honestly listening instead of letting marketing phrases make you think its so much better than a good quality normal DAC. That and your personality make me keep coming back :)
"my car doesnt break down in the middle of the highway"
Rip dms
Someone Gots it.. God Bless his Ass. He's comin' for the red chairs.
Like you, for me there is a line, and while the quality might be improved beyond that line, I'm not comfortable investing heavily in the wrong end of the diminishing returns graph.
The Crushgroove Its not even cost itself that is most frustrating to me, its the horrendous markup these companies can allow because of their heritage or reputation. Companies like schiit, chord, and metrum even make expensive dac's like the smsl d1 and rme dac look like complete bargains. Witch comparatively, they are. Each of the dac chips in the d1 cost's $50, yet the the benchmark dac3 is twice the price yet uses an inferior ess chip, and only one of them. It doesn't even have a partially better output stage as noted by many of the measurements going about. If that thing was made by any of the companies I just mentioned, it would somewhere around $3k. So long as these companies are held at such high esteem, they can charge whatever they wan't exclusively for the badge, much in the same way apple does.
To here the huge difference you need a high price system that lets you here the huge difference.HUGE !!! Good enough AMP . Good enough Speakers. and good enough wires between the amp and the speakers.
O.k
Also connect the DAC to Standing or Shelf speakers from 800 £ price point instead of Headphones and you will for sure say wooooo what a difference in sounstage and details. Including bass details.
😊😊😊
Although I never heard one of them, I love Chord Electronics. I want to buy gear from them in the future. And that's because I love how they study, publish technicals papers, and push real amount of money and time for R&D, not because they sound much better.
Even If they sound better above our human limits, I am still willing to pay more. It's worse than diminishing returns actually, because you gain no performance increase.
But 10,000 dollars? If my salary was 20,000 dolars yes but otherwise no.
Thanks for the super realistic bam bam bam style review, It is really helpful for me and many others man!
It wasn't a realistic review. It was just an angry rant. The Qutest is not a $10,000 product. Chord does a great job of selling its R&D but the proof is in the sound, itself, not the hype. Convinced he's dealing with hype, Z just blasts away, gritting his teeth off of the sales pitch in the product description. I get his frustration with the filters (I didn't hear any big difference either) but I don't know how Z could have listened to the Qutest for any appreciable time without picking up a collection of cool artifacts in old, familiar tracks.
DACs can only influence the sound so much. All we want is accuracy and most decent modern DACs can do that. Older brands tend to have those snake-oil-loving fans.
Exactly!
Zeos can't even hear the difference between an HD 600 and 650, that says enough about his ability to hear differences in sound.
12 gauge he also claims Focal Clear’s sound like Beats. He has lost his mind.
The mere mention of Zeos' name on Reddit got me downvoted and ridiculed. Yet, I have purchased Zeos approved products that were very enjoyable. Not sure where the hate is coming from.
alessandra Benz what junk?
The hate comes from idiots that have to justify the money they spent , and the placebo they're suffering from. I stopped going on headfi about 4 years ago. Too much insanity on there.
Zeos is not hyping junk. He is hyping things with a decent price, and telling the truth about things with a retarded price. Which angers a lot of audiophiles who are both rich and retarded, and their cable lifters made from pure precious stone hand-picked by buddhists in the mariannas trench.
10 years ago this may have been a decent price for a decent DAC. Now? Yes, the Qutest has a 114dB SINAD. But the Geshelli also has a 107dB SINAD. And is 200$. The truth is, the audio world has changed. You don't need to be a snobby millionaire anymore to enjoy music.
I think a lot of it is based on jealousy.
@@Gary_M jealously of what? Z has access for high end stuff for years now.
Rob Watts the designer of Chord Dac must be sick to his stomach after watching this review. That his new baby ( Qutest Dac ) is compariable to a $200 generic Dac lol. I am not a fan of Chord, but their Dac is FUCKING AWESOME!!!!! It is NOT for everyone! Chord Dac you get what you paid for PERIOD!
I have the qutest in my system, running off a MacBook air. It replaced an Astell & Kern AK70 mkii, which I still have.
I've A/B'd the Qutest with the AK70 with volumes matched, same tracks, same format, using A remote to go from one line level input to another, back and forth and I truly cannot hear a difference.
I'm using it with a Roksan K3 amp and Focal Aria 906 speakers so not a high end set up, but certainly not too shabby either.
Either this dac is just too much for my system or it's a beautifully made over priced box with an expensive badge on it.
Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, but so does my AK70 at less than half the price!. There is so much marketing hype around these products, it's easy to get s wept up in it. I'm glad I have tried the Qutest as I now know I don't need it in my system!. Don't assume more expensive means better!.
I listened to the Qutest going into a Ferrum Oor/Hypsos stack, pumped into the Utopia, LCD-5, Susvara, HE-1000 v2, LCD-4z, SR-009 and SR-007a. I heard plenty of differences - not night and day differences but fresh insights into familiar tracks, music I thought I'd known from repeated auditions over decades. I'd hear a triangle I hadn't heard before. I'd noticed that the marimba track kept running on an old Steely Dan song. I'd make out a whispered message formerly obscured by percussion. If you can't hear a difference, by all means, stick with whatever, but, to my ears, the difference is there, enough to justify the price.
Got my Qutest delivered yesterday and after a day of extensive listening I am questioning your other reviews. You are so off the mark on Qutest that its a joke that you didn't hear any difference, I understand there are financial consideration but to reject something just because there is no kickback makes everything else you say a joke even when you have valid point and people trust your judgement.
Did you use optical? What headphones did you use? What dac are you comparing it to as well. I'm genuinely curious.
@@johenkay1129 I am using USB. Compared it to SDAC, Monolith THX DAC Amp which I had at hands. There are others but that’s from memory so I won’t go there.
I hated my THX and how sterile my music sounded, took away all the fun/musicality but Qutest managed to bring back some of it, my Ananda were so much better on Qutest>ThX. But sold ThX now, it’s just crap for my tastes.
I have now moved away from “measurement is everything” group and understand that some distortion helps in making your music “musical” for the lack of better word. I just got ZMF Pendant and waiting on Burson Soloist 3x both will be paired with Qutest.
Headphones are Arya, Ananda, 6xx, 880 (600), emu teak to name a few. Hope this helps
@@suhaib1249 I'm pretty sure Zeos only uses optical from his source, and when you use optical, you use parts of your onboard soundcard which could be affecting how it sounds. But I do agree that tube amps and more analog sounding amps are the way to go for me as well.
@@suhaib1249 so do you go usb from your dac to streamer? I’m new to home audio and have a blue sound node and I’m trying to determine the best connection route if I bought this dac.
I like the looks, sounds good to me, and measures incredibly well. You can get them new for ~$1300. I’d buy it if it had xlr. I think a
Benchmark dac3 + thx 789 is where it's at. Ben using it for 2 months. Can't really point out the difference between this and a 100 dollar dac which measures really well too. But if you wanna shell out money this is def worth it. There are few more dac but I haven't tried them but they also measure well
Snow Hound I currently have a pair of jbl m2. I can guarantee that I’m able to tell the difference from my Schiit Modi and my Hegel hd12. For me you can hear small differences better on a good speaker system instead of headphones.
@@s7robe297 no I mean both the dac have sinad around 120db which is well above audible transparency level. Cd quality requires around 90db of sinad which the schiit Modi just manages to pass at 96 db. Also there is mains hum , and alot of noise if you see their fft spectrum. The signal isn't as clean as my 100 dollar dac which is the tone board , noise floor is above average and there is noticeable jitter . Small driver headphones might not pick it but big speakers will def pick it. I haven't owned the Hegel hd12 , neither have I seen its measurements to see whether it's a better performer than the Modi or not. But I can certainly guarantee you that once you go above the audible transparency level there will be no difference.
Snow Hound I’m just telling you what I hear. I’m a firm believer that different DACs all have a different audible sound signature, don’t really see the point in arguing since I’m taking a subjective standpoint on this. I have a tone board hooked up to a vim. It’s really good, and beats DACs costing up to $1,000 plus. It also has its issues, notably the good ol ESS hump. Still sounds killer, especially considering it’s $100
Since its only a DAC, why not listen as for speakers in your living room. A good DAC lets you listen for hours with no ear fatigue and to listen to the imaging from the speakers. Went from $500 DAC to Benchmark DA3, and the headphones are the least listened compared to speakers, and the cheaper DAC sits collecting dust.
Dude, if you can't even hear the difference in sound when changing the filters, something is wrong in your system. I know you sarcastically joked about it for 5 minutes, but no, really, something is wrong. I am not saying spend more money on cables, just get it right. Simplify.
CaptainFantastic Big changes - green rolls off the top, warm more so and warmest is cuddly. All of them sound veiled bar neutral incisive which should be the only one you need
@@TheSteppenwolf666 utter bollox.
@Will Johnson I agree. I can hear a huge difference when doing pretty much any change to my audio setup. Something is wrong Z.
@Will Johnson +Najam Zeos can't even hear the difference between an HD 600 and 650, that says enough about his ability to hear differences in sound.
The difference is huge when playing Battlefield 1 with it.
2k DAC with $20(at best) wall power supply ?
Power is power.
graphicism Well true, but at least make it fancy
Only if they added those gem stones on the power supply as well. Then it would cost $500.
@@graphicism looking into any full sized dac of high reputation suggests 50% of the box is power supply, sieving and individual voltage regulation. So, no, not all power is the same, not at all, if you‘re after a certain quality level.
@@gioponti6359 Yeah I've heard that. Racked up some several thousand posts on Head-Fi since 2006. We put that to the test a few years ago and people could not discern a $5,000 Audioquest cable or plethora of Moon Audio cables from a metal-wire coat hanger. I think the power coming into your home is more important that the power inside the DAC.
Thanks for the honest statement of your experiences. Much appreciated in the sea of BS that exists in Hi-Fi. In case this helps anyone, I'm currently auditioning DACs in my main two channel rig. I haven't really thought much about DACs until I started reading and watching a lot of various reviews so I felt the need to jump in and see what, if anything, I was missing. I went right for the Qutest due to the overwhelmingly positive reviews. BUT, I ordered it from a place with a 60 day satisfaction guarantee so I figured I'd just start with something higher up the ladder as opposed to working my way up. I use a Raspberry Pi based Moode/Roon setup with an Allo Digione digital output. The Digione has BNC and coax outs so I split the BNC output and sent it into both the Qutest and my Lexicon RV-6 reciever that has a Cirrus CS42528 "audiophile" DAC. I should state that I am a noise and vibration engineer by trade so I have a really deep background in signal processing, acoustics, data acquisition, frequency domain measurements, etc. Also, being an engineer, I tend to not want to wastefully spend money on things that don't make a difference and tend to purchase my audio gear right around the knee in the diminishing returns curve, basically maximizing value. I'm running Focal Chora 826 speakers with a pair of SVS SB-2000 subwoofers in a dedicated listening room that has one chair. EXACTLY in the sweet spot.
Qutest vs. built-in DAC. Is there a huge difference? No. Can I tell? Yes, for sure. I perceive the soundstage from the Qutest to be about 6 feet wider on either side when compared to the built in DAC. As for the phantom center image, it is rock solid and almost a little harsh in the upper mids with the built-in dac. With the Qutest, the center image sounds a little further back and also a bit less harsh in the upper mids. However, it does seem like you have to concentrate a little more to pick out certain things near the center image. The highs are really pleasant with the Qutest and seem to sound just perfect to my ears. Not too bright, not too dull. Perfect. I recently bought some remastered RHCP and Zeppelin Albums from HDTracks and was honestly a little disappointed with them since they seemed overly harsh in the midrange. The Qutest makes these tracks much more enjoyable but I'm not sure it's the right DAC overall for my system. I just ordered the RME ADI-2 DAC so I'll give that one a shot and A-B with the Qutest. Whichever one wins, stays in my system.
Bottom line, if you're not going to sit in the sweet spot and listen carefully, I wouldn't bother spending this kind of money on the somewhat subtle differences I experienced. Maybe the RME or Denafrips Pontus II will be the happy medium. We'll see, but I at least wanted to post this to say that with speakers, I heard an improvement. Is it worth it? Maybe, but it would be tough to go back to the built-in DAC now that I've heard something better in my system.
I enjoyed reading your actual reaction to the Qutest, as opposed to Z's reaction to the sales pitch in a product description. I didn't hear night and day differences between it and the D90SE, but if I let it run, I heard artifacts and details in familiar tracks that sold it for me. If I had to pull a number out of the sky, I'd say 95% of the same information was there in both cases, but in that 5% difference, I'd notice something I never noticed before - in tracks I'd heard for five decades. Old Steely Dan was weirdly new Steely Dan. I'd find myself saying, "Is that a triangle?" "Oh, they kept the marimba going." This was the first time I'd heard Doug Fieger whisper, "Don't worry," behind the percussion in "She's So Selfish" off of "Get the Knack."
I have a Chord Qutest DAC and it was an upgrade to my Oppo HA2-SE and prior the that an Audioquest Dragonfly Red. For the record I stream from a laptop using Rega Brio amp and DALI Oberon 7 speakers. This DAC gave a very clear improvement both in acoustic mass, detail and depth and width of soundstage.
From what I understand of this reviewer is he has neither the equipment, source material, accessories or hearing to detect a similar improvement in sound quality which is clearly there and available in the DAC. Sorry I have to say this reviewer is lightweight and doing people a disservice.
Like with anything is the Qutest worth the extra money? That always depends on both your priorities and how much money you have. For me yes but I am not buying another DAC for another 10 years.
Fuck it this was so wholesome, I am now firmly in the Z camp. Subscribed
I'll stick with my Mojo. Really can't fault the unit for a compact DAC/Amp. I can't see how the Qutest or Hugo can be worth the price jump to justify them for me.
I have a Mojo and was using it in line level mode to drive a Dark voice and Sennheiser HD800s. I upgraded to the Qutest and its in a totally different league. Sometimes you do get what you pay for!
Kiran Hafeez I don’t doubt the jump in quality I just can’t justify the cost of it. Persoanlly going for a RME DAC/amp for the IEM section and that will be the end game for me - for a while anyway.
I mainly just listen to Apple Music/Spotify. I have tidal but hardly use it as my playlists are all in iTunes. With that in mind, a £2k DAC is just a waste for lossy music listening for me.
There is a lot to be said Marty with finding a sound that you find satisfying. The audiophile trip can be never ending and different is not always better. However, I do believe this product offers truly remarkable sound if the rest of your system is capable of using the signal.
@@martyp2138 Mojo/Poly owner here. The Hugo2 and Qutest are a great step up if you like the Chord house sound. RME sounds much different.
I have this conventer in my store, in Poland it costs PLN 5,900. This is one of the best DACs I've heard even up to PLN 10,000. I compared it with equipment from Matrix, Cayin, Mytek, Hegel, Cambridge Audio, Questyle and NuForce. I am totally surprised Zeos, that you do not hear anything interesting in its sound signature. DAC sounds with very high resolution. It has a noticeably better defined bass than its predecessor, 2Cute. The device has a much more organic sound than the Mytek, Cayin or Matrix constructions at a similar price. At the same time, it shows a lot of information in music.
Zeos is deaf. Or just paid to promote china cheap stuff. I cannot see other way
Z doesn't review audio equipment, it's just a Unbox Therapy with a little more in depth rambling about design, construction and use, never about sound adjectives or comparisons.
By the way, I cannot tell the difference between Chord Amp with THX 789. Why ?
I don't think that a DAC is worth 2000 dollars, but if you can't hear a difference between any DACs, there for sure is a problem with your setup or your ears. More expensive doesn't always mean better, however there are obvious differences between the DACs that I've heard.
"but if you can't hear a difference between any DACs, there for sure is a problem with your setup or your ears"
DACs are not SUPPOSED to sound different as long as they work well and are not broken or polluted by noise/USB power noise!!
$2k on a dac is not even consider high end in the audiophile world! Don't talk about stuff you know nothing about.
Hey Zeos, very interesting review. I appreciate your honesty. I've gone back and forth on the issue of DACs. I often compare DACs by re-digitizing recordings of DAC outputs in ABX Comparator for Foobar. I can easily distinguish by Jotunheim DS DAC from my Gungnir Multibit, but in general distinguishing DACs this way is very difficult, especially over headphones. Personally, I feel like the difference a DAC makes is best reflected in the representation of space, which is of course larger and thus more apparent over speakers. Did you have a chance to test the Qutest with speakers?
Seltzertronics I’m using the Chord Mojo/Poly on my main stereo system and I really love it. My speakers are 110dB sensitivity @1watt (above 200Hz) and so they have shocking dynamic range. Any DAC in my system will drastically alter the sound, even cabling. I don’t even have a pair of headphones. Mainly because I’ve searched and searched and they all sound terrible to me. So this review is kinda funny to me.
Good dacs prob all sound transparent
Z.... I’m not a serious audiophile and I could here the difference between the filters at a Chord dealer.
how ???
Exactly! I know this is an old video but the difference in filters are just hard to miss.
To be honest, I can barely tell the difference when using the qutest w/ headphones vs. any other mid-high end ESS DAC. They're all pretty decent. However, with loudspeakers it's a surprisingly noticeable difference. Way more detail with the Qutest than with other DACs I've tried.
With speakers there is a huge difference in sound stage as well.
just saying would like to know how more dac/amps compare to aune stuff want to know if i should upgrade to something at some point. going to say you still think they are amazing considering they have still to this day survived in ur setup of manny other super amazing and high priced things
I've used this in a few sytems, and compared it to other DACs i hear a legit difference it is a great DAC and instantly hear the change in sound signature when changing filters...not sure why you can't hear it?
do a real double blind testing. Then come back and comment.
@@super_salty9189 No...I have a life....thats why i let Zeos do this stuff.
Martin B The same augment can be made to invalidate zeos's review.
@@DaveDodd then don't go and rave about your ability to hear a "legit difference" when people without the bias factor of "it's super expensive so it must be good" think it just as good as dacs much cheaper and testing shows that it is worse (highly marginally) than some cheaper dacs on the market.
also to set up a double blind testing it really doesn't take that long and neither do the tests. What don't you have 30-50 minutes of free time with a friend or family me member ever?
If that is true I really feel bad for you. Maybe send less money on expensive dacs and go out and have some fun my dude.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez not really in terms of a positive review. He didn't buy it with his own money. It was lent to him by a patreon member.
So that removes a lot of the bias. If he bought it with his own money for himself. That is entirely different. He would have some level of bias.
Simple fact is that for it's price it didn't impress him where other dacs exist cheaper with similar performance.
Even ignoring his experience there are other tests done more scientifically out there that show this dac does perform well, however they also show there are cheaper dacs that perform just as well for less and some beating it for less.
Obviously those tests ignored the preset EQ's.
Lot of rave DAC reviews are on speaker systems Ive noticed. Im thinking DACs make a bigger difference in speakers than headphones. Maybe since the more expensive DACS primarily improve soundstage and instrument separation youre more likely to hear it on speakers. Thanks for this honest review, I was looking at blowing a grand on this (used) to replace my current Geshelli (which also really bummed me out bc doesn't sound any different to me than multiple other sub 1000 dacs Ive had). This is probably not worth it.
If you review it on headphones or nearfield monitors only , and don't hear it in proper stereo speaker setup, you just don't get it.
Yes, because the real benefit of chord DACs is better depth in the audio, which is only heard if you use a stereo speaker setup.
Nearfield monitors should reveal the qualities though.
@@oysteinsoreide4323 What in the hell are you even talking about LOL
I have a chord qutest going into a yamaha A S 2100 powering a pair of DeVore Fidelity gibbon 88’s and I can tell the difference between the neutral and warm filters but it is pretty subtle. The gibbons have a pretty wide frequency response and kind of a hot tweeter though so I would imagine the top end roll off is a bit more pronounced due to that. It is well put together and well thought out though so that made it worth it in my book.
I'm not doubting your comments but I've never really been able to hear the nuances between DACs when played through headphones. I think you need to have them hooked up to a top notch speaker system to really appreciate what's going on.
He was listening through $3000 headphones that haven't been reviewed yet! he liked the headphones.
In his THX 789 amp review, talking about it: "I can hear the difference between DACS do you know what this MEANS!"
(...so he CAN hear the difference between DACs, and didn't hear any difference between his 200$ Geshelli and the 2000$ Chord. Ouch.)
@@LeDechaine yes, quite strange isn’t it? Possibly something not right in device or set up? Otherwise the qutest gets almost only 5-star reviews.
Tbh we have tested the chord epic rca and it just brings super fine detail. We’ve tested the hugo tt2 with M scaler in our full naim separates close to reference level and it’s got more detail but lacks the engaging sound of naim so....
I think when you go past the $500 price point the differences are very minimal. I just got the Burson Playmate with V6 Vivid op amps last week and it cost $650 USD (came out to nearly $900 Canadian dollars) and does it sound better than my $120 Sound Blaster Z ? Yes, it's louder, cleaner, the bass doesn't distort at higher volume levels.. but did my Sound Blaster Z sound bad to begin with ? No.
I think Chord is meant for people that spend over a grand on headphones.
Yes and sorta. Some dacs are unique and the end game ones are like that but this is not one of those... This is a spend a lot of money although it sounds pretty much the same as its competitors dac.
How it stands vs Marantz HD DAC1?
One thing I really do not understand about hifi and all the claims surrounding it is this. Sound can be measured far more accurately than any human can hear. If sound stage, imaging, clarity, transparency, low end, vocals can be heard by a human ear then they can absolutely be picked up, measured and assigned a number by audio measuring equipment.
I can hear the diff between the filters...
Whats the name of the $200.00 DAC?
Rather have the 100.00 DAC at my age (56) than a 2000.00 DAC just for the prestige of telling everyone I own one. With age comes wisdom and hearing loss.
Nobody cares what you spent on DACs, just spending on watches and cars.
@@xyanide1986 Trust me, audiophiles and electronic nerds care.
@@richardlaub889 Well yeah but just so you can show off on head-fi? I don't have any friends that really care about audio.
Sorry i didn't get your meaning? Which is worse for hearing loss, 2000$ or 100$ dac?
@@vipernecklampy8773 Age not money.
I do want to see you test it with speakers instead of headphones
We all listern and hear differently, much like eye sight and seeing, but you cannot put glasses on your ears ! therefore, if you cannot hear a difference, you cannot hear a difference, personally I have tried many different DACs on my reference system, and, may be I am lucky, but I can hear differences between almost all DAC's, Amps, Speakers etc. I thought I had found my favorite DAC with the Topping D90 SE, I loved the sound of the Sabre Chips and the ES9038pro in the D90 seemed to be perfect, then a friend let me borrow a Qutest, wow, now I have a new favorite. it is no more detailed than the D90, but it has a toneality and music'ness (if there are such words), So each to your own, I love it. Plus the difference between the filters is for me dramatic, the warm filters are not my cup of tea. So for me it is worth every penny......an awesome DAC. Info:- Music Fedelity M8xi Amp, Bower and Wilkins 804 D4 Speakers, QED 40i cables and Mogami RCA connects......maybe it is just a question of resolution, so perhaps do not put expensive equipment into a cheaper system ??
The best way to assess the quality of decoding for DAC's is by evaluating the detail retrieval and tone & timbre accuracy of well recorded classical music or acoustical instrument music with or without vocals.
This DAC could possibly be superior in such cases... but such gains, if any, will always be economically laughable.
I would never pay that kind of money for a DAC because the Law Of Diminishing Returns is an implacable one...
I got a the D50 for 200$ on Massdrop which is a single ended but dual chip DAC -- one chip per channel.
With my 400$ single ended 2.8 W into 32 ohms Class 'A' amp ... I'm good, ... I'm far enough from motherboard audio to justify this little luxury.
As it's been said numerous times before; headphone & amp first and DAC is distant second in terms of coherent resource allocation...
When push comes to shove, you could maybe even do without a DAC if you have a modern desktop PC with a quality motherboard. Plug a 3.5 mm to RCA in a good amp and get a pair of 6XX and I bet it could probably sound pretty darn good enough...
Shut the hell up! You don't know the fuck you talking about
It's on the same level as the SMSL D1 in terms of measurements.
But you really ought to test it directly with a computer, the way it's meant to be used. I know Windows 7 drivers are a mess, I get it. But the perfomance is likely bottlenecked with using the Origen as the first link and the splitter as the second link in your audio chain.
With that said, I would never buy a DAC as expensive as this unless I won the lottery.
@Throngdorr Mighty Can't argue with that. The performance bottleneck is still an issue though.
Not really, it's a digital signal, as long it's preserved, doesn't really matter.
@@humanbass It's not degraded in any way, correct. But the digital signal could be even better if used directly with DACs that send a higher quality signal in the first place. Still, I'll likely never buy a Chord device of any sort. I'm just commenting on the testing method.
I am curious what the signal chain that you are feeding the qutest from is. Was it direct optical from the PC? Also balanced out from most products is not that big of a deal. It has more to do with professional audio due to long cable runs and signal interference.
Omg, why you test this dac on headphones no stereo system?
Sound quality differences among competent DAC's are at least an order of magnitude less than say, speakers. In fact, IME, SQ quality differences among cables often surpass that among good DAC's. Having said that, I do enjoy the sound quality from Qutest compared to others I have tried, some more expensive, but these types of differences were only audible when everything was optimized in the system, which includes...yes, analogue cables AND digital cables.
xD
It's suggested by chord to use a usb 2.0 cable, and that even an amazon basics cable would work fantastic. But I think it's way too expensive. Maybe a 1000 would be right, ASR has measurements.
going to do a serious AB this evening... 500 dollar Mdac vs 1500 chord 2 cute. Abyss 1226 Cans, headamp gsx mk2 .... will report back... doing it fully blinded
Results?
Yeah, results?
@@zahitemremetin606 He sold everything and bought a 100$ amp/dac.
I'd be genuinely interested in you reviewing the Bose 301s ($328/pr) or 201s ($218/pr). Bose obviously gets bashed a lot. But I wonder how bad their "classic" speakers are which are still in production. (The granddaddy 901s finally went out of production in 2016.)
Benchmark says that balanced headphone output is lower fidelity not balanced connections between low level devices.
I loved this review, it made me buy it!
If that was a dac amp combo with balance yeah I pay 1900. But that's not enough inputs from or out for 1900$
its interesting how everyone thanks him for telling the "truth" but in the end its just another opinion and is just as valid as somebody saying that he loves this dac^^ so what people here do is not different from people just believing others that say the dac is worth it
Don't have much DAC experience, but when I upgraded from Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 (~250$) to Chord 2Qute (prev version of Qutest) the difference was immediate and obvious. Not so much like new speakers or amp, but sound color changed, was more smoother, analogue, more details, better bass control.
Don't use with headphones because I almost never hear difference there (have Hifiman H400s, Audioquest Red dragon), only on stereo system (Focal 1028be speakers, OKish cables, up to 100-150$ each)
Just my 2c ...
Nop thanks , I bought chord products in the past had some issues , e-mailed chord electronic 3 times never get feedback , u know what they can keep it , their products are expensive and they don't even respond an email ? No thanks it sounds good tho not better than RME adi 2 Dac and RME stand behind their products with support
I'm really floored by the fact that Chord is using a USB-micro for their power supply connection. Seriously! On an $1800 Dac? Not even USB-C? USB micro sucks, in the sense that it's very easy to damage the connector. Damn Chord.
This is sad.
@Michael Silva So this is what an angry weeb behaves like.
Z, the enog2 might have a contender; the smsl M300. Balanced, dsd, etc. Check it out. I'm between those two. One of those and the 789 is my endgame.
Looking at the specs the M300 is basically an upgrade from the SU-8. Slightly better performance at the same price. I'd wait for the ASR to test it before pulling the trigger.
@@Mrmagor34
Yeah, I'm waiting for amir to get a hold of it. I can't see it measuring poorly. No rush though.
Yup, I probably should have waited myself. Ordered a SU-8 about a week ago. Still, should be a big improvement over my Modi 2U.@@NWGR
@@Mrmagor34 Most definitely an improvement over the M2U! The SU8 V2 is a great balanced dac.
Thank you for your honesty in this review. I have been debating/shopping around for one of these. Not any more. My other choice was the Mytek brooklyn +. How about a review on this. I really appreciate the blatant honesty. P.S. I loved the review on the PB 16 SVS.. and now own it.
Just watched an unboxing of a Sinbosen clone 20000q amp. Looks to good to be true so you know what to do.
$1900 and no balanced!?!?!? Hard pass!!
Geerladenlad u don’t need balance
@@illyasviel5820 If I'm going to spend $1900 I do!
Geerladenlad not in the slightest.
If u won’t buy a dac or amp just because it doesn’t have balance then you’re a fool. Lol
@@illyasviel5820 You don't have the fairest idea of what you are talking about.
Topping dx7 kicks the ass out of chord. Very honest review . SMSL and Topping are so good and you hear it instantly with the WOW effect.
Rly? I cant listen any more ESS and AKM chips so dont make me laugh... Why SMSL and Topping dont make me smile when Im listen music? Even old dac on PCM1794 or WM8740 /8741 give me more pleasure than newest AKM and ESS dacs.
@Teknical Xtacy D90 is bae ... that's the max you should pay if you really want the best... everything more than that is just a scam
I rly confused to choose between m60s or Ricardos for gaming...u said m60s it's the best ath product, but u said ricardos it's a "gaming headset" now im rly confused af (:
duanda brian you need to find which frequency response you prefer
duanda brian you cant go just off of what this guy says ok
@@davidhodgin8900 maybe you are right...
duanda brian :) a lot of this headphone stuff is subjective by the way.
Well, I hope that if someone is at least interested in the Qutest they at least give it an honest and open minded try despite this review. I believe that Z can't tell a difference, but I can without much effort at all, and maybe someone else reading this or watching this review might be able to as well.
JasonWrites Remember that sweet sweet placebo
@@ilpatongi The band? Yeah, they are pretty sweet.
Hit play on video... hears " this is an $1,900 DAC", stops video, gives like , closes the window... ( heres a bit of context ... my car was around 250 DOLARS ) thank you for the video tho ... xD
Ricardo Azenha The chord dave is $11000...
My car was $65,000 ;) and I have a Qutest and and M Scaler. Sorry you can’t. So how’s the price of your car relevant, as much as mine isn’t relevant?
@@skampster are you special or just an absolute knob head?
@@skampster You should get a financial advisor.
@@skampster it's relevant given you income...
I'm not going to spend more than the total amount of my sound sistem in a dac...
I don't even have a house... Only a room...
That would be the most stupid thing I could do to my sound sistem...
Balanced connection is null and void. Each inputs are galvanically isolated. :)
With all due respect, those Chord dacs do deliver. You just don’t have them set up in a proper system. High quality amps, speakers, cables etc etc .I have both the TT2 and Dave with Mscaler. I’ve heard that more money than brains thing and it doesn’t bother me. Some people just don’t have very good manners. I have the TT2 and Dave with the Mscaler and they deliver a spectacular sound. A very special sound. A budget dac can’t do that.
6:50 Why not just convert those 24-bit files down to 16-bit?
Well I mean the dac will extract a certain amount of bits no matter what so whether the files are 16 or 24 the sound will be almost the same. What details get sampled should change so you might hear more drums on the 16 bit while the 24 might have a little less drums in the background and some whispering voices caught here and there. The main song though will be exactly the same.
I don't hear the difference in filters when using my headphones. My headphone is a 1987 vintage AKG K240DF. I don't listen to music using the headphones much. However, I see a slight difference in the filters when listening on my speakers: vintage 1986 JBL 240Ti. The difference between the filters is slight. I am told the difference is more pronounced when the original recording isn't perfect. And my ears are 1960 vintage.
Hey Z
I have this DAC, with the HTVD 820 currently, it’s my high-end desktop set up.
I have tested it with the Oppo HA2SE DAC with the HTVD 820 amplifier, I threw the DAC from the ES 100 to the mix,
Obviously the DAC from the Sennheiser amplifier itself to,.
Using the HD 800 S And the ether flo C
I can hear a distinct difference between all of the DACs but the transparency of the amplifier and the headphones makes such a difference that switching from one DAC to another just adds a beautiful Plainfield to the music.
But without a doubt the cutest is the most transparent holographic or real sounding natural sounding DAC out of the ones I have tested.
Buyers, tested, if you don’t like it, send it back, and if you can’t afford it just move on like you say, I think that’s all there is to it.
For the price of this thing, I would buy a Focusrite Red 4 Pre or RME Fireface UFX II, at least then I get my mones worth.
probably should have tested it VIA USB and BNC also, i think BNC is the best for digital
Good point
"Working at the A and P"? I didn't think you were that old Zeos...
hey, can you review the hyperx cup mix in, its a instant noodle cup shaped headphone that will go on sale April 1st
That's the kindda shit I come to this channel for
You wrong… sorry qutest is really good and you can change voltage in qutest to join qutest to balance in … it is not profesional review sorry 😢
Guess what device have this specs and how much it cost?
DAC
: Dynamic Range: 130dB (A-weighted), THD+N: ~0.0002%, Sampling Rate (DSP Playback): PCM 16/24/32-bit / 44.1, 48.0, 88.2, 96.0kHz, Sampling Rate (Direct Mode Playback): PCM 16/24/32-bit / 44.1, 48.0, 88.2, 96.0, 176.4, 192.0, 352.8, 384.0 kHz, DoP 24-bit / 176.4 , 352.4 kHz
ADC
: Dynamic Range: 114dB (A-weighted), THD+N: 0.0006%, Sampling Rate (Mic-in): 16/24/32-bit / 44.1, 48.0, 88.2, 96.0, 176.4, 192.0 kHz, Sampling Rate (Line-in, Optical-In): 16/24/32-bit / 44.1, 48.0, 88.2, 96.0, 176.4, 192.0 kHz, Output Impedance: 1 Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 16 - 600 Ω, High Gain: 150 - 600 Ω (+14dB), Low Gain: 16 - 149 Ω (+0dB)
Creative Sound BlasterX G6 7.1 HD Gaming DAC and External USB Sound Card? $140? Just a guess :)
Saw the 130db and immediately thought of the g6
And what is that in basic English?
Yep, G6 it is. I hear it is better than $250-300 DAC/AMPs from China. So we need review from Z about it :)
Yeah cause specs matter. 😂👏🏻Man there are some seriously dense subscribers on this channel.
The people who spend thousands of dollars on DAC's don't believe in A/B testing, because they know they won't hear a difference, so they try to claim you need to listen to something for months before switching to something else, and listen to that one for months. This is headfi's operational thesis, as well as "if a sponsor, never speak ill", so who gives a shit about them. Chord makes really cool looking stuff, and if money was no object for me, I would buy their stuff, but that's only because of build quality and appearance, their amps are good, but DAC's? Nah, you hear the same shit from 10 grand DAC's as you do from 200$ dac's. As long as you get a good dac, you will be getting max quality from it, and good DAC's do not require thousands of dollars.
I disagree I had a metrum onyx, ak sp1000cu, and hugo tt2. They all have a different sound signature to them. A dac is more than just the chip. There are filters that affect the sound as well.
DACs shouldn’t sound different, it’s the point of the device; translating digital to analog.
wcg66 It can if you wan't your amp to sound different. A lot of headphones don't pair very well with competently flat and clinical sounding amps, the elex being a prime example, so having the option to change the sound digitally can be a worthwhile option of some people. Though there are amps, like from ifi, that also do this through a purely analogue filter. It just depends what your setup is.
wcg66 true btw.
Well they sound different because they have different amounts of detail retrieval and noise introduced. Dacs will all do 24 or 32 bit conversion but they never tell you how many bits they are actually retrieving from the original sample. The converting and bits that were not effectively converted create noise that is filtered out. To keep it short delta sigma dacs use multiple chips or other methods because you could be getting between 6 and 15 bits most likely the rest is just shaped. In a graph it's a sine wave. This is why most dacs sound good but not real. It's all artificial sounding. R2r dacs give you real sound without guess work but they're different and better and need filters as well.
V1ralB1ack that’s complicated. I think they sound different also because the technology is not perfect. And the imperfections such as more airy sound or more neutral sound are what people think better sound quality.
@@motorenbenzinvergaserkraft9166 That to =)
what lower end stuff you compared too?
The funny thing about the Chord mojo is that I still prefer it to more expensive DACs... which I've owned.
Z I own the qutest and use it with my stax 007tii amp and l700s (3v setting). I find it absolutely amazing and I recommend using a little better interconnects then amazon basics. I upgraded to some audioquest golden gates (nothing crazy) to see if there was a difference and I found with the qutest it made a significant difference than with other dacs. I also think you should use usb input with the chord drivers. I think chord products handle usb data better than any other input (other than dual data coax that is used with m scaler tech). I think the hugo 2 (same dac essentially) sounds even better than qutest because the batteries give it ultra quiet power. I use the ether c flows out of the hugo 2 and its incredible. I bet the hugo 2 and meze's would be amazing. Thanks just wanted to share my thoughts.
When you hear the true nature of a chord dac, its should present itself in the form of emotion, rather than things like details or soundstage etc. I know that sounds dramatic and gimmicky but after spending time with one you really do feel the music more rather than just hear more of it, which is Rob Watts' ultimate goal with his dacs. I am not a chord fanboy either, I can just hear and feel the philosophy that Watts approaches his dac design with. The timing is better, music sounds almost slower somehow, timbre is pleasant and identifiable in all instruments. But I really recommend usb with drivers and slightly better rca's (I spent like maybe $50 bucks or so on like 1.5ft RCAs and definitely felt a difference in clarity). The qutest was my first real high end dac purchase (then sold and got hugo 2 for portability) after I started watching your videos and I never regretted the purchase.
If you cannot hear differences between two devices, then there are something that destroy the sound. Even two crappy DACs should sound differently. You should actually find the weak links in your system instead of bashing something without knowing why you cannot hear a difference.
Amazon Basic interconnects… 😩
@@wp7187 So what else should people use? How much better in terms of capacitance, frequency response, impendance, etc... are those, and how much do those measurable qualities of the copper wire impact signals? If basic cables are universally bad, there should be a universally 'good' set, right? So what are those?
@@jaredkelly4866 It depends how it matches with your system. I have the Qutest hooked up to a Musical Fidelity X150, which then goes to a REL T5i and some DynAudio Audience 52s.
My initial interconnects were some £25 Cambridge Audio ones; the sound was nice, but soft and a little lifeless. I then moved to some older Van Den Hul The First Ultimate (Mark One) cables, which were were more open and fluid-like, but had a recessed bite. I then bought some Audioquest Sydneys , which were more detailed, with a quicker sense of rhythm and more attack on the top end; they had a stiff, cold sound which soon disappeared once they were broken in overnight, matching the Van Den Huls’ fluidity and becoming better than the other cables in every other way. They had a slightly too forward sound which was later dissipated by dropping the DAC output from 3V to 2V. That being said, if your system has quite a harsh sound, the Audioquests might have too much attack to be pleasurable; it’s entirely about system matching, and some may even prefer the Cambridge cables in certain circumstances.
As for my comment about the Amazon cables, they would sound fine with any system, but they would distort too much of the signal to honestly represent high quality equipment (hence why this reviewer can’t hear an audible difference between this and much cheaper DACs). I recommend experimenting with some Audioquest Towers if you’re unconvinced; I have an AQ Evergreen Auxillary, and it makes a big difference to my DALI Bluetooth speaker (far smoother) - even when using my laptop’s DAC with some 16-44.1 FLACs through VLC.
(Apologies for the excessively long comment.)
Love the style & brought it home.....after months of intense listening with dfferent setups comparing the DACs I have like a student working on his thesis, i totally got your point! Now i understand why you are a pro & I am not!
I own the qutest and I also own an Astell & kern AK70 mk2 and through my system I can't hear a difference between the two. They literally sound identical.
I think the bulk of your money is going on the case build and R&D cost.
It's a really nice sounding dac but so is my AK70 and it's less than half the price. Hmmmm.
What else is in your system? I have an AK SP1000CU and also have a Hugo TT2. The TT2 sounds substantially better than the sp1000. I used to have a metrum o yx which sounded different as well.
I have A-B my current RME ADI2 DAC vs my old Denon DA300 and there was very small difference in high frequencies, Denon sounded more rolled off, but I would be happy with either one of those. The only reason why I actually bought ADI2 DAC is amazing pre amp (which I needed) and DSP
Also the integrated headphone amplifiers on both of those units are kinda shitty but in a different way.
What was your problem with ADi-2 DAC's amp section? Interested to hear, cheers.
@@ZeBubba ADi-2 DAC's amp is perfectly fine for IEMs. But headphones have problems with treble, on more efficient phones like LCD-X and my personal Elear it manifests as reduced sound stage and poor imaging, and distortion is audible at 15.5k test tone. Distortion gets worse with less efficient phones and it starts happening at lower frequencies.
@@Sebastian_Athea Ancedotal, i own the ADI-2 Dac FS, and compared it's headphone amp to Schiit Jotunheim and Liquid Platinum, while the LP's a bit better, I found it quite competitive with the Jotunheim, and very neutral and clean and really quite good. No problem competing with 200-500$ amps imho. Tested with 300 ohm HD650. I noticed none of the distortion you speak of, but I can't hear past 14.8k as im 40 yrs old.
@@mikeweatherford4375 I would call Schiit Jotunheim anything but neutral, It has v shape eq signature, and it sounds compressed aka it reduces dynamics and pushes background way too forward.
I had Corda Classic ff, and Lake people rs-08 before I replaced them with 789, and all of those do a better job than ADi-2's amp and Jotunheim, actually Denon DA300 has cleaner amp than Jotunheim and ADI-2, but DA300 lacks power to push anything that's not very efficient, or has impedance higher than 80 ohm.
Wow, you'd think for a no-compromise DAC they'd use a no-compromise balanced connection scheme.
spookanide if you did some research you wouldn’t no Rob’s design doesn’t need it.
Have you had a chance to use the M Scaler with this DAC or any of the Chord DACs?? :)
It pains me to say this... no difference, even with a highly resolving system. Zeos, good video, very honest.
Very ignorant
Yes the qutest measures really well but unfortunately so do dacs like Topping and they cost 300-600 dollars and under matched conditions they probably sound the same!😒