[Triode User]

I meant this in the context of a live recording...

What I meant is this:
Dave alone: Very good.. you get to hear the performers, but they are playing behind the loudspeakers and the loudspeakers are in your room.

Dave and Blu2: You are carried to the hall where the performance is being played, ( as long as your speaker and room are up to it). The extra listening cues and details (ambience, timing & immediacy) that 1 million taps bring can actually trick your ears and mind to overcome the loudspeaker and room colourations and transport you more easily to the venue... hall audience and all.

The former, I can live with. The latter, after experiencing it, I can't live without!

Ah, yes yes yes.

 

[Christer]

If I could add to this, the term I would use would be ‘master tape’ palpability. I only have a Dave at home and it’s not bad . But when i visited my dealer to listen with Blu2, it immediately brought back memories of original live analog recordings on tape i had listened to in the past. There is a kind of ‘presence’ to the sound...A couple of times, i had also heard this on a good vinyl rig (on a Gryphon phono stage in my case) playing direct-cut records. Sadly, i dont quite get the same feeling on my standalone Dave. This is going to be quite obvious with well recorded kettle or taiko drums...

In a live recording like this, you are brought to the venue... With Dave sans Blu2, the performance comes to you.

http://tidal.com/album/16453957

Btw despite my icon, one would be hard pressed to get the full benefit of Dave on headphones alone. Nothng like hearing Dave or Blu2 on a good set of speakers.

Hello Kamil, interesting to hear you comparing DAVE/Blu2 to direct cut vinyl.
In some respects direct cuts LP are still a reference to me.
If I remember correctly you are based in KL aren't you?
I'll be back in Singapore and later KL next month again and I would love to audition both HUGO 2 and DAVE/BLU2 via speakers.
Which KL dealer has both HUGO 2 and DAVE /BLU2?
The only one I know of is Stars Pickers and they are very good in many ways. But they have a showroom with no large speakers.
Cheers Christer

 

[Kamil21]

Hello Kamil, interesting to hear you comparing DAVE/Blu2 to direct cut vinyl.
In some respects direct cuts LP are still a reference to me.
If I remember correctly you are based in KL aren't you?
I'll be back in Singapore and later KL next month again and I would love to audition both HUGO 2 and DAVE/BLU2 via speakers.
Which KL dealer has both HUGO 2 and DAVE /BLU2?
The only one I know of is Stars Pickers and they are very good in many ways. But they have a showroom with no large speakers.
Cheers Christer

Please PM me

 

[watermad]

I've finally received my Chord Blu MKII and it's bedding in nicely. giving me more music and even improving internet radio mp3 streams .

Apologies if this had already been answered, I did a search and no hits, one minor operational gripe, how do I turn off the rather bright display on the Blu MK2 as it's quite distracting, especially when I don't have a CD loaded, showing "no disc"?

 

[Malcyg]

I've finally received my Chord Blu MKII and it's bedding in nicely. giving me more music and even improving internet radio mp3 streams .

Apologies if this had already been answered, I did a search and no hits, one minor operational gripe, how do I turn off the rather bright display on the Blu MK2 as it's quite distracting, especially when I don't have a CD loaded, showing "no disc"?

Just put it into standby using the remote. That switches the CD section and display off but M Scaler is still operational.

 

[jlbrach]

that is exactly what I do when I use it with Tidal,when I want to use the CD section I turn it on...simple

 

[Pappadave]

Just got my Blu2. Sounds (as expected) just great.

One comment: I tried first to connect it to Dave with Chord Epic BNC cables and they simply wouldn't give me 768KHz sample rate. Switched to the cables suggested by Triod - everything worked like a clock. So here is another illustration to Triode's point - in case of BluDave chase expensive cables at your own peril

 

[Crgreen]

Just got my Blu2. Sounds (as expected) just great.

One comment: I tried first to connect it to Dave with Chord Epic BNC cables and they simply wouldn't give me 768KHz sample rate. Switched to the cables suggested by Triod - everything worked like a clock. So here is another illustration to Triode's point - in case of BluDave chase expensive cables at your own peril

I'm not sure you can derive any general conclusions from that. And Nick's espousal of cheap cables is for rather different reasons.

BTW, I'm still waiting for Romaz to report back on his cable experiments and other matters pertaining to Blu II. It seems a while since he posted his initial thoughts.

 

[yellowblue]

Romaz posted some impressions here.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...reaming/?page=149&tab=comments#comment-723571

 

[Crgreen]

Romaz posted some impressions here.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...reaming/?page=149&tab=comments#comment-723571

Thanks. Interestingly, Rob's original suggestion was to place the ferrite rings at the Dave end, not evenly spaced as in the photograph. I will have to try that.

 

[Triode User]

Thanks. Interestingly, Rob's original suggestion was to place the ferrite rings at the Dave end, not evenly spaced as in the photograph. I will have to try that.

The other think I have in mind is to try more ferrites. I have a box full so why not?

 

[Jawed]

Yep, you can't go wrong with too many.

Now playing: Throwing Muses - Red Shoes

 

[Triode User]

Yep, you can't go wrong with too many.

Now playing: Throwing Muses - Red Shoes

Unless the weight of the ferrites drags the Blu2 off the table!

 

[lojay]

I've received the Blu 2 and have tried the BluDave on my speaker rig at home (to Omega CAMs directly with HFC Ultimate Ref RCAs) and headphones at work (to DIYT2 and Sennheiser Orpheus HE90).

I must say that the improvements are immediately noticeable. It seems wrong to put it this way, but the BluDave lifts away the smudge around instruments and voices that was once there with just the Dave. Tonality is richer, with sonic cues presented in a palpable stable and solid sonic image. One way of putting it is that sonic cues which used to sound like they were floating in space with the Dave now sound properly like instruments playing with the musician sitting or standing firmly on the ground. Realism is the word.

To make sure I wasn't hearing things, I did an A-B comparison: I swapped the USB feeding the Blu 2 into the Dave, switched the Dave from BNC to USB mode, and the magic is gone.

I was most impressed with the effect on my headphone rig: I must say that whilst I had to use a tube amplifier with the HE90 headphones, which are very dated by today's standards. It shows that this old system could still scale higher with improvements on the digital front end. I have never heard anything as resolving yet. I listened to the BluDave all day at work (very distracted from it I must say) and brought the BluDave back home. The BluDave directly driving the speakers was less impressive, still very impressive, but I felt the resolution of my headphone setup could not be matched. Might be speaker placement or simply the speakers not up to it, I cannot be sure.

Wth both speakers and headphones another thing that was immediately apparent was the improvement in soundstage, depth and bass. Bass in particular was an area I felt the Dave alone lagged behind other top of the line DACs. I don't think so now. A typical criticism of electrostatic headphones like the HE90 is the lack of bass - I agree with that statement but, for the first time, I consider that it's bass was more than adequate in terms of quantity and viscerality when I was playing Jennifer Warnes' Way Down Deep. It's fair to say the BluDave has turned up the bass a notch or two.

The improvement in depth is very noticeable. I put on Yuja Wang's Rachmaninov (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini) and was able to hear for the first time that Yuja's piano was distinctly closer to the audience than the strings. With just the Dave, it seemed that she was much closer to the strings; with the BluDave the focus was much on her which is the point of the recording.

These are my findings so far. In short, the Blu 2 completes the Dave. It's worth it. There are things I could still improve - there's a little bit of glare (interestingly, mainly when I play back CDs). If anyone has extra ferrite cores or cable recommendations do let me know!

 

[Triode User]

I've received the Blu 2 and have tried the BluDave on my speaker rig at home (to Omega CAMs directly with HFC Ultimate Ref RCAs) and headphones at work (to DIYT2 and Sennheiser Orpheus HE90).

I must say that the improvements are immediately noticeable. It seems wrong to put it this way, but the BluDave lifts away the smudge around instruments and voices that was once there with just the Dave. Tonality is richer, with sonic cues presented in a palpable stable and solid sonic image. One way of putting it is that sonic cues which used to sound like they were floating in space with the Dave now sound properly like instruments playing with the musician sitting or standing firmly on the ground. Realism is the word.

To make sure I wasn't hearing things, I did an A-B comparison: I swapped the USB feeding the Blu 2 into the Dave, switched the Dave from BNC to USB mode, and the magic is gone.

I was most impressed with the effect on my headphone rig: I must say that whilst I had to use a tube amplifier with the HE90 headphones, which are very dated by today's standards. It shows that this old system could still scale higher with improvements on the digital front end. I have never heard anything as resolving yet. I listened to the BluDave all day at work (very distracted from it I must say) and brought the BluDave back home. The BluDave directly driving the speakers was less impressive, still very impressive, but I felt the resolution of my headphone setup could not be matched. Might be speaker placement or simply the speakers not up to it, I cannot be sure.

Wth both speakers and headphones another thing that was immediately apparent was the improvement in soundstage, depth and bass. Bass in particular was an area I felt the Dave alone lagged behind other top of the line DACs. I don't think so now. A typical criticism of electrostatic headphones like the HE90 is the lack of bass - I agree with that statement but, for the first time, I consider that it's bass was more than adequate in terms of quantity and viscerality when I was playing Jennifer Warnes' Way Down Deep. It's fair to say the BluDave has turned up the bass a notch or two.

The improvement in depth is very noticeable. I put on Yuja Wang's Rachmaninov (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini) and was able to hear for the first time that Yuja's piano was distinctly closer to the audience than the strings. With just the Dave, it seemed that she was much closer to the strings; with the BluDave the focus was much on her which is the point of the recording.

These are my findings so far. In short, the Blu 2 completes the Dave. It's worth it. There are things I could still improve - there's a little bit of glare (interestingly, mainly when I play back CDs). If anyone has extra ferrite cores or cable recommendations do let me know!

I'm glad you like the Blu2. Your impressions seem to match up with most peoples experiences regarding the bass etc. However, I have not noticed any glare as such (not that I really know what you mean by that). Regarding the ferrites, are you using the recommended 5 per BNC cable?

With the speakers I see that you are using HFC interconnect cables. I personally do not think these interconnects are suitable for use as speaker cables as they are not really designed to carry the current required by the speakers (albeit less than other less efficient speakers). By and large, interconnect cables are supplying a voltage to an amplifier but with no particular regard to current carrying ability being required for the interconnect design. By connecting speakers direct to the Dave you are expecting the interconnect to now carry current as well as transmitting voltage. You might get a better result with less exotic but thicker cables to connect to the speakers.