[RubyTiger]

  You may need to roll your tubes on the pre amp section. Changing components may disrupt the synergy of the chain. You may need to change the tube on the pre amp to match the sound signature your after.
 
This is where I'm so tempted to play with different dacs but I do find that the AC powered dacs  with removable IEC cables allows a potential of tweaking the sound signature. Using a foundation research LC1, aural symphonics cappaccino, furutech alpha3, grant fidelity PC 1.5, Audio sensibility statement power cord all change the sound signature of my tube dac aswell as even my Burson DA160. 
 
I am quite intrigued in the 2Qute...... I'm still casually looking So far i've yet to hear a solid state dac that gives the intimacy of vocals in my livingroom with my Totem Earths. My spacetech labs tube dac still has been a reference for me. I wish I had more local audiofile friends locally......

 
Say Alan U; you have not filled out your profile yet. There may be some head-fi'ers close by and you will not know until you let others know your location.
 
I know it wasn't meant for me but I agree with you about power cords, and cables in general can be useful when tweaking a system. I have a modified Burson Conductor and it's quite sensitive to cable changes also.
 
Do you have a link for the spacetech labs tube dac which sounds very interesting? The thing about the 2Qute is I'm waiting to hear someone say something about it's finesse. Little things like how a note trails off; or how quick the transients are. Micro and Macro detailing and dynamics. For 1795$ some of the more expensive characteristics should be evident. So far all I hear is how it sounds like the Hugo but different. I sure would like to hear more observations.
 
edit: I made changes to post 224.

 

[AlanU]

   
Say Alan U; you have not filled out your profile yet. There may be some head-fi'ers close by and you will not know until you let others know your location.
 
I know it wasn't meant for me but I agree with you about power cords, and cables in general can be useful when tweaking a system. I have a modified Burson Conductor and it's quite sensitive to cable changes also.
 
Do you have a link for the spacetech labs tube dac which sounds very interesting? The thing about the 2Qute is I'm waiting to hear someone say something about it's finesse. Little things like how a note trails off; or how quick the transients are. Micro and Macro detailing and dynamics. For 1795$ some of the more expensive characteristics should be evident. So far all I hear is how it sounds like the Hugo but different. I sure would like to hear more observations.

 
My tube dac is quite industrial looking. For jazz/female vocals and string instruments, trumpet  the dac is leaps and bounds better than my DA160 and even the more refined dac output of the Burson Virtuoso. Deep engagement in female vocals that the Burson virtuoso cannot even touch. The piano note decay is something both Burson products cannot reproduce like my tube dac. I was floored when I first plugged in the 24bit tube dac.
 
My tube buffer stage......default 6L6GT x 2 or  here's my alternatives!!!!
 
6Y6/6V6/6K6/6F6/6G6/6550/5881/6CA7/EL34/KT66/KT77/KT88/KT99/KT100

http://www.thebestamp.com/DA-24-192-XT-3.jpg
 
(my photo with my Totem forests in the background)
 
On the same note Chris Botti's trumpet sounds holographic but not laser etched with hyper micro detail. Same exact music on a solid state is faster and less note decay.  The high's and lows do have a roll off like most tube "effect" but this is where the natural realism takes place. When I first listened to my tube dac I had to retrain my brain to understand that years of listening to solid state dacs that it's manipulated my brain to think this is how music is suppose to sound from my speakers. Tube Overtones/pleasant distortion is something the human ear seems to like even though its technically not text book perfect. If I must tweak I will roll tubes. So far my Aural symphonics cappaccino cord gives me a larger spacious soundstage when I power my dac with it (very noticeable compared to other cords I own).
 
6L6GC and Kt66 is my preference and it provides enough dynamics for my genre I typically listen too. If I'm listening to orchestra or even bassy electronica I will use a 6550 tube(s).
 
My totem Earth's dispersion of sound with my modest Simaudio integrated  amp provides my music with great realism. However for bassy music the tube roll off reduces the "thump". This is where a solid state dac seems to be a power house of punchier bass and exaggerated high's and pinpoint locators of instruments that may suite other types of genre music that I listen too.
 
I'll be in the process of going with a tube preamp and solid state amp so this is why I'm also casually on the hunt for a solid state dac. 
 
If you have a dark/laid back  headphones you can roll the tubes to speed up the sound and on the other hand if you have brighter faster HP you can slow them down by rolling with a smoother tube. This is where you cannot tweak a wall wart powered DAC so you must tweak other things to create your "preference" of sound.
 
I'm an observer and happily reading reviews....some reviewers seem to be getting "greased in some form" in raving about audio products. I do like to read real end users reviews rather than magazine/online "professional" reviews.

 

[Jodet]

   
Do post your impressions when you get to hear it. I have too many things on my plate to upgrade my DAC yet, but when I will, it's definitely going to be this bad boy.

 
Hopefully will be here by next Friday (5/1). 

 

[RubyTiger]

I hope everyone forgives me for asking such oddball questions of which this is one.
 
I have never tried this before so forgive me if it's a stupid question.
 
Let's say,  I have an aftermarket power cord that I feel makes a considerable difference with my present dac. Being detachable it has a male and female end. Does anyone think there could be a difference if I plugged the 2Qutes power adapter into the female end?

 

[mcullinan]

kinky!

 

[WhatsUp]

No, but try it and see 

 

 

[Zaiki]

I hope everyone forgives me for asking such oddball questions of which this is one.

I have never tried this before so forgive me if it's a stupid question.

Let's say,  I have an aftermarket power cord that I feel makes a considerable difference with my present dac. Being detachable it has a male and female end. Does anyone think there could be a difference if I plugged the 2Qutes power adapter into the female end?

According to my experience. Even you plug your power cord to a laptop's power adapter. It do change the sound..

 

[RubyTiger]

I'm sure you guy's are beginning to tire seeing my Avatar showing up so much. But I've run into what may be a problem and it's been written about here already. I think for sure I would like Rob Watts to weigh in on this one.
 
Some of you might know I have a tube amp ordered. Yesterday, I posted in it's dedicated thread asking if 3v rms would be ok with the amp. I got one reply today from a regular whom I respect and value what he say's.
 
He told me I better contact Donald because that may very well be to much.
 
So, I just got off the phone with Donald and he agreed with the poster that 3v rms is indeed high. He replied that I may only be able to use a couple of steps with the attenuator before it begins to get loud. This amp does not have gain settings that I know of.
 
And, I may be speaking prematurely on the issue as he asked me to wait a few day's while he gave it serious thought. 'Wait", meaning don't purchase the dac until he gets back with me. Perhaps it indeed will work out but
for now -
                  I would very much like to hear Rob's response to the issue.

 

[AlanU]

  I hope everyone forgives me for asking such oddball questions of which this is one.
 
I have never tried this before so forgive me if it's a stupid question.
 
Let's say,  I have an aftermarket power cord that I feel makes a considerable difference with my present dac. Being detachable it has a male and female end. Does anyone think there could be a difference if I plugged the 2Qutes power adapter into the female end?

 
I use a blue circle power conditioner and even with stock cords there is a sonic difference but not as much as a 3rd party power cord.
 
I do not know the quality control of the wall wart or power adapter for the 2Qute but i would imagine it's a typical offshore inexpensive adapter. Feeding the power transformer is one thing but its still at the end of the chain before it powers the DAC. The quality of the power is one thing but if the cable is unshielded that's also another issue. This would mean the DAC would require nice filtration in the circuitry.
 
On a traditional IEC plug  you can really hear a difference. If many here can claim to hear SQ differences in a dac..... you'll definitely be able to hear the difference between cords. Even using rhodium plated power plugs sound different compared to gold plated. If you wan to speed up a heavy sounding / warm component I'd suggest trying a rhodium plated plug if you use a 3rd party power cord. 
 
Blind testing I can easily determine the difference and I do not own a pair of "golden ears". I can simply hear a difference as long as I'm listening to familiar music.
 
If anyone wants crystal clear sound the grant fidelity PC 1.5 is over the top for solid state but may work great for tubes. You may like it or hate it. fun fun fun in tweaking

 

[HumanMedia]

OK first wave 2Qute owners - has the sound of the DAC changed much with use?

I have had mine a week and my impressions are that it has a wonderful liquid midrange. If I am listening to a string quartet it is perfect. However if I play anything with bass content it sounds thin and wrong. So wrong I am on the verge of returning it.

The 2Qute replaced a Qute EX which was tonally perfect in my system. I kept everything the same and just replaced it with a 2Qute. At first it sounded a bit congested in the mids and metallic in the highs, with diminished bass. After 48 hours the midrange eased and after a few days the highs softened and became more natural (except in a couple of narrow bands where it still sounds a bit metallic). Now after a week the overall sound is that there is definite push in the upper mids which makes it sound 'loud' all of the time. loud but organic and beguiling. However from the mids down it sounds about 4db down all the way through to lower bass. The bass response is quite linear and doesn't push any particular bass note, BUT the entire bass and lower midrange is much lower in volume than the upper half of its frequency range. It also lacks bass dynamics and punch. I go from delight to complete dissapointment depending on the frequency range of the music I am playing.

I tried a linear power supply with it (checked in with a tech to make sure it wouldn't overvoltage into a 300mA load) the result was much smoother mids, but no improvement with the bass. tried a large gauge power cord on the supply to increase the bass, which it did but only around 100hz with no improvement above this up to midrange and no improvement to bass lower than this.

Is this simply the character of the 2Qute/Hugo? And you either love it's upper midrange bias, or not?
Or is it some synergistic problem with my system?
Or will bass to lower midrange snap back with a little more burn-in?
I read post after post about the Hugo's tighter controlled bass is this just a polite euphemism for diminished and lacking bass?

Any comments from those who have had it longer than I?

 

[AlanU]

OK first wave 2Qute owners - has the sound of the DAC changed much with use?

I have had mine a week and my impressions are that it has a wonderful liquid midrange. If I am listening to a string quartet it is perfect. However if I play anything with bass content it sounds thin and wrong. So wrong I am on the verge of returning it.

The 2Qute replaced a Qute EX which was tonally perfect in my system. I kept everything the same and just replaced it with a 2Qute. At first it sounded a bit congested in the mids and metallic in the highs, with diminished bass. After 48 hours the midrange eased completely and after a few days the highs softened and became more natural (except in a couple of narrow bands where it still sounds a bit metallic). Now after a week the overall sound is that there is definite push in the upper mids which makes it sound 'loud' all of the time. loud but organic and beguiling. However from the mids down it sounds about 4db down all the way through to lower bass. The bass response is quite linear and doesn't push any particular bass note, BUT the entire bass and lower midrange is much lower in volume than the upper half of its frequency range. It also lacks bass dynamics and punch. I go from delight to disbelief depending on the frequency range of the music I am playing.

I tried a linear power supply with it (checked in with a tech to make sure it wouldn't overvoltage into a 300mA load) the result was much smoother mids, but no improvement with the bass. tried a large gauge power cord on the supply to increase the bass, which it did but only around 100hz with no improvement above this up to midrange.

Is this simply the character of the 2Qute/Hugo? And you either love it's upper midrange bias, or not?
Or is it some synergistic problem with my system?
Or will bass to lower midrange snap back with a little more burn-in?
I read post after post about the Hugo's tighter controlled bass is this just a euphemism for diminished and lacking bass?

Any comments from those who have had it longer than I?

Have you listened to the DAC using USB or are you using your usb/spdif AP2 converter?  Sometimes there is a difference between coaxial and the implementation of the usb interface of the dac.

 

[HumanMedia]

Have you listened to the DAC using USB or are you using your usb/spdif AP2 converter?  Sometimes there is a difference between coaxial and the implementation of the usb interface of the dac.

Only coax SPDIF, as the Source doesn't see the DAC on USB. There are different firmware profiles that can be used with my source which may allow connectivity via USB, but it's a lot of trial and error which I was going to leave until later. I will also try a direct coax connection with the AP out of the chain. (The AP2 made a noticeable and positive improvement to both the Qute EX and HD.)

 

[Rob Watts]

  I'm sure you guy's are beginning to tire seeing my Avatar showing up so much. But I've run into what may be a problem and it's been written about here already. I think for sure I would like Rob Watts to weigh in on this one.
 
Some of you might know I have a tube amp ordered. Yesterday, I posted in it's dedicated thread asking if 3v rms would be ok with the amp. I got one reply today from a regular whom I respect and value what he say's.
 
He told me I better contact Donald because that may very well be to much.
 
So, I just got off the phone with Donald and he agreed with the poster that 3v rms is indeed high. He replied that I may only be able to use a couple of steps with the attenuator before it begins to get loud. This amp does not have gain settings that I know of.
 
And, I may be speaking prematurely on the issue as he asked me to wait a few day's while he gave it serious thought. 'Wait", meaning don't purchase the dac until he gets back with me. Perhaps it indeed will work out but
for now -
                  I would very much like to hear Rob's response to the issue.

There is not much I can comment upon - I always designed my pre-amps with passive attenuator followed by a gain stage (or used a single variable gain stage) both topologies would have any input voltage you like with no overloading possible at all. Since all digital OPs are more than 2V RMS, (typically 2.5v RMS) 3V is only 1.5dB more. You could use the 32 bit USB input and reduce the volume a tad in the PC. But frankly I am surprised this issue has arised at all, as we have been doing this for nearly 20 years, and only recently has the issue come up.
 
The extra OP will certainly not significantly reduce the volume range possible.
 
Rob

 

[analogmusic]

It's been a week since I got my Hugo and while I haven't heard every DAC, I can safely say that the digital DAC world is now BH and AH. (Before Hugo and after Hugo)
 
This technology is simply SUPERB. If you can afford it and love music, drop everything and run and buy one.
 
Everything sounds so musical, from MP3 to Lossless files. 

 

[analogmusic]

  There is not much I can comment upon - I always designed my pre-amps with passive attenuator followed by a gain stage (or used a single variable gain stage) both topologies would have any input voltage you like with no overloading possible at all. Since all digital OPs are more than 2V RMS, (typically 2.5v RMS) 3V is only 1.5dB more. You could use the 32 bit USB input and reduce the volume a tad in the PC. But frankly I am surprised this issue has arised at all, as we have been doing this for nearly 20 years, and only recently has the issue come up.
 
The extra OP will certainly not significantly reduce the volume range possible.
 
Rob

I am the one who brought it up, and it was due to my own lack of knowledge.
 
Since all Chord DACs have always been 3.0 V and there have been no complaints and issues I think everyone can ignore my comment and go ahead, and buy the 2Qute without any hesitation.