Hey Jeff, I honestly have no experience with the BA so I could not tell you how different they are but the Bartok Ring DAC is a definite step up on the Qutest for my money. The only question is the price point since the Bartok is both Amp and DAC. I mean you can get it purely as a DAC but I think the amp part is not a huge price jump over the DAC-only system. For the LCD-2 the Bartok will be a super pairing as the Bartok has a nice weighty signature which I always feel suits the LCD-2.

The Bartok seems like a great all-in-one solution! My current setup includes the Oppo 205 (as a transport), Chord Qutest, Eddie Current Balancing Act amp, and Audeze LCD-2. What is your opinion about keeping the BA as the headphone amp? Or does the Bartok add more improvements over the BA?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, can you tell me what specifically that would be in relation to? Thanks

Hello, can you tell what ferrites brand you used ? Thx.

Contacted the guys at Wave and hopefully, they can ship me a loaner.

I would say that with Wave cables and Farad PSUs decision between HMS+TT2 and Bartok is much harder.

I actually had an offer to try these just before COVID19 hit the world in April, might be a good time to check back again and see if I can get them. Thanks for the reminder!

Actually that is the first thing I wanted to try (Bartok M scaler) but I think they are set up for their world clock as I didn’t see any handshake between either module. I have noticed that once you go down to small scale upsampling form the M Scaler, i.e. pass through to around 96k it does sound a bit warmer but not as dynamic.

I feel that the M Scaler really puts the Chord Dave in different league from the Dave by itself. Much more expansive, dynamic, more “organic” sounding, and there’s a good and real “bloom” to the bottom end that I generally only hear in really really good systems or live large hall venues – and the M Scaler gives me that. I find myself often listening for hours on end since I get so lost in the music. But the M Scaler/Dave is not forgiving of bad recordings unfortunately. The good vs bad becomes much more evident. All this said, I sense that the Bartok is really really good too and likely could be used with the M Scaler (although the M Scaler requires a double SPDIF interface to get the full 1million taps of the M Scaler processing) – the Bartok has two SPDIF inputs but can’t do 768K which is what the M Scaler puts out in full on mode. Maybe you tried it already? Also, I think the TT has a bit more drive capability than the Dave, but the Dave is no slouch in that department – easy for my Utopias but maybe not for the less efficient headphones.