[marcmccalmont]

The holly S moment was first but I used the clearer audio coax first! .7 m length and they do have the option for bnc’s

These were the silver reference

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

Strange that you needed just 1 ferrite to get to your prefered sound, where others have gone up as high as 20!

Not that strange TA. I use VertexAQ Jaya and JayaPlus to divert RFI/EMI away from system. I also live in a mobile phone black hole and my house is deep in the country on a 4 acre plot of land. It all contributes positively I guess.

Edit: I also think these cables are better shielded than the free ones.

 

[Jawed]

Strange that you needed just 1 ferrite to get to your prefered sound, where others have gone up as high as 20!

1 being preferred to 2 implies an unbalanced system. This is because the ferrites can only remove RF noise. They make no difference to the digital data.

So if you dislike a system with less RF noise, then the problem is the system, not the quantity of RF noise.

Now playing: Mogwai - Helps Both Ways

 

[marcmccalmont]

interesting i was told by the nordost rep for canada that preferred length is 3 ft not 1.5ft for usb, if this means anything. looked into valhalla but its hard to find and at over 3 g i say I'm good.

I think the 1.5M suggestion is to attenuate reflections but if you have true 75 ohm cable and well engineered interfaces it’s probably minor and the cost of 3 cables I figured on the shortest length that was practical my experience is a well engineered cable is more important than length

 

[marcmccalmont]

Did you get your "Batman" moment with just the stock Blu2? Or after the cable and footer changes?

How long was the Silver Line Optimus? Clearer Audio start out failrly low for their 0.5M default length, but then charge proportinally more than most cable makers for additional lengths - especially for their TOTL silver cables.

On the Clearer Audio website, the only models with a BNC option are the much cheaper Copper Alpha, or the much more expensive Silver Reference. The Silver Optimus doesn't appear to have a BNC option

Silver line Optimus reference 75 digital interconect

 

[esimms86]

A pair of Phasure BNC cables greeted me when I arrived home on Monday from a brief trip out of town. Today I finally had a chance to replace my inexpensive Blue Jeans Cable Canare BNC cables with the Phasures. The previous BNC's are 2 meters long and have 4 Ferrite cores per cable(note: my Ferrite cores came without keys). The Phasures are 1 meter long and, obviously, have no Ferrites attached. The Phasures cost 344 Euros shipped from the Netherlands to the United States(Massachusetts).

The upgrade in sound was not at all subtle. I characterize it as an immediate WOW moment. Soundstage and detail were clearly improved. The background was blacker, making for a significant upgrade in the sound of uncompressed recordings. The most striking difference for the better(with no downsides) was how the rhythm section sounded so well locked in on recordings with bass and drums. I could pick up on musical timing cues that previously flew under the radar. The dark background and increased detail allowed subtle percussion accents to come through at their own volume(i.e., the whole drum kit and any additional/overdubbed percussion touches were all present and well integrated into the recording as a whole).

Clearly, everyone has to decide what their finances can allow but, given the price of BluDave, it would not be a stretch to see the value in the Phasure cable. I have no intention of looking any further for cable upgrades for BluDave. I should note that my USB cable is the Phasure Lush so there may be some system synergy at play here.

Finally, my sincere thanks to jelt2359 for turning me on to the Phasure BNC cables.

 

[Jawed]

Is the difference between Canare and Phasure cables the same when you play CDs as when you stream USB through Blu 2?

 

[esimms86]

Is the difference between Canare and Phasure cables the same when you play CDs as when you stream USB through Blu 2?

I’ve never played a CD on Blu2(I last played a CD in 2008!).

 

[marcmccalmont]

Silver line Optimus reference 75 digital interconect

The Clearer Audio coax have a ferrite ring on each end of the cable so I first made my cable comparison with clip on ferrites on each end of the cables to compair apples to apples. I then tried 8 ferrites on the supplied cables to see if that evened things out, it did not the Clearer Audio cables were a lot better. Today I added 8 13mm clip on ferrites in addition to the 2 installed ferrite rings and got an improvement in noise floor and I was not expecting this but the leading edge of instruments improved making it another step closer to live music. My ears are clapping!
I also played around with my sources Blu2/Dave internal drive, Aurender N10 into Blu2/Dave, MSB CD IV into Blu2/Dave, and finally MSB into Dave. The first 3 were virtually indistinguishable the last, no Blu2 was off just a hair but still quite good!
I also compared a few USB cables between my N10 and Blu2 none equaled the Clearer Audio coax but both the Blackcat digit and Wire World platinum starlight 7 came close.
At this point my system will stabilize with the N10, Blu2/Dave, 3 Clearer Audio coax bnc/bnc w/ additional ferrites, using Dave as my preamp. I tried my Spectral DMC 30 SSII and could hear no difference (says a lot for both Dave and the Spectral) I'm digital only until I move back home so I'll need a preamp for my vinyl front end but I'll cross that bridge later.

 

[Jawed]

The Clearer Audio coax have a ferrite ring on each end of the cable so I first made my cable comparison with clip on ferrites on each end of the cables to compair apples to apples. I then tried 8 ferrites on the supplied cables to see if that evened things out, it did not the Clearer Audio cables were a lot better. Today I added 8 13mm clip on ferrites in addition to the 2 installed ferrite rings and got an improvement in noise floor and I was not expecting this but the leading edge of instruments improved making it another step closer to live music. My ears are clapping!

Yeah that extra transient speed is something I get with lots of ferrites on my USB cable with just DAVE (no Blu 2). It's a cascade of benefits from there, with a huge increase in transparency and intelligibility of lyrics, powerfulness and refinement. I needed about 16 ferrites to get that result, but it has improved with yet more.

Since the Clearer Audio cables benefit from ferrites, it's now worth trying yet more. I'd suggest adding another 10 per cable...

Once you've finished, you might like to write to them to suggest they make a version with lots of ferrites built in!

Now playing: Amp - Polemic

 

[marcmccalmont]

Yeah that extra transient speed is something I get with lots of ferrites on my USB cable with just DAVE (no Blu 2). It's a cascade of benefits from there, with a huge increase in transparency and intelligibility of lyrics, powerfulness and refinement. I needed about 16 ferrites to get that result, but it has improved with yet more.

Since the Clearer Audio cables benefit from ferrites, it's now worth trying yet more. I'd suggest adding another 10 per cable...

Once you've finished, you might like to write to them to suggest they make a version with lots of ferrites built in!

Now playing: Amp - Polemic

Good Idea I'll order more!

 

[Triode User]

I’ve never played a CD on Blu2(I last played a CD in 2008!).

Go on, treat yourself!

 

[Christer]

So since trying out ferrites on analogue Cables which in my experience turned out to be a no no, I have found time to test digital connections with cheap cables.

I got used to the free cables from Chord first. These are 1m. The sound to my ears is thin but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if a person is trying to balance bigger speakers than would be recommended for a given room size. These cables are passable for a free pair. What I did notice is a clear level of EMI/RFI had infiltrated the sound. This shows up in two ways 1) A high frequency frosting around 13khz and upwards. 2) if I can explain this visually, its like I am looking in a mirror at my face and the mirror is elastic so I put my finger in the middle of the mirror and my face distorts slightly. That’s how it sounds to me. It does not sound natural.

So I put a couple of ferrites on each end near Dave and one on the Blu II end. This darkened things fairly significantly and significantly reduced the high frequency frosting. The distortion seemed improved too. I removed the ferrite at the Blu II end and preferred it. I also went down to one ferrite at the Dave end and ‘just’ preferred that too, though it was merely a personal preference in my room. I could live with this for a while but in the end I would have to change to a better cable.

Enter a couple of £9 Cables via Amazon UK. These are 2m length.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002RM1FLW/ref=pe_1909131_77697001_tnp_email_TE_AMZLdp_1
Instantly without burn-in and with just one ferrite on the Dave end, they were warmer and even sounded louder for some reason, they delivered a far more natural (balanced) eq presentation. No noticeable emi/RFI that I could discern. Fairly big and natural dynamics and here was something I had not expected: They were far more relaxed and liquid. It was more music and less Hi-Fi. Great value imo and I think I could live with this sound much longer though eventually I know I would have to move back to my Chord Sarum not just because it sounds smoother and classier but because the CS has better control of bass frequencies. It’s not so loose or woolly but hey, some people who listen exclusively to Classical may prefer this warmer presentation. I have very eclectic tastes in music and I want the leaner and tighter bass control and cleaner overall presentation in order to make the most of some musical genres. All in all though, this cable is very good value imo and musical/emotional too.

Hope this is of interest to some.

EDIT: please note that these cables are not run-in yet and may still change. If they do I will report but they sounded very good straight out the box to be fair.

Interesting results.
But I would NEVER consider the cables included as a "free pair".
If they are included you have paid for them and if they are not TOTL cables you have paid a lot for something of obviously little/limited real value!
IMO with products like DAVE/BLU2 and also HUGO 1 and 2 one pays a lot and one also has a right to expect excellence in all and every respect from products in this VERY ELEVATED PRICE RANGE,including cables and connections.
I strongly resent when companies seem to expect you to start upgrading cabling and/or offer advice using of ferrites and other improvements in trial and error experiments.
If they are really aware of any problems and limitations of what has been packed they should maybe begin thinking of charging a lot less for their products in the first place.
And if ferrites are as important as indicated in this thread ,why on earth don't all Chord products come with a suitable number of ferrites included?

 

[Triode User]

Interesting results.
But I would NEVER consider the cables included as a "free pair".
If they are included you have paid for them and if they are not TOTL cables you have paid a lot for something of obviously little/limited real value!
IMO with products like DAVE/BLU2 and also HUGO 1 and 2 one pays a lot and one also has a right to expect excellence in all and every respect from products in this VERY ELEVATED PRICE RANGE,including cables and connections.
I strongly resent when companies seem to expect you to start upgrading cabling and/or offer advice using of ferrites and other improvements in trial and error experiments.
If they are really aware of any problems and limitations of what has been packed they should maybe begin thinking of charging a lot less for their products in the first place.
And if ferrites are as important as indicated in this thread ,why on earth don't all Chord products come with a suitable number of ferrites included?

Well my Blu2 didn’t come with ANY free cables. So all you Johnny come lately chaps who now get free cables are lucky to get any included cables. (Mine was one of the first ones shippped).

It was only after shipping started that chord decided to include some cables just so people could get started when their Blu2 arrived on the basis that they were unlikely to have a couple of bnc cables already.

Apart from that I would say that the Blu2 is so luddy brilliant anyway even with cheap cables that your post is somewhat churlish.

I can’t remember, do you have a Blu2 or is your post just an outpouring of general entitlement on behalf of potential buyers?

 

[Christer]

Well my Blu2 didn’t come with ANY free cables. So all you Johnny come lately chaps who now get free cables are lucky to get any included cables. (Mine was one of the first ones shippped).

It was only after shipping started that chord decided to include some cables just so people could get started when their Blu2 arrived on the basis that they were unlikely to have a couple of bnc cables already.

Apart from that I would say that the Blu2 is so luddy brilliant anyway even with cheap cables that your post is somewhat churlish.

I can’t remember, do you have a Blu2 or is your post just an outpouring of general entitlement on behalf of potential buyers?

No I don't own DAVE/BLU2 but I have audtitioned it quite a few hours now. And I have been pretty impressed by what it does.
But I have also suffered some very unexpected cable/connection/problems with the one and only unit I have audtitioned which caused me to comment on the need for high quality cables to be supplied with super expensive toys like this.

So yes the answer is: on behalf of.

Although I am impressed by most of what I have heard from DAVE/BLU2 via highend headphones only so far, I have also experienced very occasional and short, but completely unexpected drop outs and some signs of clipping with both HEKV2 and Utopias connected directly.
I don't know if the clipping tympani/percussion on BIS/SSO Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony was a result of pushing DAVE/BLU2 too far with my large scale symphonic reference material?

The recording company BIS uses no obvious compression/limiting with their 24/96 masters and the dynamic range is sometimes huge compared to most other recordings.
In the early days of rbcd they even used to issue a warning on their discs."Warning this is a BIS Original Dynamic Range Recording."

I can't remember exactly how high I had to turn up the volume on DAVE via BLU 2.But I think it may have been pretty close to the last few dB below 0dB.
I have never experienced audible clipping from my DAC 2. It just gets way too loud for comfort at very high volume settings. But still without any real signs of stress or clipping.
I know both HUGO and HUGO 2 need to be "wheeled" well into dark-blue level on almost everything I play with my HEKV2, compared to say Audioquest Nighthawks that play with the same loudness level already on red.
But would I choose a "decent little headphone" like the Nighthawks for serious listening to well recorded large scale classical music via any highend DAC?
Absolutely No!
And the same applies to cables and proper isolation messures applied IMO.
I simply take it for granted that it should NOT be up to customers to discover any obvious deficiences from VERY upmarket products like DAVE/BLU2.
Once again if ferrites really matter as much as suggested from Chord here recently, why on earth aren't there ferrites on the supplied cables?
I just don't expect to have to resort to trial and error experiments in matters like these.
Cheers Christer
PS Enjoy your BLU2/DAVE!