Damn! This is best review I've ever seen on TH-cam. Carefully carried out, balanced and detailed. I wish you focused a bit less on the high end Terry, but credit where credit is due. Excellent
Thanks very much, its been a lot of high end gear lately that has been offered to me and I cant say no to it, but its not all high end stuff planned in for the year, there is some other high end things in the pipeline though.
I love the design. Your description is usually right on. Your the one reviewer that matches my taste in what I want to hear from a good matching components set, weather $4000 or 40,000 .
I think this Chord combination has left you excited. I can see you have been affected on an emotional level. Your joy of the music and rhythm has left you excited like a child at his first circus. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Great review.
I bought a full Chord suite based on this review and a couple others of yours: Ultima 6, Pre3, Dave, and Mscaler. Hell, I even got the same Isotek power solution.
I enjoyed the review, this is a beautiful system wow. Obviously not for average man on the street at this price level but a wonder to behold, thank you Terry.
Thank you for the review, one that is especially useful for me as I have just paired the Ultima3 Pre and Ultima3 Monoblocks with the Bowers& Wilkins 802 D4s. I believe that the Chords work particularly well with Bowers & Wilkins speakers, as per their use in Abbey Road and many mastering studios. Actually, one point from my own experience with Chord: when I bought the B&Ws last month I felt that my existing Chord 1200C stereo power amp was having to work harder to drive the big 802s, as evidenced by a really noticeable heat increase in the amp's casing, hence the change to the monoblocks.
Bloody hell those drivers were shifting some air in those close ups. Fair play you put those speakers to the sword, can only imagine how good it sounded in the room.
I have been using a Chord-SPM-1200E with my B&W 802Ds since 2008, the perfect a match for B&W. In 2023 I got an older Berkeley DAC, which replaced a BAT VK-32SE preamp., The Berkeley receives it SPDIF digital stream from a Esoteric SA-10 CD (used as a transport). The DAC's analog out are directly connected to the Chord. A truly reference system!
Great review thanks. I noted you mentioned that the Etude was an even better value 'way in' to the Ultima architecture. You also reviewed it previously and were very complimentary about its performance...so can you offer some comment on any important or perceived differences in performance between the Ultima pre/power and the Etude, other than maybe those that might be expected due to power output differences etc? (for transparency I have an Etude and absolutely love it...and I'm particularly keen on small form factor and simplicity of set-up etc)
Brilliant review, Terry, thank you. I love the line: 'I have had several high-end amplifier setups in for review recently and none of them have had the same impact on me as this Chord duo.'
Ultima 6 and the TT2 are on my shopping list. It would have been interesting to have your opinion of the system without the pre-amp. Keep up the good videos.
@@Maccaboy1984I have the Dave, Pre3, and Ultima 6. Dave to Ultima 6 sounds fantastic!! The Pre3 does improve the sound, but the MScaler and much nicer cables delivers more benefit. I went “full retard” and it’s pretty phenomenal. If I HAD to sell something, it would be the Pre3, but have no desire to.
Nice review @Pursuit Perfect System, thanks. So true your final comments about knowing when you've got your system right, when everything you play through it makes you stop and listen. And the speed and the dynamics is where, I my view, it all sits. If all the pieces in the chain are be able to reproduce sound very precisely, nothing will sound harsh anymore. It's the smudged edges, I all my home testing experience, that make the music sound brittle or dull, or both. I have settled for Bowers d3 speakers and Chord TT2 straight (no pre-amp) into Accuphase power amplifier - not tried Chord amps, but after watching your review can easily imagine the Ultima to be similar in speed and resolution to the likes of Accuphase and Luxman, with which I am familiar. One question. I notice you're not using any isolators under the speakers, at least not in your video. Any reason for that? I had the same issue with hot treble/mids with my 804d3 floor standers until I put them on Isoaccoustics Gaia (after watching your video about them 😎) - never felt the need to use filters in TT2 after that (and that in a room that is not acoustically treated). Maybe the impact of isolators would not be as significant with the bigger and heavier 803s, but my feeling is that it's the smearing effect of those minute cabinet resonances that can make a very precise speaker combined with a very precise amp sound too hop up top. Perhaps worth trying if you still have the setup?
These Chords are much faster than Luxman and Accuphase but deliver music totally differently as well so its not as simple as focusing on that one factor. Also the TT2 is nice as a PRE but a dedicated pre could give you a lot more and is something to consider if funds allowed of course. Not meant as a criticism to your decision, if your happy that is all that matters, its just some encouragement advice as I have done some testing of this recently. If you look back you will find I was one of the first, if not the first person to make videos about IsoAcoustics GAIA and helped get them much more widespread known. At the time I added them to my KEF Reference speakers because they were always in use. But I cant add them to every speaker I review because its too much to do and I would need so many different sets its not feasible. Maybe in a long term ownership situation I would add them again but thats not my life doing this job
@@PursuitPerfectSystem thanks for your encouragement. Seems like a non-brainer now that I should have tested those Chord amps with the TT2. Guess what put me off trying was that witch-mode power supply inside them, as the noisy cheap one that the TT2 ships with does nothing to promote Chord's expertise in that regard. The TT2 is class though, as a pre (in high-gain mode only) it beat the pre-amp sections of all the £4-8k integrateds that I tried. But I might try some dedicated preamps as some point, take your advice. NB. the TT2 in low-gain mode is not the same, there is a loss dynamics and clarity similar to what you described in your review of the Bespoke Audio passive pre-amp. An extra transistor in the signal path to reduce output voltage is bound to reduce SQ - just like that cheap SM power supply, or the display that buzzes when not dimmed, some really strange design choices by Chord for a £5k DAC.
I heard these combo (or maybe it was the PRE 3 with Ultima 5 amp) with the Dave and M Scaler at the last Bristol HiFi Show. In my opinion, it was the best sounding room at the event. I think the Ultima 5 (300W RMS per channel ) is better suited to the B&W speakers used in your review?
I haven't watched the review yet -- I'm literally only halfway through the attention-grabbing intro question -- but I had to pause it anyway to speak a little bit of truth to power about a pet peeve of mine in high-end audio: People love to say that integrated amplifiers are always sonically and functionally inferior to separates. And that *might* be true, but the way things stand right now there's no way to know for sure. The first problem is that the sound quality is never an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of price-point (because that would defeat the supposed purpose of the separates in the first place). So when someone says, "Company X's $1500 integrated didn't sound as good as their $3000 separates," I submit that there's no way of knowing if the sonic difference is on account of the fact that the separates are separate, or on account of the step-up in price. No one can digest every single product review in high-end audio, of course, but if there are reviews of same-company integrated amps compared with the same-exact-priced separates, it would be news to me. Second, the fall-back position in defense of separates is that their modularity makes it easier to get the best-performing example of pre- and power from the same overall expenditure. If in 1990, for example, the Melos SHA-1 tube preamp and the Bryston 2BLP power amp are the preferred choices for a system, one doesn't have to settle for an inferior preamp by Bryston or an inferior power amp by Melos, but can instead mix-and-match. This isn't *exactly* false, but it's predicated on the confident presumption that differently-branded pre- and power amps can be connected plug-and-play, and many a high-budget audiophile have learned very painfully that this simply isn't the case. A terrific-sounding preamp by company X and a terrific-sounding power amp made by company Y might sound great, they might sound terrible, and they *might* literally not even work. So what happens is that the audiophile buys the best things he can get, ends up with terrible sound, and then the more senior members of the club switch on-the-fly to laughing at him for having been foolish enough not to match the badges on the separates. Take yourself through that: Separates are better because you can mix and match, but if you *do* mix and match and they don't work together, it's your own fault for not matching them. At this point are we even talking about separates at all, at least as the name implies, or rather are we talking about a more-expensive integrated amp that happens to come in two chasses with two power supplies? Finally, there is the idea of modularity of upgrades. If you own a $1000 preamp and a $1000 power amp, the argument goes, it will be much easier to preserve some of that system while improving the sound, by keeping one of them and swapping out the other one, vs a $2000 integrated. That's true as far as it goes, but it also makes it much easier to WANT to upgrade in this fashion, when the upgrade in question might not actually be worth the added outlay. If you own an integrated, you won't upgrade it until the budget and the SOTA combine to make the upgrade a much less ambiguous proposition, psychologically, and that means that the owner might actually SAVE money in the long run, vs. opting for the supposedly more dollar-efficient and modular separates.
Power amps with negative feedforward are interesting. I beleive Hegel uses this topology. Imagine being smart enough to design that, then putting a C19 mains socket on the chassis:)
@@PursuitPerfectSystem btwn. Pre-2, Pre-3, or CPA5000, all I care is a unit that can send the digital co-ax signal from the DAC , by passing any filter, I think either the CPA5000 or the Pre-2 can do that
Given your honest albeit 'diplomatic' comments, maybe Sonus Faber would be a better speaker choice for the Chord stack? Also Terry, no disrespect but your TT DAC is not at the level of this review stack, the DAVE is really what you should be using as a reference - if you want to stick with Chord - to maximize performance of the gear you have in for review.
TT2 is still my fave Chord DAC thats all I will say, also not being diplomatic with this one, being totally honest with this review went from day 1to the end
@Pursuit Perfect System sorry I did not mean to imply dissemblance Terry, poor choice of words on my part, I should have used 'nuanced' instead of 'diplomatic'. Respect for your preference for the TT, very interested in the why of that. Maybe a separate comparo of the TT vs DAVE?
If design verification is where design inputs meet design inputs why would we be supprized by such one brand synergy the units have been design to work together.
@@tkl0111 it's probably not a simple balance circuit... I bet theres no detent because its a digital rotary pot telling the attenuation chipset what to do, in which case bypass isnt required. At this level, I too would be a bit annoyed not getting that centre 'donk'!
Very ugly in my opinion! And their amps are okay but not great sounding devices, like Luxman, Yamaha, Accuphase, Hegel, and so on… I can only recommend their DAC’s
![BABYMONSTER - 'DRIP' M/V REACTION [WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS!!!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t0Lpgr1jo3Y/mqdefault.jpg)
Damn! This is best review I've ever seen on TH-cam. Carefully carried out, balanced and detailed. I wish you focused a bit less on the high end Terry, but credit where credit is due. Excellent
Thanks very much, its been a lot of high end gear lately that has been offered to me and I cant say no to it, but its not all high end stuff planned in for the year, there is some other high end things in the pipeline though.
I love the design. Your description is usually right on. Your the one reviewer that matches my taste in what I want to hear from a good matching components set, weather $4000 or 40,000 .
Banging Review. No way I could articulate like that for nigh on half n hour. Thanks Terry.
I think this Chord combination has left you excited. I can see you have been affected on an emotional level. Your joy of the music and rhythm has left you excited like a child at his first circus. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Great review.
You had me on 16 mosphetes ' Geez Fast Amp ' Beautiful Thanks Terry
I bought a full Chord suite based on this review and a couple others of yours: Ultima 6, Pre3, Dave, and Mscaler. Hell, I even got the same Isotek power solution.
Wow I hope you enjoy it all
@@PursuitPerfectSystem very much so - as I do your channel. Thanks for the great content!
I enjoyed the review, this is a beautiful system wow. Obviously not for average man on the street at this price level but a wonder to behold, thank you Terry.
Excellent vid. Tight and lush. Synergy is all there is.
Thank you for the review, one that is especially useful for me as I have just paired the Ultima3 Pre and Ultima3 Monoblocks with the Bowers& Wilkins 802 D4s. I believe that the Chords work particularly well with Bowers & Wilkins speakers, as per their use in Abbey Road and many mastering studios.
Actually, one point from my own experience with Chord: when I bought the B&Ws last month I felt that my existing Chord 1200C stereo power amp was having to work harder to drive the big 802s, as evidenced by a really noticeable heat increase in the amp's casing, hence the change to the monoblocks.
Bloody hell those drivers were shifting some air in those close ups. Fair play you put those speakers to the sword, can only imagine how good it sounded in the room.
Don’t tell anyone but I have learnt that track one of the blade runner 2049 sound track is great for getting bass drivers moving ;)
@Pursuit Perfect System Ahhhh that'll do it alright. One of the first films I watched after I installed my REL T7x 18 months ago.
I've always loved their look.
I have been using a Chord-SPM-1200E with my B&W 802Ds since 2008, the perfect a match for B&W. In 2023 I got an older Berkeley DAC, which replaced a BAT VK-32SE preamp., The Berkeley receives it SPDIF digital stream from a Esoteric SA-10 CD (used as a transport). The DAC's analog out are directly connected to the Chord. A truly reference system!
Great review thanks. I noted you mentioned that the Etude was an even better value 'way in' to the Ultima architecture. You also reviewed it previously and were very complimentary about its performance...so can you offer some comment on any important or perceived differences in performance between the Ultima pre/power and the Etude, other than maybe those that might be expected due to power output differences etc? (for transparency I have an Etude and absolutely love it...and I'm particularly keen on small form factor and simplicity of set-up etc)
Brilliant review, Terry, thank you. I love the line: 'I have had several high-end amplifier setups in for review recently and none of them have had the same impact on me as this Chord duo.'
The Chords are Magnificent 💎
Great review thanks Terry!
Nice, interesting review, thanks Terry.
Ultima 6 and the TT2 are on my shopping list. It would have been interesting to have your opinion of the system without the pre-amp. Keep up the good videos.
Good point I never thought to test that
@@PursuitPerfectSystemme too, I have a Dave and wonder how that would sound straight to the Ultima 6
@@Maccaboy1984I have the Dave, Pre3, and Ultima 6. Dave to Ultima 6 sounds fantastic!! The Pre3 does improve the sound, but the MScaler and much nicer cables delivers more benefit. I went “full retard” and it’s pretty phenomenal. If I HAD to sell something, it would be the Pre3, but have no desire to.
BEAUTIFUL ROOM AND THE CHORDS AS WELL TERRY…🤗🤩🤩🤩💚💚💚
Thanks as always for watching :)
Good video. Nice equipment.😁👍
Its all about the lights.apparently improves the sound.
Stunning engineer 🌈
Plus one on the Bass pressure haha...great video
Call me old fashioned but I like a cd player
What would you recommend playing through this set up
How did the passive pre and the NAD amp sound in comparison to the Chord pair would seem to be the question.
It was the same John as the NAD couldn't get the sound out of the Bowers like the Chord amp could.
Nice review @Pursuit Perfect System, thanks. So true your final comments about knowing when you've got your system right, when everything you play through it makes you stop and listen. And the speed and the dynamics is where, I my view, it all sits. If all the pieces in the chain are be able to reproduce sound very precisely, nothing will sound harsh anymore. It's the smudged edges, I all my home testing experience, that make the music sound brittle or dull, or both. I have settled for Bowers d3 speakers and Chord TT2 straight (no pre-amp) into Accuphase power amplifier - not tried Chord amps, but after watching your review can easily imagine the Ultima to be similar in speed and resolution to the likes of Accuphase and Luxman, with which I am familiar.
One question. I notice you're not using any isolators under the speakers, at least not in your video. Any reason for that?
I had the same issue with hot treble/mids with my 804d3 floor standers until I put them on Isoaccoustics Gaia (after watching your video about them 😎) - never felt the need to use filters in TT2 after that (and that in a room that is not acoustically treated). Maybe the impact of isolators would not be as significant with the bigger and heavier 803s, but my feeling is that it's the smearing effect of those minute cabinet resonances that can make a very precise speaker combined with a very precise amp sound too hop up top. Perhaps worth trying if you still have the setup?
These Chords are much faster than Luxman and Accuphase but deliver music totally differently as well so its not as simple as focusing on that one factor. Also the TT2 is nice as a PRE but a dedicated pre could give you a lot more and is something to consider if funds allowed of course. Not meant as a criticism to your decision, if your happy that is all that matters, its just some encouragement advice as I have done some testing of this recently.
If you look back you will find I was one of the first, if not the first person to make videos about IsoAcoustics GAIA and helped get them much more widespread known. At the time I added them to my KEF Reference speakers because they were always in use.
But I cant add them to every speaker I review because its too much to do and I would need so many different sets its not feasible. Maybe in a long term ownership situation I would add them again but thats not my life doing this job
@@PursuitPerfectSystem thanks for your encouragement. Seems like a non-brainer now that I should have tested those Chord amps with the TT2. Guess what put me off trying was that witch-mode power supply inside them, as the noisy cheap one that the TT2 ships with does nothing to promote Chord's expertise in that regard. The TT2 is class though, as a pre (in high-gain mode only) it beat the pre-amp sections of all the £4-8k integrateds that I tried. But I might try some dedicated preamps as some point, take your advice. NB. the TT2 in low-gain mode is not the same, there is a loss dynamics and clarity similar to what you described in your review of the Bespoke Audio passive pre-amp. An extra transistor in the signal path to reduce output voltage is bound to reduce SQ - just like that cheap SM power supply, or the display that buzzes when not dimmed, some really strange design choices by Chord for a £5k DAC.
Remember, the fancier casework, the fancier the job needed to pay for these babies.💲💲💲💲
Out of my price range…but I love the visual presence of the two units together.
…not sure if the sound characteristics would be to my liking, though.
They really look wonderful but how do you dust them!
I really like their amps, truthful to the source and not the get out clause "musicality" which really describes a poor audiophile product.
Where can I find the chasing the dragon album that you’ve mentioned? Thank you!
They sell it direct and its available on Amazon sometimes, I put a link in the video description box
@@PursuitPerfectSystem thank you! I often watch reviews only to find new musical gems 😬
I love the design of Chord products. Nobody comes close
Looks like a 70's coffee table.........................
I'm sure it sounds great though.
Can you make 1-hour broadcast from the ARCAM and Cambridge Audio factory?
I dont think either companies factories are in the UK, I could be wrong
I heard these combo (or maybe it was the PRE 3 with Ultima 5 amp) with the Dave and M Scaler at the last Bristol HiFi Show. In my opinion, it was the best sounding room at the event. I think the Ultima 5 (300W RMS per channel ) is better suited to the B&W speakers used in your review?
Yes more power would have been good :) but the Ultima 6 still did the business
@@PursuitPerfectSystem Sure! Great job by the way.
Thanks Alex
They’re beautiful.
Sadly due to being an OAP, most of my get up and go has got up and gone.
Love this comment
energetic honesty...
I haven't watched the review yet -- I'm literally only halfway through the attention-grabbing intro question -- but I had to pause it anyway to speak a little bit of truth to power about a pet peeve of mine in high-end audio:
People love to say that integrated amplifiers are always sonically and functionally inferior to separates. And that *might* be true, but the way things stand right now there's no way to know for sure. The first problem is that the sound quality is never an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of price-point (because that would defeat the supposed purpose of the separates in the first place). So when someone says, "Company X's $1500 integrated didn't sound as good as their $3000 separates," I submit that there's no way of knowing if the sonic difference is on account of the fact that the separates are separate, or on account of the step-up in price. No one can digest every single product review in high-end audio, of course, but if there are reviews of same-company integrated amps compared with the same-exact-priced separates, it would be news to me.
Second, the fall-back position in defense of separates is that their modularity makes it easier to get the best-performing example of pre- and power from the same overall expenditure. If in 1990, for example, the Melos SHA-1 tube preamp and the Bryston 2BLP power amp are the preferred choices for a system, one doesn't have to settle for an inferior preamp by Bryston or an inferior power amp by Melos, but can instead mix-and-match. This isn't *exactly* false, but it's predicated on the confident presumption that differently-branded pre- and power amps can be connected plug-and-play, and many a high-budget audiophile have learned very painfully that this simply isn't the case. A terrific-sounding preamp by company X and a terrific-sounding power amp made by company Y might sound great, they might sound terrible, and they *might* literally not even work. So what happens is that the audiophile buys the best things he can get, ends up with terrible sound, and then the more senior members of the club switch on-the-fly to laughing at him for having been foolish enough not to match the badges on the separates.
Take yourself through that: Separates are better because you can mix and match, but if you *do* mix and match and they don't work together, it's your own fault for not matching them. At this point are we even talking about separates at all, at least as the name implies, or rather are we talking about a more-expensive integrated amp that happens to come in two chasses with two power supplies?
Finally, there is the idea of modularity of upgrades. If you own a $1000 preamp and a $1000 power amp, the argument goes, it will be much easier to preserve some of that system while improving the sound, by keeping one of them and swapping out the other one, vs a $2000 integrated. That's true as far as it goes, but it also makes it much easier to WANT to upgrade in this fashion, when the upgrade in question might not actually be worth the added outlay. If you own an integrated, you won't upgrade it until the budget and the SOTA combine to make the upgrade a much less ambiguous proposition, psychologically, and that means that the owner might actually SAVE money in the long run, vs. opting for the supposedly more dollar-efficient and modular separates.
Seperate power supplies makes a big difference, and you wont get seperate power supplies in an intergrated design.
Would be interesting to hear how it sounds with the DAVE 😀
Power amps with negative feedforward are interesting. I beleive Hegel uses this topology. Imagine being smart enough to design that, then putting a C19 mains socket on the chassis:)
Thanks!
Wow very kind of you to thank you
If you still have this,listen to Toni Braxton, my heart, to really hear true beautiful vocals this gear can deliver
""Dirac"". Now that is one big
Band-aid . let's get that right
Dirac live Calibrator wow
That's heavy Mate.
Looks special. Not my style. But i get it.
"synergy " that the new buzz word now. All you guys get together and tell each other what to say ??? Yes
Synergy is not a new thing and it sounds a lot like bullshit until you get a chance to play with a lot of stuff and its a real thing
would the dave work with dcs bartok and atc scm 40?
Dave and Bartok are both dacs so do the same thing, differently obviously :)
how can there be no db indicator on the pre-3, whereas there is a dB indicator on pre-2
The Pre 2 is a higher end unit and its a bigger unit so probably allows for more front plate design options
@@PursuitPerfectSystem btwn. Pre-2, Pre-3, or CPA5000, all I care is a unit that can send the digital co-ax signal from the DAC , by passing any filter, I think either the CPA5000 or the Pre-2 can do that
The pre comes after the dac not before
wouldn’t mind the unusual looks, expected them to be way out of any remote affordability, while they are simply too expensive for me. when new.
Given your honest albeit 'diplomatic' comments, maybe Sonus Faber would be a better speaker choice for the Chord stack? Also Terry, no disrespect but your TT DAC is not at the level of this review stack, the DAVE is really what you should be using as a reference - if you want to stick with Chord - to maximize performance of the gear you have in for review.
TT2 is still my fave Chord DAC thats all I will say, also not being diplomatic with this one, being totally honest with this review went from day 1to the end
@Pursuit Perfect System sorry I did not mean to imply dissemblance Terry, poor choice of words on my part, I should have used 'nuanced' instead of 'diplomatic'. Respect for your preference for the TT, very interested in the why of that. Maybe a separate comparo of the TT vs DAVE?
Chord electronics should include dac preamp
They already do their DACs can act as preamps - they also know you dont really want the dac in with the pre or power
I don't like the look of these products, but a great video nonetheless. Would be happy to listen with my eyes closed :)
"Now you don't need to put that into the comments section "
Reverse psychology? 😂
1400 ❤
If design verification is where design inputs meet design inputs why would we be supprized by such one brand synergy the units have been design to work together.
Meet design outputs
I have my 850 with Jbl L-65.
Too blingy for my tastes , visually speaking.
Lux
It would be much better with ultima 5 😀
the design is absolute nightmare (yes, it's subjective) these lights and colors make it look like a cheap plastic toy
Big blunder by Chord!! No center balance detent! No thanks..is there a bypass option?
Not really that big a deal, yes there is an AV by pass
@@PursuitPerfectSystem sorry I meant a balance bypass so no balance attenuation is in the path. Thanks
@@tkl0111 it's probably not a simple balance circuit... I bet theres no detent because its a digital rotary pot telling the attenuation chipset what to do, in which case bypass isnt required. At this level, I too would be a bit annoyed not getting that centre 'donk'!
Very ugly in my opinion! And their amps are okay but not great sounding devices, like Luxman, Yamaha, Accuphase, Hegel, and so on… I can only recommend their DAC’s