Chord Electronics Ltd. Dave Reference DAC/Preamp/Headphone Amplifier

DAVE is Chord Electronics' flagship DAC, a true reference-level product, loaded with our latest-generation FPGA technology. Put simply, it is the most advanced DAC in the world. 

Not all DACs are created equal. Using proprietary technologies painstakingly developed by Robert Watts over the past twenty-years, DAVE is Chord Electronics' most advanced FPGA DAC to date.

Handling the conversion of your music with absolute precision, and exceptionally low noise, yields an organic performance that simply cannot be matched.

DAVE is the most advanced DAC Chord Electronics' have ever made. It features the very best conversion technology available, using proprietary techniques never seen before, making DAVE the most advanced DAC/preamp amplifier in the world. DAVE stands for ‘Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis’, a moniker that best reflects the product’s capability; a device so advanced and with so few compromises, that it is absolutely truthful in the extreme — a standard that all other DACs on the market simply cannot hope to match.

The DAC, which is also a reference-level headphone amplifier and ‘digital preamp’, distils twenty years of Chord research, development and advanced engineering into one device. At its heart lies a new version of the advanced Spartan 6 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with 1,000x the processing power of the traditional mass-produced chip DAC. DAVE’s FPGA is loaded with over a million lines of code to confront complex timing issues head-on, with speed and precision.

The FPGA’s extraordinary capability enables a number of key sonic benefits, including significantly improved timing and the best noise-shaper performance of any known DAC. DAVE’s technology delivers music with unmatched reality and musicality, with an unrivalled timing response. The device’s lossless digital volume control outputs the signal direct to your power amplifier for the purest experience.

DAVE has a full-sized LCD display, showing input, sample frequency, volume and set-up configurations options, within Chord’s famous porthole design. On its fascia, DAVE also features a rotary encoder with a large stainless steel controller and ball buttons, enabling direct interactivity in addition to the supplied remote control.

Chord Electronics Ltd. Dave User's Manual

General Specifications

Frequency Response: 20Hz to 20kHz flat within +/-0.1dB (HF filter off)

Tap Length Filter: 164,000

THD + N: 127.5dB (AWT)

Channel Separation: >125dB @ 1KHz

Dynamic Range: 127.5dB (AWT)

Sample Frequencies: 44.1Khz – 768Khz (16 – 32bit) and DSD64 to DSD512 native DSD + DoP (input dependant)

Digital Inputs: 4x 75Ω S/PDIF BNC Coax – 44.1kHz to 384kHz 1x AES XLR – 44.1kHz to 96kHz 2x Fibre Optic TOSLINK – 44.1kHz to 96kHz 1x USB Type B – 44.1kHz to 768kHz (16 – 32bit) – PCM and DSD

Analogue Outputs: 1x Stereo Pair of Unbalanced RCA 1x Stereo Pair of Balanced XLR 1x ¼” TRS Jack Headphone Output

Technical Specifications

Frequency Response: 20Hz to 20kHz +/- 0.1dB

THD +N: -127.5dB (AWT)

Channel Separation: >125dB @ 1kHz

Dynamic Range: 127.5dB (AWT)

Headphone Output: 1% THD 6.8v RMS with 300Ω (154mW) 1% THD 6.8v RMS with 33Ω (1.4w)

Output Impedance: 0.055Ω (short circuit protected)

Operating Voltage: 90v AC – 250v AV auto switching 50Hz – 60Hz

Dimensions (including connectors): 7.8cm (H) 33.5cm (W) 15.2cm (D)

Weight: 5kg