Hi all
I am after some advice. I have a Blu II on loan for a very short period of time, less than 48 hours.
I have connected it to my Dave in dual BNC mode as recommended by the manual. No problems there, everything worked from the get-go.
I am playing a CD in excellent condition: 'The Age of Plastic' by the Buggles (apologies for my taste).
The Dave display shows the following:
- D Bnc 1
- 705.6kHz
- PCM Plus
- Phase Neg
- HF Fil Off
- Display 1
- CHORD DAVE Digital Pre
I am running an A/B test, switching between the CD replay and a Tidal stream of the same album, running from a Cocktail Audio Pro X100 media server connected via Toslink to the Dave.
When I switch from the Tidal stream to the CD stream, there is a drop-out after a second or so, but it is stable after that. The output of the CD stream seems to be 2-3 db lower. These aren't the problems.
The issue is that the CD output is underwhelming. The Tidal output through the Dave is alive, really good and strong. The CD replay on the other hand is a little flat, to the point where I don't even see the need to run any further demo of the unit.
My system should be resolving enough to highlight differences - the Dave is operating as a pre, with a pair of Quad II 80's feeding Kudos Titan T88 speakers.
I am using BNC inputs 1 and 2 on the Dave. I will try 3 and 4, but I don't see why that would make any difference.
All comments or suggestions appreciated.
edit: I've just done a second A/B test with Donald Fagen's The Nightfly with the same results. For the record, my missus describes the Tidal output through optical as '"more rich".