Chord Electronics - Blu Mk. 2 - The Official Thread

[Triode User]

I'm not working today and, unexpectedly, the ferrites suggested by Rob arrived in the post. I have added two each at the Dave end of the cheap £20 cables with interesting results. It's too early to be exact, but my first reaction is that the sound is darker, smoother, more refined, open and musical with better focus, imaging and depth. As I'm listening to it right now, I'm tempted to say that this is good enough. Really very interesting and they are definitely worth a try at the price.

Edit: I have just looked back at Rob's original post and it seems that we are hearing very similar things. He recommends 4 at Dave end so I will try 3 then 4 and see how that goes. Fortunately, I ordered the 7.5mm ones which Rob recommended over the 5mm ones.

VERY interesting. Farnell have today confirmed my order so I should get them tomorrow. I have ordered plenty of the 7.5mm ones so I will also have a play when they arrive.

Thanks for reporting back.

 

[Malcyg]

VERY interesting. Farnell have today confirmed my order so I should get them tomorrow. I have ordered plenty of the 7.5mm ones so I will also have a play when they arrive.

Thanks for reporting back.

I think you will be happy Nick. They are a very worthwhile improvement and, moreover, expensive BNC cables may not actually be necessary. Too early for me to say, but I am impressed so far. I have updated my original post with my ongoing reaction to save repeat posts.

 

[Triode User]

I think you will be happy Nick. They are a very worthwhile improvement and, moreover, expensive BNC cables may not actually be necessary. Too early for me to say, but I am impressed so far. I have updated my original post with my ongoing reaction to save repeat posts.

And of course 7.5mm is quite large enough to try on USB cables as well as mains cables . . . . . . . .

 

[Jawed]

I hope you guys with the newly acquired ferrites try looping the cable several times through the ferrite, as shown in this picture:

http://www.gfiglobal.com/audio-visu...connectors/ferrite-ground-loop-isolator-black

Now playing: Karate - This Day Next Year

 

[dmance]

MQA News here. Chord needs to pay some mind to the progress of MQA ...regardless of the technical merits vs M-Scaler WTA. Fact is, we can buy MQA decoding for much less than M-Scaler decoding.

 

[Malcyg]

I hope you guys with the newly acquired ferrites try looping the cable several times through the ferrite, as shown in this picture:

http://www.gfiglobal.com/audio-visu...connectors/ferrite-ground-loop-isolator-black

Now playing: Karate - This Day Next Year

I don't have sufficient cable length to do that. I have simply stacked them end to end from the Dave input so that they form a protective tunnel over the last 30mm of cable. That seemed the best thing to do logically in my case.

 

[ecwl]

MQA News here. Chord needs to pay some mind to the progress of MQA ...regardless of the technical merits vs M-Scaler WTA. Fact is, we can buy MQA decoding for much less than M-Scaler decoding.

I will preface my comments that I don't own an MQA DAC. But as you all know, Tidal can convert an MQA file back to 24/96 or 24/88 (just not to 24/376 or 24/352). And I have tried comparing Tidal lossless files (or original FLACs I own) to Tidal MQA files with my DAVE (and now Blu2) and yes, even Mojo... And it's great I can do that because Tidal actually has two separate albums usually, one MQA and one 16/44 lossless.
First, fake MQA files as I call them. Meridian brags about how they can convert old 16/44 files into MQA that sounds better. Hmmmm... If you can't find a higher resolution version online, I can tell you that those MQA files are "fake" so Meridian basically upsampled them to MQA so I can listen to these MQA 24/48 files at 24/96 with Tidal app. I can tell you playing them with any modern Chord DACs, the 16/44 files sound better. Unequivocal, even on Mojo. And the 16/44 sound way better on DAVE. The fake 24/96 MQA file just sounds off with very inaccurate transients and odd timbral shifts of instruments.
Second, are the high-resolution files that MQA compressed. Fortunately, I actually own some of these high-resolution files in their native format, e.g. 24/96. Yes, you have it. If you play the music back using the original 24/96 file vs the MQA24/48 files that are decompressed to 24/96 with Tidal app, I can also tell you that with any modern Chord DAC, the original 24/96 file sounds way better than the MQA file. Now, if you don't own the original 24/96 file and can only access the 16/44 Tidal lossless file, then yes, the MQA24/48 file decompressed to 24/96 with Tidal app sounds better than the 16/44 lossless file on Chord DACs.
So to me, MQA is a marketing gimmick. MQA is a lossy compression scheme combined with a very interesting low-tap length upsampling/filtering algorithm that is vastly inferior to Rob Watts' million taps (or even Mojo/Hugo's 28000 taps) WTA upsampling/filtering algorithm.
If people have a different sonic experience than I did with MQA, I'd love to hear about it. (PS, I have heard MQA files played on MQA DACs only at dealers and personally, I still prefer the Mojo sound but I admit that's not a fair comparison).

 

[hmartin]

I will preface my comments that I don't own an MQA DAC. But as you all know, Tidal can convert an MQA file back to 24/96 or 24/88 (just not to 24/376 or 24/352). And I have tried comparing Tidal lossless files (or original FLACs I own) to Tidal MQA files with my DAVE (and now Blu2) and yes, even Mojo... And it's great I can do that because Tidal actually has two separate albums usually, one MQA and one 16/44 lossless.
First, fake MQA files as I call them. Meridian brags about how they can convert old 16/44 files into MQA that sounds better. Hmmmm... If you can't find a higher resolution version online, I can tell you that those MQA files are "fake" so Meridian basically upsampled them to MQA so I can listen to these MQA 24/48 files at 24/96 with Tidal app. I can tell you playing them with any modern Chord DACs, the 16/44 files sound better. Unequivocal, even on Mojo. And the 16/44 sound way better on DAVE. The fake 24/96 MQA file just sounds off with very inaccurate transients and odd timbral shifts of instruments.
Second, are the high-resolution files that MQA compressed. Fortunately, I actually own some of these high-resolution files in their native format, e.g. 24/96. Yes, you have it. If you play the music back using the original 24/96 file vs the MQA24/48 files that are decompressed to 24/96 with Tidal app, I can also tell you that with any modern Chord DAC, the original 24/96 file sounds way better than the MQA file. Now, if you don't own the original 24/96 file and can only access the 16/44 Tidal lossless file, then yes, the MQA24/48 file decompressed to 24/96 with Tidal app sounds better than the 16/44 lossless file on Chord DACs.
So to me, MQA is a marketing gimmick. MQA is a lossy compression scheme combined with a very interesting low-tap length upsampling/filtering algorithm that is vastly inferior to Rob Watts' million taps (or even Mojo/Hugo's 28000 taps) WTA upsampling/filtering algorithm.
If people have a different sonic experience than I did with MQA, I'd love to hear about it. (PS, I have heard MQA files played on MQA DACs only at dealers and personally, I still prefer the Mojo sound but I admit that's not a fair comparison).

No I agree, I would actually go one step further and state that even on my Meridian Explorer2 that I use at work that supports MQA i prefer to listen to the 16/44.1 lossless version. I was impressed by the sound of MQA first but after roughly 200 hours I could not stand it anymore due to the types of artifacts that you describe. I rather listen to the vague "out-of-focus" version that you get without MQA on the Meridian. (A Chord Mojo is in a different league, I was just too cheap to buy one for work also, stupid me.)

 

[Triode User]

MQA News here. Chord needs to pay some mind to the progress of MQA ...regardless of the technical merits vs M-Scaler WTA. Fact is, we can buy MQA decoding for much less than M-Scaler decoding.

Better go buy it then.

Rob Watts has always been very clear that he would consider incorporating any new tech such as MQA if he thinks it improves the sound quality but it doesn't so he hasn't.

 

[dmance]

If Chord wanted to do an end-run on MQA, they should use the M-Scaler to generate 768khz 'master' WTA files in the cloud. Basically run a farm of 100 M-Scalers: file-in, file-out and submit as premium content to the various streaming outlets. FLAC compressed WTA768 files won't be as small as MQA384 files but certainly we'd all pay for the better SQ.
If Chord was a SanFran based, venture backed firm this is what they would do. Dominate the hires audio space ...not tiptoe with baby steps.

 

[ecwl]

If Chord wanted to do an end-run on MQA, they should use the M-Scaler to generate 768khz 'master' WTA files in the cloud. Basically run a farm of 100 M-Scalers: file-in, file-out and submit as premium content to the various streaming outlets.

I've actually thought about that when DAVE first came out. But I think we live in the high-end audio bubble. If you think about it, Spotify and Apple Music streams mp3's and Tidal streams lossless and the subscriber base of Tidal is 1/100th that of its competitors and Tidal is losing money, like all other streaming services. So I'm not sure if there's a large enough customer base to sell 768kHz WTA files to make it profitable.

 

[Malcyg]

Further to my previous post regarding the ferrites, I have a better picture now and frankly, I am very surprised that a few cheap ferrites can make as much difference as they do and my conclusion is that I shall be going with the cheap cables and ferrites at a total cost of £85. (yes, that's £85 Triode!)

I have nothing to add to my previous post about the impact and it will be interesting to see what others think when they get theirs. I tried a few BNC cables previously and the cable that sounded the best to me cost more than £4,000 a pair - although with a discount and p/ex I would be paying less than half of that. Nonetheless, I was apprehensive about spending that much and Rob's ferrite recommendation has saved me a not insignificant sum - thank you Rob. Mind you, I'll ignore how much he has cost me over the past couple of years!

There may be a bonus as well - I have the cables attached to my preferred Dave inputs 3&4 and I haven't had a single drop out all day. Previously, I was getting occasional drop outs and had to switch to inputs 1&2 to resolve that.

I have not compared the cheap ferrite cables with the more expensive ones because it is a chore doing these comparisons and I don't really want to do any more. My memory tells me that there is no tangible difference between them now, but I don't want run the risk that I may still prefer the other cables. I'm happy with things as they stand and that's going to be the end of it for me.

I am 55 and will be 'retiring' next month and my wife agreed that I could do whatever I needed, within reason, to get the main system totally sorted by the end of this month, which is why I have been checking a few things out lately - I quite dislike testing things as I find it a bit of a chore, and quite tiresome. My main system is done now and all that is left is to enjoy it for hopefully many years to come. I really appreciate the various challenges and bits of input from this forum that have helped me along the way and good luck to the rest of you in sorting out your own setup.

 

[Triode User]

Further to my previous post regarding the ferrites, I have a better picture now and frankly, I am very surprised that a few cheap ferrites can make as much difference as they do and my conclusion is that I shall be going with the cheap cables and ferrites at a total cost of £85. (yes, that's £85 Triode!)

I have nothing to add to my previous post about the impact and it will be interesting to see what others think when they get theirs. I tried a few BNC cables previously and the cable that sounded the best to me cost more than £4,000 a pair - although with a discount and p/ex I would be paying less than half of that. Nonetheless, I was apprehensive about spending that much and Rob's ferrite recommendation has saved me a not insignificant sum - thank you Rob. Mind you, I'll ignore how much he has cost me over the past couple of years!

There may be a bonus as well - I have the cables attached to my preferred Dave inputs 3&4 and I haven't had a single drop out all day. Previously, I was getting occasional drop outs and had to switch to inputs 1&2 to resolve that.

I have not compared the cheap ferrite cables with the more expensive ones because it is a chore doing these comparisons and I don't really want to do any more. My memory tells me that there is no tangible difference between them now, but I don't want run the risk that I may still prefer the other cables. I'm happy with things as they stand and that's going to be the end of it for me.

I am 55 and will be 'retiring' next month and my wife agreed that I could do whatever I needed, within reason, to get the main system totally sorted by the end of this month, which is why I have been checking a few things out lately - I quite dislike testing things as I find it a bit of a chore, and quite tiresome. My main system is done now and all that is left is to enjoy it for hopefully many years to come. I really appreciate the various challenges and bits of input from this forum that have helped me along the way and good luck to the rest of you in sorting out your own setup.

Well done on two counts.

1) getting the BNC cables sorted for a reasonable cost.

2) RETIRING?!?!?! at 55, you poor old thing (from a 63 year old who is busier and working harder than ever.)

I will add my ferrite tale when they arrive tomorrow. My BNC cable pair cost is about £45 for the pair so if I conclude that 4 ferrites per cable is OK then that will take me to about £77 including the cables and ferrites.

PS, that is also very interesting about the improvements in drop outs.

 

[Crgreen]

I hope you guys with the newly acquired ferrites try looping the cable several times through the ferrite, as shown in this picture:

http://www.gfiglobal.com/audio-visu...connectors/ferrite-ground-loop-isolator-black

Now playing: Karate - This Day Next Year

I think most cables are too thick for that, and Rob recommend not coiling the cable. The equivalent of looping would be using four of such devices.

 

[romaz]

I would venture that, if nothing else, Blu 2's built-in CD spinner is a useful calibration tool for those people who are building a streaming system. Until your streaming configuration at least matches the playback performance of the CD spinner, you have work to do!!

@romaz some useful posts:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...-official-thread.831343/page-59#post-13578523 and a few more posts on that page

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...-official-thread.831343/page-60#post-13579166

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...-official-thread.831343/page-63#post-13601272



https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...-official-thread.831343/page-64#post-13607008

The legs on the stand look too short for DAVE. How do you plug headphones into the front?

Now playing: Kate Bush - Running up That Hill

Thanks, Jawed. Very helpful. I completely agree, CD playback is a useful benchmark and very easy to A/B against.

Regarding the stand, the photo is deceiving. There is just enough clearance to plug in my headphone cables. If real estate is limited, this is the best way I know to stack these 2 components. I am quite impressed by the fit and finish of these stands.