Excellent review, most informative. I have Tt2 and Mscaler fed by McIntosh Mct80 cd transport and exclusively into Audeze Lcd5. This is heaven

This is a great review. I already own a TT2. I use it exclusively with headphones, so I am pleased about your comments on the DAC. My headphones are Focal Utopias with your Black Dragon cable and Sennheiser HD800S, which are very different, of course. My only problems have been caused when playing DSD tracks, up to DSD512, purchased from the Dutch site, NativeDSD. Every now and then and without prior warning, a noise, often quite loud and rather disconcerting, occurs and sometimes brings the track being played to an abrupt halt. I use as the source my JRiver Media Center 26 program on my laptop. I wish I could find a way to stop this, although PCM tracks never seem to be a problem. I have contacted a Chord advisor and he seems to think this is a USB synch issue when I change tracks in another format to DSD. I am not convinced about that. However, I plan to trial the M-Scaler shortly and hope that the problem may be solved, as I understand it converts DSD to PCM. Obviously, that is not of itself a good reason to buy the M-Scaler, which I hope will be irresistible, anyway. Sadly, this view may not be shared by my long suffering Wife!

This is the ultimate comparison. This will help kill a lot of people’s curiosity. Great review Drew!!!

Thanks for the review. You broke it down to human terms.

What a great video. Been trying to find info out about the m scaler for my tt 2. Just ordered one !

I am a new comer having started with the HD650 in October 2022. I’d bought the TT2 and M-Scaler used in January this year and loved it from the minute I turned it on with my small collection of headphones. However, I wondered if the Dave will be much better than the TT2. This review helped me when I heard that the TT2 is warmer, more musical and more power for headphones. I’ve use the Susvara via the 635 port as well as XLR using a custom-cable. It plays well with HD800S, Atrium, etc etc…. It’s been a wonderful journey! Recently, I added the Silent Angel Rhein Z1 Plus as my Roon server and the sound quality went up notches again! I’ve read that it’s better to put the M-Scaler away from the TT2, is it true? Also read about adding SRC-DX and OPTO-DX, anyone to share your experience and expertise?

SUPERB REVIEW .

Thanks for the Video overview ! I'm a utube reviewer for about a year now mostly budget gear , But Rob i have heard his dam near genius at building dacs god i would love to review one of his dacs. One day hopefully 😆 thanks again !

Great review! It's really hard to have both 'detail' and 'resolving' in the same dac. Resolving usually being accompanied by warmth. So im quite surprised dave does that. Anyway, is the 4 filtering options only for the headphone amp section? Or would the line level mode dac share the same filtering and variable volume benefits? Keep up the good work!

Digital audio is game with no end, every day there is some "better sounding" product with better features, revolutionary technology and so on. If that was true, today we will have digital front end that is good as real thing, and yet, there is so small number of DACs that can connect you to the music like good analog can.

Solution question, TT2 alone or Mscaler/Qutest. I already own my endgame headphone amp.

I guess what I'd like to know is whether the headphone section of the TT2 can be considered truly reference quality? Or will I achieve more pleasing results running it into a dedicated HPA? And I am not asking about the power to drive, I'm asking about the quality and presentation of the HPA in the TT2.

Could you share a playlist that you played on the Chords?

Would have liked to heard how the M Scaler sounds with the Qutest . How this combo would compare to the TT2 alone and with M Scaler .

I just wish you could have talked about pairing the Hugo 2 with the M Scaler

Currently using chord hugo tt. But ohm my god in the future I'll definetly go for hugo tt 2 + m scaler. Chord dacs are really something different.

Dave 2 is not going to have the same amplification capabilities as the TT2. It comes down to the inner volume. The TT2 has a bank of supercaps etc. and an external power supply. The Dave has a built in power supply. I am sure it's pretty tight in there. They aren't going to change the Dave form factor anytime soon.

Keep my car or get a hugo? Decision decision

Heard the Cords before. Not sure what the fuss is about. Reckon if you did a blind A/B test with a $1000 modern Chinese DAC... you couldn’t tell the difference.

Разыграйте несколько штук TT2 среди подписчиков )

mscaler = fancy toy,no improvement in sq

goal of modern engineering is too do things cost/effective. This is a expensive way of doing something invented many years ago. It’s like saying I invented the wheel but mine is made out of gold so it’s better. It doesnt make sense. Neophytes can get impressed with technical wording such flip flops, filters, etc so old concept on electronics. On top of that you get a poor industrial designed product (not user friendly) and low quality accesories, cables, components. Your paying basically for brand name and a big chunk of alluminum, not better sound really