[Ragnar-BY]

@Rob Watts

Rob, can you help me with advise, please?
Right now I have Chord Qutest with Violectric V200 headphone amp. I do like both amp and DAC, but thinking about an upgrade. The obvious way would be to buy Chord TT 2 + M Scaler, but I can`t afford both right now. Would it be better to buy M Scaler for my Qutest, or I should change Qutest for TT2? I tend to buy M Scaler, because it is an interesting new technology and I`m actually quite happy with my V200 amp. But maybe I underestimate how good TT2 is? What improvements could be expected from one or another upgrade?

 

[dawktah2]

Hello ALL!

I finally took delivery of my TT2, so I'm selling my Qutest. I don't think I put 10 hours on it.

 

[Deftone]

Hello ALL!

I finally took delivery of my TT2, so I'm selling my Qutest. I don't think I put 10 hours on it.

Less than 10 hours with Qutest to decided you needed a TT2?

 

[MI five]

Like many have reported and from what I've tried in my set up optical is giving me the best sounding output from the Qutest.

My source is an XPS15 lap top and I started by feeding this direct into the Qutest, it was clearly a step up from the 2Qute, but like many I began to play around with other gear I had lying around.

First I tried placing an iUSB3.0 in between the lap top and the Qutest but in my set up this had little to no effect on the sound, so I then feed the Qutest with the optical output from an SP1000 and straight away there was a noticeable change and to my ears a change for the better.

Following the result with the SP1000 I got hold of a Matrix X-SPIDF 2, USB to SPDIF converter, and this like the SP1000 is giving for me a noticeably better sounding output, I'm using a Cable Talk 3 G Reference Glass Fibre optical cable between the Matrix and Qutest.

What's better well there are many here who can describe far better than me the changes they hear but briefly what I'm hearing is a better controlled bass area and highs that still have the same sparkle but are less harsh. I wouldn't go so far as to describe them as night and day changes but they are quite noticeable.

As always YMMV.

 

[Zzt231gr]

Like many have reported and from what I've tried in my set up optical is giving me the best sounding output from the Qutest.

My source is an XPS15 lap top and I started by feeding this direct into the Qutest, it was clearly a step up from the 2Qute, but like many I began to play around with other gear I had lying around.

First I tried placing an iUSB3.0 in between the lap top and the Qutest but in my set up this had little to no effect on the sound, so I then feed the Qutest with the optical output from an SP1000 and straight away there was a noticeable change and to my ears a change for the better.

Following the result with the SP1000 I got hold of a Matrix X-SPIDF 2, USB to SPDIF converter, and this like the SP1000 is giving for me a noticeably better sounding output, I'm using a Cable Talk 3 G Reference Glass Fibre optical cable between the Matrix and Qutest.

What's better well there are many here who can describe far better than me the changes they hear but briefly what I'm hearing is a better controlled bass area and highs that still have the same sparkle but are less harsh. I wouldn't go so far as to describe them as night and day changes but they are quite noticeable.

As always YMMV.

I also heard much more bass depth.Check some tracks with kick drum and you'll see!

 

[Triode User]

Hello ALL!

I finally took delivery of my TT2, so I'm selling my Qutest. I don't think I put 10 hours on it.

After another 10 hours will you be getting Dave? You know it makes sense.

 

[domho7]

After another 10 hours will you be getting Dave? You know it makes sense.

What's the next step after dave. Maybe another 10hrs need to upgrade again.ha ha

 

[dawktah2]

Less than 10 hours with Qutest to decided you needed a TT2?

LOL, I chose getting a TT2 over getting the Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP. Both have a remote...

 

[Rob Watts]

@Rob Watts Huge thanks for more information on how the Qutest filters noise.

My bristling at the mention of galvanic isolation is a response to the widespread assumption that just because a device has this on their features list then the device is impervious to USB noise when in the vast majority (all?) cases it isn’t.

My comment on 40-50db was for a generic transformer, I actually assumed that the Qutest employed quite a few tricks to reduce noise and went well above and beyond a simple transformer. Again really welcome your reassuring details.

Also agree that poor decrapifiers can make the sound worse. And if some actually add noise, and that this noise ‘makes the sound worse’ then noise is still an issue? Which suggests that the Qutest is not impervious to incoming USB noise? Part of my previous point was that reducing noise before it gets to the dac is better than assuming it is all removed at the DAC. Ideally this means a lower noise source however general purpose computers are high noise sources.

A better suggestion from myself and perhaps an easier solution than finding the gems in the wide range of decrapifier products is to get a lower noise source. Personally I use a Sonore UltraRendu. Anecdotally the Intel NUCs are even better. The ultraRendu is audibly better than my macOS computer over USB.

Yes agreed on you about galvanic isolation, as the term itself hide a multitude of sins, and can vary considerably. I once bought a galvanically isolated BNC cable adaptor, that was simply two capacitors - completely useless for RF isolation.

So Qutest provides almost perfect isolation from DC to GHz - but it's easy to short circuit the isolation externally. Imagine a mains powered source, and a mains powered USB reclocker that offered no or less than perfect isolation. That will create a ground/mains loop, with RF currents flowing around the loop; imagine that Qutest is connected to another mains powered amplifier, and we have another ground/mains loop. Now depending upon your mains wiring, these two ground/mains loops will intersect; when that happens you will get induced RF currents from the source/USB reclocker loop; and so the Qutest galvanic isolation has now been impaired, as noise from the source is induced into Qutest. And it would not matter if the reclocker was optical to Qutest, as the RF current injection is via ground/mains. But remove the reclocker and we no longer have the source loop and so RF noise can't interfere into the Qutest amplifier ground/mains loop. So this is an example of a reclocker actually raising system noise. This is why I was careful in my post to define it as overall system noise. Moreover, actual audio bandwidth noise is irrelevant; it's RF noise that we are concerned about with source components.

@Rob Watts

Rob, can you help me with advise, please?
Right now I have Chord Qutest with Violectric V200 headphone amp. I do like both amp and DAC, but thinking about an upgrade. The obvious way would be to buy Chord TT 2 + M Scaler, but I can`t afford both right now. Would it be better to buy M Scaler for my Qutest, or I should change Qutest for TT2? I tend to buy M Scaler, because it is an interesting new technology and I`m actually quite happy with my V200 amp. But maybe I underestimate how good TT2 is? What improvements could be expected from one or another upgrade?

You will of course get unique benefits in using the M scaler, as it does things to musicality that nothing else touches, due to the better than 16 bit reconstruction of the original analogue signal in the ADC. But you will also get big transparency benefits from the shear reduction in components that eliminating an external amp will give you; I can't give you a hard and fast answer to your question of which will be most important- except perhaps suggesting that one day you absolutely will be getting an M scaler!

My advice is to find a good dealer and try for yourself.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

You will of course get unique benefits in using the M scaler, as it does things to musicality that nothing else touches, due to the better than 16 bit reconstruction of the original analogue signal in the ADC. But you will also get big transparency benefits from the shear reduction in components that eliminating an external amp will give you; I can't give you a hard and fast answer to your question of which will be most important- except perhaps suggesting that one day you absolutely will be getting an M scaler!

Thank you. I think I will buy both sooner or later, but start with M Scaler.

By the way, if TT2 and Qutest are used as DACs with M Scaler and external amp, the only difference would be a better PSU in TT2? Or there are more differences?

 

[nick77]

Hello ALL!

I finally took delivery of my TT2, so I'm selling my Qutest. I don't think I put 10 hours on it.

Please share your thoughts between the TT2 and Qutest. ??

 

[Rob Watts]

Thank you. I think I will buy both sooner or later, but start with M Scaler.

By the way, if TT2 and Qutest are used as DACs with M Scaler and external amp, the only difference would be a better PSU in TT2? Or there are more differences?

There are a lot more differences apart from the PSU - on the DAC side, it has better noise shapers on the FPGA (better depth and detail resolution) very much more advanced reference circuitry (taken from Dave, giving a darker and more full bodied SQ). On the analog side we have the second order analogue noise shaper topology, which eliminates HF distortion, and allows no high frequency distortion at all once a load is attached.

But of course the biggest benefit is the simplification of your analogue path - TT2 is an order of magnitude simpler than Qutest + headphone amp, so the connection from digital to transducer is fundamentally more direct. A more direct connection is much more transparent; plus the distortion and noise will be very much lower than with an external amp.

 

[Qute Beats]

I'm looking at a small form factor pc, preferably fanless, to use as dedicated music player to replace laptop. I saw the Intel NUC has optical out, but has CPU fan I believe. Anyone used a NUC optical out with Qutest with good results? Is it quiet?

 

[miketlse]

I'm looking at a small form factor pc, preferably fanless, to use as dedicated music player to replace laptop. I saw the Intel NUC has optical out, but has CPU fan I believe. Anyone used a NUC optical out with Qutest with good results? Is it quiet?

There are several owners posting about their experiences using NUC units (some of them fanless), so a search of the Chord threads using the term NUC, should bring you some interesting info to read.
I will try and add some links later.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...official-thread.831345/page-318#post-13560000

 

[dawktah2]

Please share your thoughts between the TT2 and Qutest. ??

Let me do a specific comparison and give impressions