Anybody here upgrade from Chord Qutest DAC"

These DAC technologies are absurd, in the best way. I know the difference between 10 pounds and 20 pounds, but 10 elements and taps vs 20 and 20, I don’t think so.

i like the HQ Player idea, though. Never heard of it.

Interesting about the potential loss of timing precision with non chord DACs. I hope that’s not always the case.  But cool to keep that in mind.  So many other highly regarded DACs out there, 

@redwoodaudio 

I have a Qutest and almost sent it back when I first tried it.
The standard plug & play was too detailed for me !    Lol
I like DSD ( sacd ) Sound profiles in general 

I also tried a Playback Designs Merlot DSD dacThe best dac I’ve been around, period 
it was there with the Qutest  

Anyway , Roon has a upsampling dsp, similar to the Chord 1Mm device , but all software .

I played with all the dsp things and settled on the 2x DSD upsample 

it was pretty close to the Merlot when done 

try the Roon thing first and see how you like it !

jeff 

If you are ready to go down the rabbit hole, see this paper which describes the WTA algorithm and its effects on the reconstruction of analogue from digital signals...  https://www.moon-audio.com/content/pdf/chord/chord-tech-profile-hifi-critic.pdf

Also, note that the Qutest and TT2 convert DSD back to PCM internally...  Upsampling to DSD just breaks small signals, which some may like or dislike depending on your ear/brain/system/room...

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.