ЦАПы — Chord DAVE

DAVE is a Chord Electronics DAC, the British company that builds its converters around custom-programmed FPGA chips rather than off-the-shelf DAC silicon. The unit does three jobs in one case - converter, standalone preamplifier and headphone amplifier. Production is handmade in Britain, with black and silver finishes.

Key specs that matter

Frequency response is 20 Hz to 20 kHz within 0.1 dB. Chord quotes dynamic range at 127.5 dB and THD+N at -127.5 dB, both A-weighted, with channel separation above 125 dB at 1 kHz. Output impedance is 0.055 ohm. The headphone socket reaches 6.8 V RMS at 1% THD, equal to 154 mW into 300 ohm or 1.4 W into 33 ohm, and it accepts headphones up to 800 ohm. PCM from 44.1 to 768 kHz at 16 to 32 bit is supported, plus native DSD64 to DSD512 and DoP. Digital inputs comprise four BNC coaxial S/PDIF sockets up to 384 kHz, one AES XLR and two TOSLINK optical ports up to 96 kHz, and a galvanically isolated USB Type B port that runs to 768 kHz. Analogue outputs are one stereo RCA pair, one stereo XLR pair and a 6.35 mm TRS headphone jack. The case measures 7.8 cm high, 33.5 cm wide and 15.2 cm deep, and weighs 5 kg.

Engineering and use context

Processing runs on a Spartan 6 FPGA loaded with more than a million lines of code, which Chord says gives around 1,000 times the processing capacity of a conventional mass-produced DAC chip. The interpolation filter uses 164,000 taps and feeds a 20-element pulse array, a combination aimed at better timing accuracy and noise shaping. A large LC display behind the porthole window reports input, sample rate, volume and set-up options, and a rotary encoder plus infrared remote handle control. Configurable crossfeed is available for headphone listening. Power draw is 40 W in use and 10 W in standby, the supply accepts 90 to 250 V AC at 50 or 60 Hz with automatic switching, and the warranty runs five years.

Pairing

With its own volume control, DAVE can connect straight to power amps or powered monitors over XLR or RCA, so no extra line stage is required. The isolated USB input suits a computer or network player, and the unit is Roon tested and works with Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS hosts. The box includes a remote, a USB cable with Type-A and Type-B plugs and an optical lead.

Alternatives

The Chord Qutest is a compact standalone converter using a 49,152-tap pulse array design with user-selectable 1, 2 or 3 V RMS output and no headphone stage.