[Allears79]

Abyss (Phi in my case) sounds marvelous with the M Scaler. The full bodied, smooth and natural sound signature of the M Scaler matches very well the strengths of the Abyss, and provides a very pleasing touch of warmth in the top end / upper midrange, female vocals being a nice highlight.

Also, a very solid soundstage and imaging improvement (with respect to the already great DAVE baseline), again building on the strengths of the Abyss.

I am going to follow the same route of @matthewhypolite and other Abyss house sound lovers, by getting the TC as soon as I will complete the sale of my Phi pair

Can you clearly hear performance improvement with the Abyss comparing 1M taps vs. pass through mode?

 

[simorag]

Can you clearly hear performance improvement with the Abyss comparing 1M taps vs. pass through mode?

Yes, in most cases, especially with redbook (16/44.1) material and acoustic music, the improvement of going to 1M taps it is VERY straightforward. No need to break it down in audiophile slang, it is just a more natural, emotional and involving presentation.

As I mainly listen to acoustic unamplified music, I can report that the improvement remains clearly noticeable to my ears also with higher resolution recordings and even with DSD, with reference to depth perception, spatial cues, cleanliness of attack and decay of notes, smoothness.

That said, in some cases you may not notice the change with quick A/B tests, but it becomes apparent if you listen with 1M taps for some days and then switch back to pass through. I clearly feel that some life and involvement is missing then!

 

[kennyb123]

@Rob Watts is Dual BNC required to get DSD to play through the HMS? I received my HMS this week and have been using a single BNC connection to a Hugo TT (while I wait the arrival of a TT2). PCM at various rates plays through and sounds better than ever, but DSD, passed in as DoP, results only in silence, regardless of OP SR setting. My dealer has a question out to a Chord technician but I thought it might help to ask here.

I know the big step in sound quality is supposed to come when I can get to a million taps (with the TT2) but the TT at half as many taps has responded very well to the HMS. Thank you for this wonderful device.

 

[ZappaMan]

Yes, in most cases, especially with redbook (16/44.1) material and acoustic music, the improvement of going to 1M taps it is VERY straightforward. No need to break it down in audiophile slang, it is just a more natural, emotional and involving presentation.

As I mainly listen to acoustic unamplified music, I can report that the improvement remains clearly noticeable to my ears also with higher resolution recordings and even with DSD, with reference to depth perception, spatial cues, cleanliness of attack and decay of notes, smoothness.

That said, in some cases you may not notice the change with quick A/B tests, but it becomes apparent if you listen with 1M taps for some days and then switch back to pass through. I clearly feel that some life and involvement is missing then!

Can you give examples of the acoustic music examples that you listen too? So I can try them on the mscaler.

 

[Jan Tage Holmber]

Jan, do you use the Stream Box Ultra with another power supply than the supplied one?

No, I use the supplied power source. It is weak current entering the S2 as with HMS, is there really any risk of RF interference? I have not noticed anything but pleasant sound, Where I found interference and dropouts cured by high quality cables was between HMS (especially playing 1 million taps) and Hugo 2 (now Black Dragon) and the analog pathway between Hugo 2 and Focal Utopia (now Silver Dragon).

 

[simorag]

Can you give examples of the acoustic music examples that you listen too? So I can try them on the mscaler.

Sure! You can find some examples from my previous post here.

Some few more that come to my mind are Muddy Waters Folk Singer, Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus, Bach Magnificat (Herreweghe)...

Enjoy!

 

[ZappaMan]

Sure! You can find some examples from my previous post here.

Some few more that come to my mind are Muddy Waters Folk Singer, Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus, Bach Magnificat (Herreweghe)...

Enjoy!

Cool, I’ll look, suppose i never though of jazz as being unamplified before. I must try muddy waters again. Thanks.

 

[Birdboy01]

Curious if HMS/DAVE users are reporting better SQ by using RCA to mains instead of XLR's

 

[sasaki99]

I've had my HMS for a couple of months now (connected to DAVE) and will post some impressions in due course, but first a couple of questions/comments on practicalities:

1. In dual-BNC mode (DAVE's input set to BNC3), when I switch between 44k > 88k > 196k > 352k > 705k, the 352k setting results in mono for about 3 seconds and then switches automatically to 705k. And if I switch to DAVE BNC4 input, then I permanently get 352k in mono, which means that I can't compare the 0.5M tap option in practice. So far, this is as expected based on previous posts.

But even when I have just a single cable connected (either BNC 1 to BNC3, or BNC1 to BNC1) I can still only get 352k in mono. So under no circumstance can I ever hear 0.5M taps in stereo.
This seems wrong. Any ideas anyone what's happening here? The 2nd BNC cable is full disconnected for this test.

2. An observation: When I first connected up the HMS with stock BNC cables, I would occasionally get drop outs. Oh NOOOOOO! Which was a worrying repeat of what happened when I tried a BLU2 a couple of years back. No amount of swapping cables around, or wiggling them about, would get rid of this. One cable seemed more susceptible to wiggling effects, but both cables looked fine, with solid looking connectors..

Then at one point when wiggling cables I accidently touched the top surface of the HMS and got what felt like a very tiny static discharge. And from then on, I have never had any drop-out issue with those (or any other) BNC cables. Coincidence? Maybe, but whatever, this just reinforces my suspicion that DAVE (or at least my DAVE) is very sensitive to such things when in the most demanding dual-BNC situation.

We are on the same boat. The dropout problem is really suck. One member suggested me to reposition the HMS and Dave around which I did and it really works! The dropout is still there but with a lot less frequent. I think the Dave bnc ports are really sensitive to cables positioning in dual bnc mode. You should try.

 

[dac64]

We are on the same boat. The dropout problem is really suck. One member suggested me to reposition the HMS and Dave around which I did and it really works! The dropout is still there but with a lot less frequent. I think the Dave bnc ports are really sensitive to cables positioning in dual bnc mode. You should try.

A hms/qutest reported that switching on hms first before qutest, the dropouts gone.

 

[sasaki99]

I found that works too! switching on hms before the dave but after sometime the dropouts came back.

 

[jscmd2000]

I am not sure if the cables that come with the hms, or any chord product for that matter, are of any good or reliable quality. I never had any dropouts after upgrading my bnc cables no matter what I turn on first.
I am not too obsessed with cables in general but... not sure why you would want to use a 7$ cctv cable to connect your dave to hms??
I wouldn't spend thousands to upgrade hp or speaker cable to get that last 10% like some people, but dropouts from hms/dave do cry out for a desperate upgrade, imho.
"You get what you pay for" isn't always true, I agree, but I think it is true more often than not in this hobby.

 

[sasaki99]

I am not sure if the cables that come with the hms, or any chord product for that matter, are of any good or reliable quality. I never had any dropouts after upgrading my bnc cables no matter what I turn on first.
I am not too obsessed with cables in general but... not sure why you would want to use a 7$ cctv cable to connect your dave to hms??
I wouldn't spend thousands to upgrade hp or speaker cable to get that last 10% like some people, but dropouts from hms/dave do cry out for a desperate upgrade, imho.
"You get what you pay for" isn't always true, I agree, but I think it is true more often than not in this hobby.

We can be friend, I too really obsessed with cables. However the dropout happened to stock cables and Audience ohno series too. BTW, what bnc cables do you use?

 

[jscmd2000]

We can be friend, I too really obsessed with cables. However the dropout happened to stock cables and Audience ohno series too. BTW, what bnc cables do you use?

Not too expensive but mostly reliable kimber kable d-60. No, I am not a fan of kimber kable. Couldn't care less, but just look at the stock cable. I don't think it has to be too expensive or totl, but something with a track record maybe.

 

[dac64]

I found that works too! switching on hms before the dave but after sometime the dropouts came back.

Paging for Rob Watts!