I disagree.
I owned the DAVE/Blu 2 for about a year and recently sold them. For me, they re-defined what digital could do, and almost closed the gap to vinyl in terms of naturalness and non-fatiguing listening. But at the end of the day there was something niggling me about the DAVE/Blue 2 sound. It sounded just a shade dry and thin, lacking that last degree of liquidity and fullness of sound I was looking for. So I sold the DAVE and Blu 2 and went looking for something else.
But nothing else I listened to really satisfied the way that the Chord DACs did. I brought home my little Chord Mojo and even that wiped the floor with some vastly more expensive DACs in terms of musical satisfaction, as did the Qutest I bought as a stopgap.
So I have just bought a TT2 and M Scaler to replace the DAVE/Blu 2 I sold only a short time ago. They have been running over the last week (and improved considerably over that time). I bought the TT2 rather than another DAVE because I had read that it sounded fuller and more dynamic than the DAVE. This was closer to what I was looking for.
And this has proved correct. The TT2 is immediately recognisable as from the same family as the DAVE. The sound is very similar. But it is fuller, a little darker, more dynamic. It is possible that it gives up a tiny bit in transparency to the DAVE, but I am not convinced of that. I do know that the TT2/M Scaler produces a sound I prefer to the DAVE/Blu 2. It produces the same sense of musical engagement at a deep and satisfying level that the DAVE did, but with a richer, darker and more dynamic sound I find more appealing. No doubt others will prefer the DAVE’s sound signature (which they should, given that it is double the price). But as someone who has owned both, I prefer the TT2/M Scaler.
