Britain's Chord has won a lot of praise in the market by launching a DAC product that replaces traditional DAC chips with FPGA programming in the sub $100,000 Taiwan dollar class; and Chord has announced a new home DAC Quest at CES as an entry-level home DAC to replace the original 2Qute, but structured with the widely acclaimed carry-on DAC " Hugo 2" to omit the battery. The Hugo 2 is a battery-less version of the original 2Qute, and has been reconfigured with I/O locations for home use.
The Quest is powered by the same Xilinx Artix 7 (XC7A15T) as the Hugo 2, and is capable of PCM 32bit 768kHz and native DSD 22.4MHz decoding (with USB and coaxial connectivity, and an optical interface supporting PCM 24bit 192kHz).
The enclosure is designed with an aerospace aluminum alloy, and the internal circuit boards are configured to reduce excess vibration, and the enclosure has digital filters that can be switched by the consumer, and the choice of 1V, 2V, or 3V RMS outputs depending on the output requirements. The Quest will be priced at $2,200 USD and is expected to launch in North America in early February.
NEWS SOURCE: Chord