Chord Electronics - Blu Mk. 2 - The Official Thread
Jun 23, 2017 at 9:52 AM Post #781 of 4,904
From what I hear the lengthy time line on Blu MkII deliveries is simply down to significant demand for the product. It seems the product has really hit the sweet spot despite it's 'not insignificant' price.

Recent significant devaluation of sterling must have helped international sales too I would have thought.
 
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Jun 23, 2017 at 5:45 PM Post #782 of 4,904
I look forward to other people sharing their views. As I said previously, it's a small yet substantial difference compared to Dave alone. The music is so fluid and clear, vividly focussed - you can almost walk around inside the soundstage and pick out each instrument. It seems slower and more relaxed because the digital edge has been removed.

My wife has come round as well now and agrees that this is the best she has heard outside of live music. I am still using cheap BNC cables and happy with it. I intend to try better cables but will wait for the feedback from others first.
 
Jun 24, 2017 at 5:25 AM Post #783 of 4,904
I look forward to other people sharing their views. As I said previously, it's a small yet substantial difference compared to Dave alone. The music is so fluid and clear, vividly focussed - you can almost walk around inside the soundstage and pick out each instrument. It seems slower and more relaxed because the digital edge has been removed.

My wife has come round as well now and agrees that this is the best she has heard outside of live music. I am still using cheap BNC cables and happy with it. I intend to try better cables but will wait for the feedback from others first.

My experience was (and is) that the Blu2 adds a significant amount of detail to the music, most prominently in the bass. This is not subtle or small to my ears. Your description of it being a "small yet substantial difference" is odd - small is small and substantial is not small.

I look forward to seeing if anyone can hear any difference with different linking BNC cables. Note you said better and by that I assume you meant more expensive. Be wary of equating expense with better quality in the realms of digital cables.
 
Jun 24, 2017 at 7:39 AM Post #784 of 4,904
My experience was (and is) that the Blu2 adds a significant amount of detail to the music, most prominently in the bass. This is not subtle or small to my ears. Your description of it being a "small yet substantial difference" is odd - small is small and substantial is not small.

I look forward to seeing if anyone can hear any difference with different linking BNC cables. Note you said better and by that I assume you meant more expensive. Be wary of equating expense with better quality in the realms of digital cables.

I try to steer clear of hyperbole as far as possible when making comments. As I said in a previous post, a casual observer may not really notice the difference or might even prefer Dave alone to BluDave, as my wife did. That is hard to pass off as a dramatic improvement or Dave to a factor of 10 as I think someone described it. People need to make up their own minds about the extent and value of any differences with these things.

In that context, I do not think that my comments are irreconcilable - it depends entirely upon the perspective of the listener.

Regarding cables, I have definitely found that there are cables that I prefer and are therefore considered better in my opinion. I have a balanced power supply which made a good improvement to my system but there are people who will disagree with all of that and call it snake oil and that is their opinion. They are entitled to it and I wouldn't try to tell them that they are wrong.

But we do agree that the benefits of Blu added to Dave are significant and worthwhile in our estimation, that's for sure.
 
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Jun 24, 2017 at 8:06 AM Post #785 of 4,904
I would also agree with Malcyg more than Triode User but with some more caveats. I think whether you think Blu2 makes a huge difference depend heavily on your music material. I also think most audiophiles would notice the bigger difference whereas the casual listener would not. I think for simple vocals or piano music, there is definitely more realism, more dimensionality, more depth to the music. The musical flow is smoother but at the same time, true dynamics and transient timing is better. But because you're only listening to a couple of vocal lines or piano notes, the difference between Blu2 and DAVE feels small although the longer you listen to Blu2, the harder it is to go back to listening without.
Once you get to more complex musical materials, the easier it is to notice all the additional details Triode User is talking about. For symphonic works for instance, cymbals, xylophones, triangles, and mainly other percussion instruments and particularly instruments with more trebles sound more realistic with better timbral accuracy, better transient timing/dynamics but at the same time, there seems to be more details to the music (almost as if there are more notes that you didn't notice before). And as many have said, any instruments with bass just sound much more authoritative and once again with better transient timing, better dynamics and better timbral accuracy. The combination of these effects tend to bring a much more dramatic and obvious difference to most audiophiles.
However, for the casual listeners, I can still see people just mainly listening to the melodic lines. While most of us here would probably hear a lot more realism and detail from say Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, I can still see many people would still only hear the main melodic line of dun-dun-dun-DUNG.
 
Jun 24, 2017 at 8:19 AM Post #786 of 4,904
I would also agree with Malcyg more than Triode User but with some more caveats. I think whether you think Blu2 makes a huge difference depend heavily on your music material. I also think most audiophiles would notice the bigger difference whereas the casual listener would not.

Yes, this is the key point for me. The question of magnitude depends very much upon the individual. I have played guitar since I was young and am well used to listening intently to music to pick out parts to play. I can play guitar parts bang on key just from my memory of a particular piece of music. This is because I listen to music differently than a lot of people do - some people astound me as to how little they take in from music (dun-dun-dun-DUNG :grin:) and, to them, this whole discussion would be laughable and redundant.

I think we all agree on the values, just not on the extent of those values because only the listener can decide that.
 
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Jun 24, 2017 at 8:56 PM Post #787 of 4,904
I'll be getting Hugo 2 in November along with the Focal Utopias (hopefully my DNA Stratus will be here by then as well) and am wondering if the Blu 2 will work with the Hugo 2? And if so what cables would be necessary for the combo to work? I'm wondering because I MIGHT find a way to save up for Blu 2 as it seems like the next step up for listening not only to CD red book files but all of my audio files on my desktop.
 
Jun 24, 2017 at 11:33 PM Post #790 of 4,904
Would Hugo 2 be able to utilize the full 1 million taps and therefore the full potential of Blu 2, or is that only possible with Dave?
Sure, it will use the full 1M taps.
In terms of cabling, Hugo 2 is not sensitive; I used a standard cheap 3.5mm to RCA and BNC/RCA adapters and it worked perfectly. Of course, proper RF cables would sound better.
 
Jun 25, 2017 at 12:35 AM Post #791 of 4,904
Sure, it will use the full 1M taps.
In terms of cabling, Hugo 2 is not sensitive; I used a standard cheap 3.5mm to RCA and BNC/RCA adapters and it worked perfectly. Of course, proper RF cables would sound better.
Thanks for the help Rob! Would said 3.5mm to RCA be a single 3.5mm to left and right RCA or just right or left? I'm thinking the first option would make more sense given the Hugo 2 only has one 3.5mm jack, but I could be wrong haha.
 
Jun 25, 2017 at 12:41 AM Post #792 of 4,904
Thanks for the help Rob! Would said 3.5mm to RCA be a single 3.5mm to left and right RCA or just right or left? I'm thinking the first option would make more sense given the Hugo 2 only has one 3.5mm jack, but I could be wrong haha.

The TRS 3.5mm coaxial input jack is a dual coaxial input, so the dual signals are on the Tip and Ring and the ground is on the Sleeve. This makes it easy to use a stereo standard 3.5mm TRS to left/right stereo RCA, at least as I understand it.
 
Jun 25, 2017 at 2:05 AM Post #793 of 4,904
Indeed; left and right is tip (L) ring (R) and sleeve is ground. Actually, it does not matter which BNC you connect to, as Hugo 2 reads the in-bedded left and right status data from Blu 2 (not so with Dave) so left and right will always be correct.
 
Jun 25, 2017 at 2:57 AM Post #794 of 4,904
My experience was (and is) that the Blu2 adds a significant amount of detail to the music, most prominently in the bass. This is not subtle or small to my ears. Your description of it being a "small yet substantial difference" is odd - small is small and substantial is not small.

I look forward to seeing if anyone can hear any difference with different linking BNC cables. Note you said better and by that I assume you meant more expensive. Be wary of equating expense with better quality in the realms of digital cables.

I think there will be a number of factors which will have a fairly significant impact on the perception of changing to Blu MkII.
1) the calibre of source streamer currently/previously used, be it hard disc or CD based. For instance this may come down to how the data is/was lift from source pre Blu II to whether the original setup was affected by power based effects
2) how much additional warmth is generated by Blu II in a particular room or with particular headphones. For instance in regard to detail I would expect a greater perception of improvement with Blu II to be perceived when listening via a slightly less warm sounding pair of headphones or speakers that are well matched to the room for bass absobtion or in a room which has good acoustic treatment installed.

The upshot is that two people with good ears may conclude in one case that the improvement is significant and in another that it is subtle and both be fair assessments. The key for me is that by perhaps changing headphones or moving speakers slightly further away from he nearest wall or adding better acoustic treatment the latter assessment may change to 'significant improvement' with Blu II.

Note: I have not received my Blu II yet but I do expect to have to adjust the proximity of my speakers to the nearest wall and I am already improving my acoustic treatment of my listening room to gain full benefit. Extra warmth always tests a setup. It's only with diligent counter balance that one can truly judge the merits of the change imo.
 
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Jun 25, 2017 at 3:23 AM Post #795 of 4,904
The TRS 3.5mm coaxial input jack is a dual coaxial input, so the dual signals are on the Tip and Ring and the ground is on the Sleeve. This makes it easy to use a stereo standard 3.5mm TRS to left/right stereo RCA, at least as I understand it.
Indeed; left and right is tip (L) ring (R) and sleeve is ground. Actually, it does not matter which BNC you connect to, as Hugo 2 reads the in-bedded left and right status data from Blu 2 (not so with Dave) so left and right will always be correct.

Thanks you two! I'm definitely considering a Blu2 or maybe a future M Scaler only product *wink *wink :D
 

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