It's been a while, so here is an update:
The Qutest is the lynchpin of my system. Never before has my imagination left me blanked as to how something could even conceivably sound better. Of course it could sound better, but thats not the point. The point is, I have never heard better, can't imagine better, and am quiet happy, for now. I give equal parts credit to a Mr. Vandersteen for the accuracy, realism and spatial coherency of well placed 3a's. I have little experience as an audiophile in other brands, but I believe that Rob Watts philosophy of Taps and Timing are a magical fit with Mr. Vandersteen's philosophy of Phase and Time coherency.
Experimenting with the Qutest is very revealing, and as I get closer to the perfect sound, it becomes possible to revisit past comparisons and see an even more obvious difference when substituting pieces of the puzzle.
1. Power:
Forgive me for starting out with a well worn subject, but its crucial in the order of operations for my system and for this post to first talk about the power supplying everything.
My best results have been with a single cord out of the wall, into a Furman Elite 15i Powerline conditioner. Any additional connections to the Mains of the house reduce sound quality. Period. These additional connections include plugging the Amplifier directly into the wall, plugging Qutest directly into the wall, or plugging the laptop into the wall.
For best sound, the Qutest gets plugged into the Furman, and the laptop runs on battery. (Also tried Qutest into battery pack, not as good, but I didn't have the proper 5v pack as recommended by Rob, so I will simply say the Furman is better than direct into the wall) The Amp also gets plugged into the Furman.
-Things I did not try: Plugging the Synology into the wall, plugging the router into the wall. Will try this later, but I don't believe this is the proper path to Nirvana. Once I find Nirvana, I will go back and see if I can find it again out of the NAS and Router. Of course I could break these two components apart, but the point is this combo would allow wireless operation. Take out the Wireless Router and I still have to plug my laptop in. I can still have the NAS and Router running, and the laptop can retrieve music from it, and the NAS and wireless router can be on an entire different outlet in the house. So the point is moot, either its wireless or its not, and going wireless only complicates the chain, and I hear no improvement, and anecdotally believe it is worse.
2. Transport:
I have tried running Roon on a New Synology 918+ with a solid state drive, as well as running Roon on my laptop from an NVME m.2 2280 SSD.
Observations:
-On the laptop, everything works well, and I get the best experience so far. +1 for Qutest's Galvanic Isolation (Dell XPS 15, 8th gen i7, NVME SSD, USB 3.1 Gen 1)
-For now, the Synology doesn't perform at the level of my laptop. Why not? I'm not sure yet, I'm still tweaking the room and cables, then I will revisit the issue. As mentioned above, I also don't care to get the NAS performing at the level of the laptop unless it also pairs with the wireless router to go wireless. So first things first, make the best system sound wise, then see if I can get the same sound but with the additional two components making the system wireless.
3. Cables:
I used to be a firm believer that all the cable talk was for idiots. The truth was that I had never had a revealing system until the Qutest got dropped in the equation. and I had never spent more than $75usd on a cable, much less A/B'ed multiple cables. The local audio store was nice enough (or as you will see, evil enough) to send me home with some cables to try. The purpose of this is not to vouch for any cables, but to say that the Qutest is revealing enough that cables absolutely do make a difference. I tried the Audioquest Red (Cinnamon?) which sounded ok. Then the Chord Vee3 Cobra. After that I went back to the store and said the Cobra sounded better, so lets go a step up and see if I still get better sound. So the guy sent me home with what I thought were the next two levels, Chord Chameleon Vee3, and Chord Anthem Reference. I spent a whole day with the Chameleons, and thought they were awesome! I thought for sure they would be the ones, what could I be missing, its just a cable...... Then I plugged in the Anthem References. I can't describe the change well, but if I tried, I would say this: the music radiated from smaller points in space (pinpoint accuracy), and as such waves of sound did not build upon themselves and overpower the listener. Instead the music seemed to have a larger soundstage with all the available sounds able to exist in the same physical space without becoming two waves of water meeting to drown he listener. The next day I went back to the audio store and the guy told me to "forget about the white cable", its actually a few steps up in the line and like $800USD. I told him to screw off, its staying right where it is, I'll come up with the cash.
Anyway, enough cable talk, It seems dumb. I will however say I believe this improvement to be from the silver used in the Chord Odyssey 4 Biwire cable and Anthem Reference RCAs. Until I hear with my ears otherwise, that's the best explanation that fits my worldview (silver having 105% the conductivity of copper)
4. Without a good listening room and proper speaker placement (even down to the 16th of an inch), little of the above would be relevant.
5. My opinion so far on two talked about Rob Watts statements:
In regards to the stock power supply: Yes, the stock power supply is sufficient as Rob has stated. Yes, you can potentially do better as users have attested to, but only if all the other pieces work as well (example, plug the laptop into the wall and the benefits of the DAC using linear power supply disappear OR plug the amp into the wall and the benefits of the LPS disappear). It seems from my limited experience that power supply and conditioning are an all or nothing proposition that also require a streamlined approach to minimize the chain of equipment and electrical noise. The benefits seen will vary widely. I now understand why LPS is such a contentious and talked about issue. Both sides are correct. It takes a bad power source, or a well thought out electrical chain before a LPS will make a difference.
In regards to the Qutest having a "Galvonically Isolated" USB connection and the source not mattering, I can't say for sure, but I tend to agree. I don't plan on buying a network streamer anytime soon. I believe that the Galvonic Isolation works, and that I probably get most of the benefit of an expensive network streamer by running a 14nm lithography processor and m.2 2280 SSD through a pretty new USB 3.1 port ON BATTERY POWER. One thing I might try in the future is a USB-C data cable for Qutest. This could use the USB 3.1 gen 2 port on my laptop. (Current is full sized USB 3.1 gen 1). This could be worse though with more internal things connected to the multi-use USB C port. Or, most likely, it would be the same since the Galvanic Isolation on the Qutest theoretically renders this issue moot.
Thanks for listening, Flame Away!
