Z Review - Chord Qutest [Don't Share]

Same :(

Hmm showing the video is not available. :(

RME vs This? Options, The Amp section, DSP corrections, GUI,

ZeosPantera

I'm increasingly convinced that spending money on DACs offers the least ROI with respect to improving what I'm hearing. Definitely not a priority.

Michael Shurkin

Wow. There you have it! I do not own a Chord Qutest. But, I do currently use a Metrum Musette. It retailed for about $600 less than the Qutest. Before I got the Musette I had a Audeze Deckard dac/amp. It was half the price of My Musette for all in one. I loved the Deckard. I did a long A/B test of the 2 dacs feeding the Deckard amp section and the difference was huge. Resolution, sound stage and bass saw the biggest change. I tested with a pair of HD600s and a pair of ZMF Oris. The Musette just dug deeper into the recording. However, I got a bigger change when I switched to the Wells Audio Milo versus the change with the Musette. My system now is much better than just the deckard. How much I couldn't say. But, it was enough to feel that change in both components was worth it. DACs are only as good as the rest of your chain in my opinion. I don't know if the Chord Qutest is worth the money. I have heard the DAVE and I loved it. Was it 7-8 times better than my Musette. Probably not. Definitely better, but at some point budgetary restraint has to play a part. Getting the best your budget can afford is the way to go. I feel the same way about headphones. I don't always feel measurements are the best way to prove a components worth. Musicality is the most important thing. If it can accurately recreate what music sounds like live, it is good by me. This is the first review I have seen that didn't love the Qutest. Good to have differing opinions.

HEIL ZEOS, this is true af... the dac regardless of it's price shouldn't have sounded different. It's not running anything special on the power supply and it's not anything special as it's just another clean delta sigma dac. I mean I'm sure it's implementation is clean and excellent but the geshelli enog2 dac and rme adi-2 dacs are both excellent to.

Amen to everything in this video.

Hyp0xia

Have a E10K, outing to a Magni 2. Vs a HD-DAC1. I cant tell which was which, blind test, Elex. 6XX, X2, or Verum 1. The only thing price adds, is features and build quality. And E10k wad solid already.

What sets the rme adi2 apart from this type of review for it? Its not 1800 but still leaps and bounds more expensive than many of the good dacs you mentioned.

I love Eggnog, too. I use it for my home studio setup. I can tell difference between different DAC architectures. I really prefer closed-form DACs like Schiit Yggdrasil or the ladder DACs of Audio-GD over the delta-sigma DACs like the AKM or the Sabre. The Qutest is just a delta-sigma DAC with a fuck-ton of TAPs. That's the whole gimmick with Chord. They have the most TAPs. It still sounds like a delta-sigma to me. Ladder DACs at least do something different, to my ears. They have that "real" sound. Like vinyl without all the bullshit vinyl. You should review the Yggdrasil, Z.

I've borrowed for a week and compared the Qutest to my IFI DSD Micro BL, Cambridge Audio DACMagic 100, and Bifrost multibit. a/b'd it with a Woo WA-7, Cavalli CTH, and Stax SRM 353x with L700s, X00s, LCD-X's and ELACs among others. I really did hear an immediate difference between the Qutest and the others. I've described it as a more "buttery" sound (best way I can put it). Do I think it actually sounds better, worth the money? Yah, if it were maybe 3 or 4 hundred dollars more. There aren't many great dacs between $600 and $2000, so I guess you have to spend it to get that next level

Jan Miller

$10 Telegram Chat accessible here :: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/10-telegram-link-25057679">https://www.patreon.com/posts/10-telegram-link-25057679</a>

ZeosPantera

You let em have it Z bullshit is bullshit and the Geshelli Enog2 rocks.....