[tunes]

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/272111257524 This might be a better choice quad shielded Belden RG6

Thanks for the pointer. That cable is a steal at $8.49 each. Certainly worth a try. It comes in 6 feet and 8 feet. Other posters including the designer of the HUGO Mscaler had suggested a 2 meter length having the best SQ. Would you suggest the 6 or 8 footer?

 

[marcmccalmont]

Thanks for the pointer. That cable is a steal at $8.49 each. Certainly worth a try. It comes in 6 feet and 8 feet. Other posters including the designer of the HUGO Mscaler had suggested a 2 meter length having the best SQ. Would you suggest the 6 or 8 footer?

I limit the length to 3’ / 1m for practical purposes
What do you do with all the excess cable?
Yes theory is the longer the length the less the reflections and I’ve also read 1.5m is the optimum length.
I personally think cable quality, shielding and experimenting with ferrites is more significant than length.

 

[supervisor]

What's wrong with the Utopia?

there's nothing objectively ~wrong~ with it, I've just decided its tuning/sound signature is not for me in an open headphone, based on what I get from the E2 and the DT1990.

too much treble and detail, not enough love (or bass!).

 

[GreenBow]

I'm not sure that I would be able to use the M-Scaler yet. One of the reasons is that my kit is on my desk, including speakers. My amplifier sits right next to a speaker. An M-Scaler would have to live near a speaker and an amplifier with a toroidal transformer. Since the M-Scaler manual warns about being near magnetism, I think I might have to pass for now. (Mew, (haha).)

 

[musickid]

1) Greenbow Rob said not to over worry about these matters too much.

2) With passthru 1M taps are not utilised with an output of 44.1kHz. You only get full 1M taps with white OPSR 705/768kHz.

3) I have a small theory for H2/HMS users (but could be applied to TT2 users possibly). In pre mscaler days only a very small number of users used coax input on H2 as is now the case with H2 and HMS. The vast majority of us used either usb or optical into H2 pre mscaler days. So now when we listen to H2 passthru we are in fact listening to the coax input on H2 fed from HMS a sound signature we are not used to which in turn maybe causing some confusion or hearing adjustment issues. In this case i would argue that the coax input on H2 may sound significantly different to the normal usb/optical sonic signature. Again HMS is highly recording dependent that is the quality of the recording. I also believe non chord dacs cannot accurately render the signal transmitted from HMS hence wait for TT2 and do not base any conclusions on Gumby/HMS impressions. Constructive criticism welcomed. Cheers mk. With the right recording HMS is magical whichever chord dac you use.

 

[Jawed]

no upscaling going on = no internal RFI production

It seems unlikely that the FPGA is switched off while in pass-through mode, so continued RF generation is likely.

Someone with a device that measures power draw should be able to determine if there's a change in power consumption from 1 million taps to pass-through.

"Pass-through" mode is not transparent to the digital data. It's applying a reduction in loudness. Every sample is changed. It's likely that this mode outputs 24 or 32-bit samples (I can't remember which format Blu 2 and HMS use to output digital, I suspect it's 32-bit).

So the input samples have to be converted to 32-bit format, then the reduction can be performed. The 32-bit format has far more accuracy than 16-bit CD, for example, so the errors introduced will be inaudible. It's a fairly trivial job to divide every sample by the same number, to reduce the loudness, but it's still work. I expect the FPGA is doing that work.

Now playing: Cross Record - The Depths

 

[JaZZ]

It seems unlikely that the FPGA is switched off while in pass-through mode, so continued RF generation is likely.

Someone with a device that measures power draw should be able to determine if there's a change in power consumption from 1 million taps to pass-through.

"Pass-through" mode is not transparent to the digital data. It's applying a reduction in loudness. Every sample is changed. It's likely that this mode outputs 24 or 32-bit samples (I can't remember which format Blu 2 and HMS use to output digital, I suspect it's 32-bit).

So the input samples have to be converted to 32-bit format, then the reduction can be performed. The 32-bit format has far more accuracy than 16-bit CD, for example, so the errors introduced will be inaudible. It's a fairly trivial job to divide every sample by the same number, to reduce the loudness, but it's still work. I expect the FPGA is doing that work.

Now playing: Cross Record - The Depths

You should be concerned about your DAVE's digital volume regulation, then... And of course equalizing anywhere in the chain is forbidden.

On a side note: It's the M Scaler (or its upscaling process, resp.) that causes the massive RFI we try to fight with special cables and ferrites – courtesy of Rob Watts. Other electronics components and processes don't cause those problems, usually are eliminated by mere galvanic isolation. So in pass-through mode – with inactive upscaling – you shouldn't expect audible consequences from the remaining electronic activities.

 

[musickid]

The real job of the mscaler is not to make all recordings sound better but to present it the way it sounded before ADC processing i.e. before the recording was digitally sampled. That means bad recordings will always sound bad the mscaler can't magically alter this fact. But and a big but as i said before good recordings will shine with HMS. Once this is established let the magic begin and all this negativity cease.

 

[Amberlamps]

It seems unlikely that the FPGA is switched off while in pass-through mode, so continued RF generation is likely.

Someone with a device that measures power draw should be able to determine if there's a change in power consumption from 1 million taps to pass-through.

"Pass-through" mode is not transparent to the digital data. It's applying a reduction in loudness. Every sample is changed. It's likely that this mode outputs 24 or 32-bit samples (I can't remember which format Blu 2 and HMS use to output digital, I suspect it's 32-bit).

So the input samples have to be converted to 32-bit format, then the reduction can be performed. The 32-bit format has far more accuracy than 16-bit CD, for example, so the errors introduced will be inaudible. It's a fairly trivial job to divide every sample by the same number, to reduce the loudness, but it's still work. I expect the FPGA is doing that work.

Now playing: Cross Record - The Depths

Something maybe happening with passthrough, what I don’t know, but I can’t tell the difference between it and another mode, which tell’s you my hearing is shagged. I won’t use passthrough anyway so it’s no big deal, but I would like to know what it is, if anything.

I would also like to know the % of mscalers users that 1, hear a change when switching from 1 million taps to passthrough mode, and 2, how many users do not hear a difference when switching from 1 million taps to passthrough ?

Maybe someone can make a new thread with a poll in it asking those question ? I can’t be bothered, as elsewhere my threads usually turn to schiit.

It would be good to see what the poll would look like. But I’m not concerned about the mscaler, as it sounds great and I will never use it in passthrough mode, so I’m happy.




Now listening to Elton John: Kim Jong Un

 

[ZappaMan]

its not negativity we have an expensive toy, we're supposed to be refining our ears, here now we have a simple test. can we hear a difference when we drop down, if not why, its curiosity, lets not shy away from curiosity.

 

[GreenLeo]

Something maybe happening with passthrough, what I don’t know, but I can’t tell the difference between it and another mode, which tell’s you my hearing is shagged. I won’t use passthrough anyway so it’s no big deal, but I would like to know what it is, if anything.

I would also like to know the % of mscalers users that 1, hear a change when switching from 1 million taps to passthrough mode, and 2, how many users do not hear a difference when switching from 1 million taps to passthrough ?

Maybe someone can make a new thread with a poll in it asking those question ? I can’t be bothered, as elsewhere my threads usually turn to schiit.

It would be good to see what the poll would look like. But I’m not concerned about the mscaler, as it sounds great and I will never use it in passthrough mode, so I’m happy.




Now listening to Elton John: Kim Jong Un

Once you've been using the 1M taps for quite sometime, the difference could be pretty obvious even at casual listening. Not sure if I've posted this before.

One night when I was having dinner, playing some Thai music, I found it sounded rough or grainy. Then I found that I was using pass through. When I switched it back to 1M taps, it just felt much better. The felt of grainy wasn't and couldn't be placebo effect.

 

[Deftone]

Ok so I've gotten my MScaler hooked up this morning and I've only been listening to it for about 2 hours but I already have some very early impressions and something interesting is going on that leads me to believe not everything is working as it should and some things are. I am going from PC usb>MScaler>Schiit Gumpy single BNC until I get my TT2.

I thought things were sounding good but listening for the first time of the day I didn't know if the MScaler was helping as I didn't compare it to anything yet. I have to second what Amberlamps has been saying that the sample rate selector doesn't do a damn thing and every single setting from pass through to maximum is identical and I have very good ears and payed close attention cycling through each one over and over. HOWEVER, I took the MScaler out of the equation and just went back to the dac and noticed things might have went down in quality but I wasn't exactly sure so I listened for a while until I decided to add the MScaler back in. This time I can say the MScaler is doing something good after taking it in, out, and back in my system. My very early impressions are much improved separation, more smoother, each part of the music is more detailed. So my question is WHY does the sample rate selector do absolutely nothing from pass through to each other stage up the chain? I can imagine this driving people nuts who think the MScaler is not doing anything for their system.

It could be that when you take it out put it back in take it out etc its taking a short while to do and youre forgetting the sound so you think its different but when you do AB with the passthrough you cant hear any difference. It cant be that everyones passthrough button doesnt work on MScaler. I few of my friends couldnt hear any difference but i thought it made the music sound a tad slower.

I got tricked in to thinking i was listening to something new in a blind test once by waiting 1 minute in between each "change"

 

[Amberlamps]

Once you've been using the 1M taps for quite sometime, the difference could be pretty obvious even at casual listening. Not sure if I've posted this before.

One night when I was having dinner, playing some Thai music, I found it sounded rough or grainy. Then I found that I was using pass through. When I switched it back to 1M taps, it just felt much better. The felt of grainy wasn't and couldn't be placebo effect.

Yes I do recall you mentioning that before. I did speak to Rob and he mentioned the point where passthrough mode will make hugo’s window change colour to the sample rate of the file/track thats playing, which proves that passthrough is pure hugo and that no upscaling is happening. That reply from Rob is good enough for me and I no longer worry about it.

If I can’t trust the person who deisgned it, who can I trust ?

 

[ZappaMan]

Yes I do recall you mentioning that before. I did speak to Rob and he mentioned the point where passthrough mode will make hugo’s window change colour to the sample rate of the file/track thats playing, which proves that passthrough is pure hugo and that no upscaling is happening. That reply from Rob is good enough for me and I no longer worry about it.

If I can’t trust the person who deisgned it, who can I trust ?

I do trust rob on this, but still think it’s worth considering what may be happening.
Not be able to perceive any diff which toggling down to no taps, could be an indication that something else in your chain is causing problems. That could be worth investigating a little.

 

[GreenBow]

The Chord Blu Mk 2, just got the HiFi Plus award of the year for, 'Best Disc Player Disc Transport'. ... (In the current issue 166 which contains their awards.)