REVIEW – Chord Electronics DAVE DAC

Stuart and Linette Smith have had the Chord DAVE DAC sat on their rack for the best part of a year now and don’t want it to go home. Find out why.

“I remember being at the High-End Show in Munich a couple of years ago and John Franks the MD and Chief designer from Chord Electronics announcing the launch of their new DAC, DAVE in a hail of superlatives which frankly I greeted with a degree of caution. Indeed, the name alone screams overkill, with DAVE standing for Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis…digital to analogue truthful in the extreme. I needn’t have been so concerned and I’m going to do this review, to use the vernacular of my home town, a bit arse about tit and say that Chord Electronics’ DAVE is indeed the most accurate DAC I have had the pleasure of using in our system – you can, if you like stop right there. My current reference, the fully loaded Lampizator Big 7, is certainly no slouch in terms of sheer musical enjoyment, but when it comes to accuracy and High-fidelity it is left somewhat in DAVE’s wake…but more on that in a short while…”