Chord M-Scaler and Should I Want One?

@tom23, Koji Ghafoor is a really knowledgeable guy when it comes to what audio gear is available on the market right now. I totally trust his opinions and insight. And I’m not saying that because he gave the TT2 and M Scaler positive reviews. The guy literally spends days out of every month demoing audio gear. Wish I could do that. 
 

IMHO, the M Scaler is an absolute necessity if you’ve got either the DAVE or the TT2 because it adds so much fullness and analog character to whatever you’re listening to. But you’ve gotta go all in on using really good BNC cables and having quality LPSU’s for both the DAC and the M Scaler. Though they’re not a must have because you can get by without them, when you do the result is truly satisfying. 

"IMHO, the M Scaler is an absolute necessity if you’ve got either the DAVE or the TT2 because it adds so much fullness and analog character to whatever you’re listening to."

I own a Dave and tried the M Scaler in my system. I prefer the Dave without the M Scaler. To my ears the M Scaler makes everything sound unnatural. 

I’ve heard that quite frequently, that M Scaler works well with TT2 and nearly everyone likes this pairing but with Dave the opinions are mixed on whether M Scaler helps or not.  

I have an MScalar which I will try out during my DAC upgrades, keeping it in the audio chain only if it improves sonics. When I reach my end game DAC, then i’ll decide whether to keep it or not.  

rob watts clearly states the scaler and tt2 models were developed in the same time frame, in some ways the fpga code for conversion and filtering written into the tt2 is optimized for the scaler fronting it... otoh dave has even more computing power but was a predecessor in deveopment time frame by a couple years, not to say there isn’t benefit to be had with an upscaled input feeding it...

my experience is the simply that the scaler feeding the tt2 makes it smoother and more spacious sounding, yet with no loss of detail/micro-dynamics, transients are more effortless and cleaner/more natural - the term i have used in an earlier post iirc is that somehow the musical ’bits’ seem glued back together more like the real thing, more seamlessly, with the scaler working

conversely, removing the scaler makes the tt2 sound more hifi -- more treble energy but in a glare-y sense, music seems sharper and more uptight - on my system the difference is immediately noticeable, no need to strain to hear it (which can be the case in trying to hear the difference among other finer dacs, say for instance, weiss 501 vs bricasti m1se)