Chord Dave or Ayre QX5 Twenty DAC???

The Bricasti M1 SE is excellent but I like the features of the Ayre QX5. Although the Bricasti is excellent I would choose the Chord Dave. With the Chord, I will have to still use USB from my MacBook to the DAC because of its price. I read this may still sound great. With the Ayre, I could use the MacBook as the Core with Roon which is what I want to do. With the Chord I would have to wait a year or two to be able to do that until I have more funds. Not sure if there is a reasonably priced streamer with Roon & Tidal that would be high quality.

Both these DAC's put you in Totaldac territory. I would much prefer a Totaldac D1 Six to anything else mentioned here.

Hi Paul,
That’s the dilemma with High End audio, so many good choices are available and you can’t hear all of them . Invariably someone will post that the Chord Dave sounds better than the Totaldac in their opinion, just the way it goes 😊
Charles

Which is why it's always nice when people answer the actual question asked instead of turning it into a recommendation thread.

@sc53 
I didn't say that the Ayre was not a nice DAC; simply that it's not in the same league as top tier DACs - which if multiple commentators are to be believed, such top tier includes the Dave.  Since I haven't heard the Dave (as said above, way too many choices these days) I couldn't say one way or another definitively.  In any case, I'm set with what I have now.   Let's see if anyone else has heard both and can add to the discussion.

I hear you charles1dad. However, I have had both the DAVE and the Totaldac here, and it was very clear to me in my 2 channel system that the Totaldac translated much better with a speaker system. With headphones, I am not sure, and I think this is where the DAVE gets allot of its praise. In my system though, I just didn't get it. DAVE was great, no doubt, but not magic like the Totaldac. Magic in that the Totaldac sounded like real musicians playing music in my room with me.

Sorry to recommend another product, but I have experience with one of the DAC's the OP mentioned, and my findings of it vs. another, so I feel that I did nothing wrong.