Q&A session with Rob Watts about the past, present and future of Chord Electronics

Video timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:41 - A battery powered M Scaler and TT2/Hugo2?
05:02 - Rob’s favorite headphones and loudspeakers?
09:41 - A wireless streamer from Chord, will that ever happen?
11:51 - A high-end headphone amplifier from Chord, will that ever happen?
16:28 - Working with FPGAs
19:57 - Rob’s thoughts about R-2R ladder DACs
24:49 - Switching Mode Power Supplies VS Linear Power Supplies
36:09 - Rob’s thoughts about third party linear power supply makers for TT2, M Scaler and DAVE
44:34 - Will we ever see I2S inputs on future Chord DACs?
51:51 - New Chord DACs?
56:15 - Guinness or IPA beer? Which is Rob’s favorite?

[@jacksatin2011]

Interesting interview, Rob Watts - favourite headphone : Dan clark stealth - favourite Speakers : B&W 803 D3 - Dave is 99% could drive any headphones in the market. - No Chord Steamer device in nearly future. - Using DAC amp is better than a separate headphone amp. - FPGA may be better than R2R - A car battery is the best power supply. - Qutest needs the better LPS - TT2 doesnt' need the LPS - Warmer (upgraded) is better than Brighter (degraded) - Rob Watts prefer optical the most. - New chord DAC may be very expensive.

[@Soundnews]

And the most important of all: Golden Ale!

[@jacksatin2011]

@@Soundnews last but not least , the remarkable question. Cheer !

[@mccririck01]

Where did he say Qutest needs a linear power supply?

[@oneofthelastmen5873]

​@mccririck01 He didn't!! He said the 2Qute did, but the problem was solved with the Qutest. That was the whole point of the car battery test - to make the PSU for the Qutest as good as the "perfect" car battery supply

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

@@mccririck01 he described that it performed much better with a car battery as a power supply. So a different power supply could make a difference.

[@DanAlexandruGheorghe]

Excellent interview! Congrats, Sandu! May this be the first video of many similar ones!

[@Soundnews]

More videos like this will happen hopefully sooner rather than later ;)

[@ActualFish]

Very cool to watch a different format than usual! Learned a lot, great work :)

[@goldwerger]

Very informative. Robb is always a fountain of knowledge.

[@MisterChibs]

Excellent interview!!!!!

[@dangeorgecommunications]

Great scoop @soundnews - bravo!

[@banginghats2]

Thanks for this. I ALWAYS learn something listening to Rob.

[@Soundnews]

We talked offline for about ~2 hours regarding drinks, food, health, movies, books, politics, audio & more. Rob is such a knowledgeable, down to earth and modest guy. I hope I will meet him again sometimes

[@banginghats2]

@@Soundnews Back in the 70s my audio design heroes were Ivor Tiefenbrun and Julian Vereker, and I'd say Rob is a modern day equivalent for me.

[@oneofthelastmen5873]

Excellent interview! I am so glad you gave time for him to explain the switch mode power supply choice. Many reviewers assume Chord uses them to save money, whereas here he explains it is a very deliberate design decision! So glad I have not wasted money on a linear one for my Qutest. I totally agree with his views on optical connections. I just wish the Qutest had more than one. At the moment it is used with my CD transport because it is the longest cable run

[@Flavius7]

A wonderful, great, lovely , incredibile, fruitful, golden opportunity...for Rob to meet you! Glad he found the time to treat himself with wisdom and natural charisma.

[@rdraghiciu]

Thanks for sharing :)

[@Soundnews]

My pleasure, as usual

[@rdraghiciu]

Mulțumim!

[@Soundnews]

Thanks mate!

[@cruzzeaudiochanel2581]

Cool....good job Sandu !!! ❤️

[@marcus1970]

Superb content Sandu.. The DAC Man meets the FPGA DAC Meister... Whether its £20k,£30k, £40k or £240k! The ultima series DAC will be so far beyond many peoples capability.... But then the lessons learned will in diluted form trickle in time to more affordable levels... Such is progress. 👍🏻

[@Soundnews]

Marcus once again you make my day, thank you for that! We talked a lot off camera about many things, but mostly about the Ultima DAC and upcoming M Scaler, unfortunately I'm not allowed to reveal anything. You are 100% right about the "trickle in time to more affordable levels". Chord knows about this and they are already working on that.

[@nicktan4530]

And they all sound the same

[@Soundnews]

@@nicktan4530 two days ago, I would believe you ;)

[@emilianpredescu3477]

Whenever I watch Sandu's reviews I put on the best headphones, use the best system I have because I know I'll get the best image and the best sound. But seeing you talk to Mr. Watts is a special occasion and used my newest setup. Best feeling in the world 😂 I can tell you where a little nervous standing next to a legend in the business, but you did good and really enjoyed the questions and his positive attitude. Great one, man! Special for me, I like Chord.

[@duydang5101]

Excellent interview. I haven't completed the video but the part of Qutest power supply's reference is car battery is damn interesting! I am owning a Qutest too and it's so helpful to hear Rob Watts's explanation about the power supply part.

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

yes, for the Qutest., a car battery would probably be the best power supply you can get for it. But if you go to such details to fix a system. There may be more impactful things you could do with your system first. The system is not better than the weakest link. And room and acoustics is often the most important to start with. But if you already have a fairly good acoustical performance of your system, then starting experiments with different cables and power supplies, will potentially get you to the next level of performance.

[@ccfunkster]

Very informative, I'm content with my Qutest power supply after hearing this.

[@MattVideoAU]

So interesting to hear what @RobWatts has to say.

[@brothatwasepic]

Great job on this interview Sandu. Hi guys. I bought a Dave and honestly it absolutely destroys my Topping D90 and A90 even with a susvara and the single ended headphone out on the Dave to be honest. It is a tremendously clean but depth and imaging is significanlty better than Topping flagships at least in my hunble opinion I hope you can interview the creators of the Holo May L3

[@hotstuff3243]

What would you recommend between a Chord Mojo and SMSL M500 mkiii?

[@Truthtalks86]

Question: after hearing all the talk of power supplies in this interview - should the mojo 2 be run off of its battery or while plugged in, ideally, in a home system?

[@trevorharrison29]

Very keen to know details of the portable 15v 4a DC supply for the M Scaler that Rob uses on longhaul flights. Does anyone know details?

[@hermannschmidt9788]

That was very interesting. Especially the part about random noise in linear power supplies. However, you could have asked him why he thinks the cheap Chinese DACs objectively measure better than the Dave, according to audio science review. He was explaining in great length how he got rid of jitter and yet, the Chinese do it just as well or better, it seems.

[@20puskinas1992]

Rob watts is marketing genius! ofc SMPS are worse, but they use it since it cost significantly less and significantly decrease case price. Lots of people figured out this sharlatan.

[@hermannschmidt9788]

@@20puskinas1992 Yeah, I have the uncanny feeling that you are right. He talks a lot, yet he has no facts to prove it. However, a couple of his experiences resonated with me.

[@20puskinas1992]

@Hermann Schmidt there is some truth in his words, but his main goal is to represent his cheap products as something extraordinary and better. He is Steve Jobs of this industry.

[@Nightjar726]

Because cheap Chinese DACs suck. ASR is a scam His measurements aren’t accurate and biased. No science involved unfortunately.

[@oneofthelastmen5873]

​@20puskinas1992 why do you think you know more about PSU design than Rob Watts?! He explained in great technical detail why the switched mode PSU was better. Weren't you listening to the interview?

[@shreddherring]

Does anybody happen to know whether the cable on the Qutest power supply is regular stranded or litz wire? Or happen to know what wire guage it is? I'd be really interested to hear what happens when that is replaced with pure silver litz wire

[@datka3]

Very good interview, as someone who owned Dave for 3 years and I’m one of those guys who tried 3 power supply solution , went back to stock psu since . Can’t Farad send PSU to Rob ? Would be interesting to get his opinion

[@tomas_m]

@20:05 R-2R doesn't mean resistor-to-resistor, it refers to double-resistance resistors used in the circuits

[@tomwalker7629]

Is Rob saying that I should not us power strips, conditioners, special cords, etc, for the components in my stream including the tt2?

[@sirchtheworld]

“I agree with that.”

[@WorldView22]

At long last, Rob Watts admitted that he got surprised by the improvement in performance of better quality power in 2Qute and other Chord DACs.

[@Soundnews]

Indeed!

[@WorldView22]

@@Soundnews Well done for asking these pressing questions!

[@mccririck01]

Just the 2Qute really.

[@matldn2697]

I always liked the Deltec amps all those years ago. Very clean detailed sounding that some in the press did not like. For what reason? Flat earthers.

[@rustygates3367]

So if Rob is working on a new Reference DAC that means there is a whole heap of improvements and other stuff he's learned on the way over the past 8 years, particularly in terms of noise performance because DAVEs noise performance is lacking compared to other DACs. I expect the Reference DAC tech to trickle down back into the Choral range for a DAVE 2.

[@arthurpug]

If it's all about 'performance' why do his measure worse than delta sigmas & most people prefer the sound of ladder dacs

[@kylefieleke6235]

Interesting that he says the streamer should make no difference for a well designed DAC. I own a DAVE and different streamers (and even different OSs and players on the same streamer) sound drastically different. So I guess by his logic, the DAVE is not well designed?

[@isaactheologou287]

This topic is really interesting. I've had a similar reaction from the folks at Benchmark. They hold a similar view regarding the DAC3 HGC. Sadly, let me tell you they are incorrect. How you feed the DAC zeros and ones definitely makes a difference, sometime subtle but other times blatantly obvious. Best way to prove this is using a cheap DVD player digital out compared to say a Cambridge Audio CD Transport!!!

[@TheCharlesAtoz]

I guess Rob Watts has not heard of Playback Designs from the guy who created DSD. Hmmm.

[@GuiltyRocker]

Andreas Koch did not create DSD, the tech was already created, he worked on DSD machines and such, but he didn't create it.

[@20puskinas1992]

Holo May measures much better than Dave! 😂😂😂

[@HowDareYouu]

acasa la avstore

[@TiThubtiti]

romglezii te fluiera .... doar engleza, nu conteaza ca esti roman, romanii fac manuale de utilizare in engleza da-o drq de romana, asta-i mandrie de roman: ONLY ENGLISH ! it makes me throw up

[@frederf69]

mmm the Stealth's are the best, but i haven't tried the Susvara's! 😲 what else hasn't he tried... is this what Mike Moffat meant when he referred to audio guy's giving each other hand-jobs? 🤣 Chord products are overpriced. Thanks' for sharing ✌😎👍

[@Soundnews]

I didn't try all headphones and loudspeakers either...He is just a down to earth engineer talking nerdy stuff about his creations - I appreciate that, as I learned a lot from that.

[@frederf69]

@@Soundnews it is unwise to praise one make/model as the best if you haven't tried other's. I would expect at least all flagship headphones + a good range of speakers, amp's etc to be tested with his product's prior to release.

[@20puskinas1992]

@@frederf69 +1 you cant teach old dog new tricks! I noticed that old guys in the industry bring no innovations and are affraid and slow to make changes. In my opinion Chinese manufacturers will destroy many Western companies who are lazy and have greedy management.

[@sjay7292]

Piece of advice. Stop saying "I agree with that". You are not the person bwing interviewed. Nor (with respect) the more knowledgeable person in the room. When interviewing realise it's not about you. But otherwise cheers for the video! Plenty of good content.

[@ahmedsafa91]

A review with horrible sound

[@20puskinas1992]

No offense Sandu, but youre interrupting too much.