Chord Dave and lInear power supply

@shkong78

Thanks for sharing and Congratulations on improving the performance of your DAC. Looks like one hell of a upgrade to a subpar stock power supply. And if I may say so at a bargain price of €3K.

One thing you didn’t report, are you using stock power cords or did you upgrade PC’s on Farad power supplies? If yes, did you hear further improvements?

Honestly, I am bit surprised to see the quality of stock power supply in a DAC of this stature. At $14K entry point, one would think you are getting a robust power supply. I hope folks at Chord are astute enough to improve the existing power supply in future models.

@lalitk 

Power supplies are a black art not easily mastered by digital engineers. 

Kinda makes the new Mano ULTRA mkIII Farad look like a giant slayer.

Ahead of reviews.

@lalitk As the owner of a chord Dave I’ve been looking and reading about power supplies for quite some time. I’m a big believer in a good power supply. Many have reported that the power supply in Dave though small in size, indeed performs well and changing it yields no improvement. That is what Chord’s John Franks says. I have to say that right now with the chord Dave powered by PS Audio PP10 and data suppplied by EitherRegen, upscaled by M-scaler; it is sounding damn good. Extremely open and smooth but with more detail than you can count.

I’ve been on the fence and chatting with a friend the other day I decided that I was probably good with the onboard power supply. Then @shkong78 posts this. Probably not if, but when, will I buy one. I actually tried to put the stuff in the shopping cart on the website today and it won’t let you put multiple items in the cart. Saved by the glitch.

Jerry

I recently replaced a Sbooster used for a Roon Nucleus with a JS-2 Linear Power Supply (w/Sapphire DC Cable) made by uptown audio. Another case of a real dynamic improvement from a PSU.