[Crgreen]

Thanks for uploading the link.
Interesting review that tallies with my own experiences during still very limited auditions with headphones and some both ADD and early native 16/44.1 digital recordings of acoustic music.
I have both the Paray on SACD and the Grieg Concerto recording on LP. And yes the Philips LP is a bit soft and woolly and dated and multimic'd in SQ imho.
Nice performance ,although Katia Buniatisvili live at the Proms now up on youtube delivers Grieg's masterpiece more seductively beautiful than ever before to my taste.

The Paray SACD disc on the other hand makes up for its OLD AGE with simpler miking not messing things up as much as Philips did by making sure almost every instrument had its own mic.

But there is no mentioning at all of BLU2 with proper hi res material.

And that is where I still harbour some lingering doubts regarding M-Scaler.

For me to be really tempted by an M-Scaler it has to bring not only 16/44.1 VERY close to the best of current standard hi res.
But also even more importantly sound clearly better with hi res than all other much cheaper DAC upsampling combos/solutions.
And it must improve SQ in ALL of its important aspects of timbre,resolution and transparency not only depth, to make me bite.
For headphone listening I would even stick my neck out and say that in some respects of transparency and soundstage depth some of the low res binaural Proms broadcasts sound clearly more realistic as in the sense of "being there", than most of my,standard stereo, hi res recordings of the same works do via headphones and my Qutest/Benchmark headphone amp combo.
You can't really retrieve information that was never captured in the first place can you?
I'd love to hear from BLU2 owners exactly how much of an improvement BLU2 brings to streaming BBC 3 Proms which has been my main staple for months now with Last Night of the Proms on tonight.
Cheers Christer

I’m not entirely sure what comparisons can properly be made in respect of Prom broadcasts. Yes, the BBC, like most European radio stations, know how to properly mike and mix these concerts, and on my old Leak Troughline tuner with Tim de Pavarinci stereo decoder, they sounded wonderful, even though FM broadcasts are of limited bandwidth and there’s some form of compression applied. I still have some excellent broadcasts which I recorded onto a hard disk recorder and burnt to CD. Now however, you’re presumably listening to digital broadcasts, which I don’t think go higher than 320k, though I know the BBC have experimented with higher rates. Of course, a good recording or broadcast remains such even in a technically poorer digital format, and in my experience the Dave makes everything sound better and the m-scaler has a pretty uniform affect on what it’s processing, MP3 up to hi-res.

In short, I’m not sure if you’re really comparing like with like, and you should try and limit the variables. The real comparison should not be between Red Book, hi-res and Prom broadcasts, but between any source going straight into your DAC and via the m-scaler in the Blu2. I can’t really work out from what you’re saying if that’s what you’ve been doing.

 

[ciukas]

HiFi Plus Blu Mk2 review.

This works and goes straight to the review.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfoiMrNkAhqvDJd6NKNIoJoCloCmGRKg/view

Hard to take anyone seriously that describes the Frozen soundstrack and any of Madonna’s albums as rock music. I guess that means that Nick Cave can now be classified as metal.

 

[Christer]

Hard to take anyone seriously that describes the Frozen soundstrack and any of Madonna’s albums as rock music. I guess that means that Nick Cave can now be classified as metal.

Hmm,
I am more concerned with the fact that he clearly describes how BLU2 reveals and handles acoustic information in the recordings, both classical and pop or rock or whatever way one prefers to label Madonna.
Genre labeling is not the important thing. The choice of music is much more important.
This seems to be a guy who actually listens to acoustic music as a preference.
And that makes what he writes all the more interesting to me.

BLU2 obviously reveals the synthetic nature of different studio acoustics in the pop/rock material he mentions.

Having just re-read the review again I still miss hi res material in the review but his two classical choices are interesting.
And I have to agree with him regarding the Mercury Paray 1959 recording. I played the SACD yesterday, and it is still quite a stunningly realistic recording after all these years.
A bit flat but with very realistic timbres and a very coherent huge soundstage via my home system.

I wish more recordings were made like this today.I also wish he had compared the SACD layer via his Esoteric to the BLU2.
That would have been interesting.

And it is also interesting after all the hype here, to read some slight reservations hinted at with the classical purely acoustic material regarding tonality and timbre from BLU2 that at least one poster and BLU2 owner, here has also mentioned.

Things that I also heard with an original 24/96 master that I have both as download and a promo copy on SACD from the SSO.
I still have not heard M-scaler tech via a really good speaker based system and only with a handful of recordings via headphones.

Some especially rbcd material sounded better and more realisitc than I have ever heard from rbcd.
But I am still not quite sure if the rbcd layer of a really well recorded and mastered SACD beats the SACD layer via BLU2 compared to playing the SACD layer via a top level SACD player or even dsf or 24/96 download of the same.
The Rach 2 with direct reference to live I have mentioned before,left some lingering doubts under the not ideal conditions at hand.

I am looking forward to hearing M-scaler under more ideal conditions hopefully in the near future.
But the review in HIFI + is one of the most balanced so far imho.
Upsampling well done seems to be the verdict?
But he does not say it clearly beats everything else out there does he?
And he limits himself only to rbcd.
I wonder why?

 

[Christer]

I’m not entirely sure what comparisons can properly be made in respect of Prom broadcasts. Yes, the BBC, like most European radio stations, know how to properly mike and mix these concerts, and on my old Leak Troughline tuner with Tim de Pavarinci stereo decoder, they sounded wonderful, even though FM broadcasts are of limited bandwidth and there’s some form of compression applied. I still have some excellent broadcasts which I recorded onto a hard disk recorder and burnt to CD. Now however, you’re presumably listening to digital broadcasts, which I don’t think go higher than 320k, though I know the BBC have experimented with higher rates. Of course, a good recording or broadcast remains such even in a technically poorer digital format, and in my experience the Dave makes everything sound better and the m-scaler has a pretty uniform affect on what it’s processing, MP3 up to hi-res.

In short, I’m not sure if you’re really comparing like with like, and you should try and limit the variables. The real comparison should not be between Red Book, hi-res and Prom broadcasts, but between any source going straight into your DAC and via the m-scaler in the Blu2. I can’t really work out from what you’re saying if that’s what you’ve been doing.

Thanks,
THE BBC 3 question was more out of curiosity in general.
I am aware of what you say, and "limiting the variables" is always a good scientific approach.
I have made some tests with some of my reference masterfiles. But under less than ideal condions, ie at dealers only, and via headphones only so far.
And some of what I heard where problematic things you have mentioned in some of your posts.
Are you still using your BLU2 or not?

Cheers Christer

 

[Crgreen]

Hmm,
I am more concerned with the fact that he clearly describes how BLU2 reveals and handles acoustic information in the recordings, both classical and pop or rock or whatever way one prefers to label Madonna.
Genre labeling is not the important thing. The choice of music is much more important.
This seems to be a guy who actually listens to acoustic music as a preference.
And that makes what he writes all the more interesting to me.

BLU2 obviously reveals the synthetic nature of different studio acoustics in the pop/rock material he mentions.

Having just re-read the review again I still miss hi res material in the review but his two classical choices are interesting.
And I have to agree with him regarding the Mercury Paray 1959 recording. I played the SACD yesterday, and it is still quite a stunningly realistic recording after all these years.
A bit flat but with very realistic timbres and a very coherent huge soundstage via my home system.

I wish more recordings were made like this today.I also wish he had compared the SACD layer via his Esoteric to the BLU2.
That would have been interesting.

And it is also interesting after all the hype here, to read some slight reservations hinted at with the classical purely acoustic material regarding tonality and timbre from BLU2 that at least one poster and BLU2 owner, here has also mentioned.

Things that I also heard with an original 24/96 master that I have both as download and a promo copy on SACD from the SSO.
I still have not heard M-scaler tech via a really good speaker based system and only with a handful of recordings via headphones.

Some especially rbcd material sounded better and more realisitc than I have ever heard from rbcd.
But I am still not quite sure if the rbcd layer of a really well recorded and mastered SACD beats the SACD layer via BLU2 compared to playing the SACD layer via a top level SACD player or even dsf download of the same.
The Rach 2 with direct reference to live I have mentioned before,left some lingering doubts under the not ideal conditions at hand.

I am looking forward to hearing M-scaler under more ideal conditions hopefully in the near future.
But the review in HIFI + is one of the most balanced so far imho.
Upsampling well done seems to be the verdict?
But he does not say it clearly beats everything else out there does he?
And he limits himself only to rbcd.
I wonder why?

I’m not sure that comparisons with SACD on a different player would enable any reliable conclusions to be drawn as to what the m-scaler introduces to the chain. The Blu2 is a product that can only really be reviewed by reference to it’s connection to a Chord DAC, ideally the Dave. Although the USB input allows comparison between different file types, personally I think that you can learn most if not all you need to know about the Blu2 by playing CDs (which is what many will be doing) and comparing upsampling turned off with it turned on. Using a different transport might also be telling.

As far as I’m aware, there’s only been one other review of the Blu2, a short review in What Hi-Fi? (https://www.whathifi.com/chord/blu-mkii/review) and a mention of a listening session with it in a column in Hi-Fi News.

As to reviewers’’ choices in music, inevitably what they select will not be to to everyone’s taste but it’s probably more about how a familiar recording can tell them what’s going on, not whether the reader likes the music. And pigeonholes are for the birds.

 

[Crgreen]

Thanks,
THE BBC 3 question was more out of curiosity in general.
I am aware of what you say, and "limiting the variables" is always a good scientific approach.
I have made some tests with some of my reference masterfiles. But under less than ideal condions, ie at dealers only, and via headphones only so far.
And some of what I heard where problematic things you have mentioned in some of your posts.
Are you still using your BLU2 or not?

Cheers Christer

I’m unclear if you have a Blu2, but if not I suspect the only way to make a valid comparison is to try it in your system for a few days. It might be better to wait and try the HMS however, unless a CD transport is also a priority. In a way, it’s rather ironic that the review has appeared now, over a year after the Blu2 was introduced, and when for many prospective purchasers, the HMS will be the preferred route for employing the m-scaler technology.

Yes, I still use my Blu2, but only as a CD transport into the Dave and with upsampling turned off, and in a rather unorthodox way - converting SPDIF electrical to optical with a battery powered convertor and optical into the Dave. No doubt, that will be met with howls of derision, but it’s the best sound I’ve heard by a wide margin, and of course it’s only me that listens to it. Although the m-scaler’s upsampling does many good things, it also does a lot I don’t like which can be diminished but not entirely eradicated with ferrited BNC cables or carbon cables. It may be that the chip itself is introducing unwanted noise or artefacts, but I’m not qualified to say.

 

[rgs9200m]

A week or so ago I asked if I could set up my Dave with an M-Scaler such that I could switch back and forth between DAVE-direct (via USB) and M-Scaler processing. I was asked why. I guess this HiFi+ review is a good answer to that.
My actual main reason is to be able to listen to DSD files (.dsf ones) via DAVE's DSD+ mode which I like a lot.

But in the back of my mind is that often, new-and-improved may, depending on the recording mainly, be too much of a good thing.

When I got new firmware on my EMM cdp, all the extra transparency added a fatigue-factor that was less musical to me, and I went back to the old firmware. One or two EMM owners agreed with me on this.
So you just never know, and I feel the best solution is to always have a choice.

With high-end audio, it always seems to be a case of Something Lost, Something Gained.
That's why a lot of times you see the phrase "Overall, it's better." So it's good to keep your eyes (ears?) open all the time.

 

[rgs9200m]

As a follow up, are there any Blu2 users who hear anything similar to what the HiFi+ reviewer hears?
Are there any cases where someone prefers the DAVE-direct version of any musical piece?

 

[astrostar59]

Funny we are all still having these conversation about up sampling or not. I believe in my testing over the years it depends on the DAC architecture. Upsampling can and does benefit FPGA DACs and DS with a digital filter and noise shaping. Basically post fix noise injected by the extraction system in the first place. I like the DAVE a lot, and have heard it quite a few times now inc at home. But IMO and for me, I prefer a true NOS DAC like the TotalDAC or Aries Cerat. That gets you to a point where timbre and realism get seriously close to reality, very close to a top turntable, closer to the master tape. But if I had a fixed budget of 8K the DAVE is a good choice. Beyond that maybe not, and the Blue2 doubles the price, which unless the Blue2 transforms the DAVE? Not sure. (I heard the Blue2 at Can-Jam on the LCD4s for 15 minutes with my tracks) At that money you can get the TotalDAC7 or Aries Cerat which is on another level to my ears.

The DAVE is a great one box system with it's decent headphone out, so I do see why it has such a good following here.

 

[Crgreen]

Funny we are all still having these conversation about up sampling or not. I believe in my testing over the years it depends on the DAC architecture. Upsampling can and does benefit FPGA DACs and DS with a digital filter and noise shaping. Basically post fix noise injected by the extraction system in the first place. I like the DAVE a lot, and have heard it quite a few times now inc at home. But IMO and for me, I prefer a true NOS DAC like the TotalDAC or Aries Cerat. That gets you to a point where timbre and realism get seriously close to reality, very close to a top turntable, closer to the master tape. But if I had a fixed budget of 8K the DAVE is a good choice. Beyond that maybe not, and the Blue2 doubles the price, which unless the Blue2 transforms the DAVE? Not sure. (I heard the Blue2 at Can-Jam on the LCD4s for 15 minutes with my tracks) At that money you can get the TotalDAC7 or Aries Cerat which is on another level to my ears.

The DAVE is a great one box system with it's decent headphone out, so I do see why it has such a good following here.

Although I don’t know a great deal about these things, the way in which Rob implements upsampling is very different from what others do, so I’m not sure the comparison about the benefits or otherwise of upsampling generally is very meaningful. As I mentioned above, I don’t think odd snatches here and there at audio shows and demos are particularly reliable ways to assess a product. The only general conclusion in respect of such matters is that are no general conclusions, just particular ones you make when listening closely and over a long period to known material in familiar surroundings.

 

[hieukm]

We can all agree that timbre and tonal is not Chord strong suits. What Chord Dave + Blu2 excells is separation, dynamic, depth, soundstaging and details. None of the impression mentioned keyword like timbre, tonal, image density, flow, timing which i believe DAC like MSB select 2, Aries Cerat excel at.

 

[astrostar59]

Although I don’t know a great deal about these things, the way in which Rob implements upsampling is very different from what others do, so I’m not sure the comparison about the benefits or otherwise of upsampling generally is very meaningful. As I mentioned above, I don’t think odd snatches here and there at audio shows and demos are particularly reliable ways to assess a product. The only general conclusion in respect of such matters is that are no general conclusions, just particular ones you make when listening closely and over a long period to known material in familiar surroundings.

Yes I agree, Rob is doing some things differently to the mass of DS DACs out their and the is GOOD, I like designers who challenge the masses and old ideas, shake up the industry. It is the best way we move forward.
As I said I like the DAVE a lot, and had it at home for a day long demo in my main system inc LCD4s and my big horn speakers. I however, did prefer my Audio Note DAC 5 and my now Aries Cerat Kassandra. I was also of the opinion the TotalDAC7 was to my ears better than the DAVE as well, as regards realism. If I was on the market for a sub 10K one box DAC > HP then it would be the DAVE for sure. I am challenging the notion of the doubling up of the cost with the Blue 2, is it justifiable? I can't say yet, as not heard that product.

 

[astrostar59]

We can all agree that timbre and tonal is not Chord strong suits. What Chord Dave + Blu2 excells is separation, dynamic, depth, soundstaging and details. None of the impression mentioned keyword like timbre, tonal, image density, flow, timing which i believe DAC like MSB select 2, Aries Cerat excel at.

Indeed. Body, solidity of images and depth are strong suits of the better NOS DACs. My LCD4s are warm already so can handle a bit of extra detail without tipping over to brightness though. But my Horn speakers are more revealing and forward, so that may influence my choices. The HP we use is going to obviously reflect our idea of the source and how it performs. My years of love / hate with DS DACs ended when I found NOS DSCs, and have stayed in the bracket for the last 10 years. I haven't heard any other types that convince we to change that opinion. But I would say the DAVE is very convincing regardless.

Has anyone here tried it on a big speaker?

 

[Crgreen]

We can all agree that timbre and tonal is not Chord strong suits. What Chord Dave + Blu2 excells is separation, dynamic, depth, soundstaging and details. None of the impression mentioned keyword like timbre, tonal, image density, flow, timing which i believe DAC like MSB select 2, Aries Cerat excel at.

Actually, for me tonality and timbre are the strong suites of Chord DACs. I found the accuracy of texture and absence of glare in the original Hugo revelatory, and when I purchased a Dave I got more of the same. In my view, things went a bit sideways with the m-scaler in the Blu2, though others, including Rob, feel very differently.

 

[hieukm]

Indeed. Body, solidity of images and depth are strong suits of the better NOS DACs. My LCD4s are warm already so can handle a bit of extra detail without tipping over to brightness though. But my Horn speakers are more revealing and forward, so that may influence my choices. The HP we use is going to obviously reflect our idea of the source and how it performs. My years of love / hate with DS DACs ended when I found NOS DSCs, and have stayed in the bracket for the last 10 years. I haven't heard any other types that convince we to change that opinion. But I would say the DAVE is very convincing regardless.

Has anyone here tried it on a big speaker?

I have tried on 500lbs speaker per channel if that qualified as big. :-D