[audio_1]

I get that 'pop' when changing tracks in Roon if one track is 44kHz and the other is a higher frequency. It is because the Mscaler drops out of lock on (say 768 kHz) and the locks on to the new frequency (say 705.6 kHz).

Are you sure that isn't what was happening with you?

Stop or pause the 44kHz track, before commencing playback of the 48 kHz one. This eliminated the clicks on my Dave and Blu2. Qobuz playlists, with a mix of tracks with different sample rates and no pauses still cause clicks though.

 

[CRITICALSHOT]

Stop or pause the 44kHz track, before commencing playback of the 48 kHz one. This eliminated the clicks on my Dave and Blu2. Qobuz playlists, with a mix of tracks with different sample rates and no pauses still cause clicks though.

If you are using Roon you can increase the Resync Delay to address the clicking.

 

[llamaluv]

Stop or pause the 44kHz track, before commencing playback of the 48 kHz one. This eliminated the clicks on my Dave and Blu2. Qobuz playlists, with a mix of tracks with different sample rates and no pauses still cause clicks though.

If you are using Roon you can increase the Resync Delay to address the clicking.

My setup is Roon to generic PC motherboard optical-out to M-Scaler to DAVE, and I absolutely have to explicitly stop or pause before switching between tracks of different sample rates. Resync delay is only good for obviating the weird artifacts that sometimes happen when starting the new track (which last for about a full second). The click happens immediately upon switching between the two (before the resync delay even kicks in).

On most headphones, the "crack" sound is tolerable, even if the behavior in general is borderline unacceptable (whether it be due to the M-Scaler or the DAVE, don't care). But my main listening is done with a Utopia on a speaker amp, which is dynamic in the extreme, so that crack sound (which only about 100ms in length, I'd say) is ridiculously loud. Whenever it occurs because I forget to stop/pause before switching albums, it pisses me off to no end.

 

[ekfc63]

Got a pair of SOTM 75ohm BNC cables to try out:

https://sotm-usa.com/products/dcbl-bnc

https://audiobacon.net/2018/08/11/the-audiophiles-short-list-the-best-digital-coaxial-cables/10/

This is exactly what I needed. Very resolving, very quiet, very black, great low end, big slam. I think I'm gonna buy some more SoTM cables (perhaps CAT7 and USB)

My TT2 is arriving this week so the next step is to find a decent pair of BNCs to connect to the M Scaler. Did you try any cables before the sotm? Wave Storm / Stream, etc. The Atlas Mavros are somewhat reasonably priced. Wondering if anyone has tried or compared them.

 

[Ciggavelli]

My TT2 is arriving this week so the next step is to find a decent pair of BNCs to connect to the M Scaler. Did you try any cables before the sotm? Wave Storm / Stream, etc. The Atlas Mavros are somewhat reasonably priced. Wondering if anyone has tried or compared them.

I had some Moon Audio BNCs that I connected to my Hugo 2 before I sold it (it was 2 BNC into one mini coax). The sound was good; definitely better than stock.

Then I was trying to decide what to buy next, and I thought I would try the SOtM cables first, as the way Jay described them on AudioBacon.net, they seemed perfect for what I wanted (high resolution and powerful low-end).

My thought process was that I would try the SOtM cables first, and if I didn't like them, I was going to go with the WAVE cables. The WAVE cables appear to be more rigid than I would like too, and then of course there are the duty taxes for buying a product of that cost and bringing it into the US. I really enjoy the SOtM bnc cables. It's hard for me to think what would could be better. Though, maybe I don't know what I'm missing on the WAVE cables.

Another concern is, I intend to buy a master clock and usb re-generator, and those use BNC cables too. I feel it makes more sense for me to go with 3 SOtM cables, as opposed to 3 WAVE cables (cost- and ergonomic-wise). The YMMV. I keep hearing great things about the WAVE cables, so I think Nick is on to something.

 

[audio_1]

If you are using Roon you can increase the Resync Delay to address the clicking.

Thanks for letting me know. I don't use Roon at the moment, but will have to investigate using it.

 

[strolee]

Need some assistance please from the group. I just set up my newly purchased Dave, which I have put in the place of my TT2. When I connect the Dave to my WA33 headphone amp and use the Dave as a DAC, everything works beautifully. I am feeding it by USB with a Roon setup on my Macbook. The Dave also is working great directly as a headphone amp. However, when I insert my HMS into the mix, which previously worked flawlessly in the same set up but with the TT2, I am now getting intermittent drop off of sound and a bit of intermittent background noise coming from my left headphone. The display on the Dave also occasionally flickers, together with the sound. There must be a setting or something that I am missing, possibly on the Dave or in Roon? I tried reversing the ports on the BNC cables, and changing some of the settings on the Dave, but the result was the same. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[musickid]

try bnc 3 and 4 on dave as this was reported before.

many thanks for the breakdown of the fostex headphone @Ciggavelli

 

[Drewligarchy]

I am finding optical preferable to USB after testing.

Fortunately my Aries Mini is locking on well up to 192 (where as my Aries Femto won't go above 96khz).

I have a number of DXD and DSD albums. How much degradation will I experience decimating DXD to 176 or 192 before going to M Scaler (using Roon)?

I have all started converting DSD to 176 PCM in Roon prior to it getting to M-Scaler, as it drops the volume if I stay at DSD 64. for DSD 128 and above, would it be preferable to convert down to DSD 64 in Roon, or is converting to PCM on the fly going to cause more damage?

Fortunately, this only affects 25 albums for me across DXD and DSD 128 or above. That said - I am curious the ideal way to handle DSD 64. Should I change the filter in dave to DSD? I enjoyed that filter previously. If I am not using that filter, and I am not degrading sound quality that much - I'd rather convert DSD to high-res PCM in roon as it is volume matched.

Admittedly, this thread could make you paranoid about RFI if you aren't. Especially those with tendencies for audiophile nervosa.

That said, I have significant gains from the following:

- Moving my Router (I had an orbi satellite about 6 feet from my Dave/Mscaler.) I just cut that satellite out of the system.
- Using Nick's cables vs. included cables (I am trialing them).
- Switching from Optical to USB.

In some cases it's an improvement in sound, in some cases it's a lessening of fatigue.

 

[ScooterHD122]

Before I begin, I would like to give my thanks to Todd for offering the Chord M-scaler program.

I believe I am the first person to take advantage of this loaner program. While I am not a fan of being the first adopter of cutting edge technology, I was intrigued enough by the press for the Chord M-scaler to give it a try.

As far as disclosures go, I am expressing my own opinions. This review has not be edited in any way by a third party.

The test rig was set up as follows: mac mini (Apple Music/Apple Lossless files) -> glass fiber TOS link cable -> Chord M-scaler -> dual BNC cables (Audioquest) -> Chord Qutest -> RCA cables (Blue Jean cables) -> Manley Absolute Headphone Amp -> Moon-Audio Black Dragon XLR cable -> Focal Utopia.

Sample tracks:
Faithfully - Boyce Avenue/New Acoustic Sessions, Vol. 2
75 Septembers - Cheryl Wheeler/Driving Home
After All - Dar Williams/Green World
Don't Take your Time - Erin Bode/Don't Take Your Time
Someone Like You - Adele/Live at Royal Albert Hall
Pachelbel: Canon & Gigue - Platinum/Pachelbel's Greatest Hit - The Ultimate Canon
Fanfare for the Common Man -John Williams & Boston Pops Orchestra/American Classic

Admittedly, for the first week (after > 48 hour burn-in time), I was at a loss to tell what all the effusive praise was for. To really appreciate the M-scaler requires patience.

The M-scaler is a transformative technology: It will NOT, as the tired trope goes, allow you to hear things you never heard before in your musical choice. Rather, it will change HOW you listen to them. It is a qualitative rather than quantitative enhancement. The music gains an immediacy and liveliness that gives texture and sense of depth, and one that envelopes you rather than signalling from a distance. Take your favorite piece of recorded music; then imagine yourself going back in time to the studio where it was recorded. Replace the microphones for ones with less distortion and better placement for imaging. The sound you achieve is what the M-scaler accomplishes. Instead listening to tracks on a CD, you can almost imagine yourself plugged into the studio panel as the track is being recorded.

This effect tends to be most pronounced in music with lots of bass (e.g. Fanfare). However, even in acoustic pieces, the ensemble sounds more focused and less muddled. For those of you looking for a more detailed exposition of the M-scaler's capabilities, I refer you to the review by Jay Luong of Audio Bacon.

Finally, the most difficult quality to assess is the value of the Chord M-scaler. Like outboard DACs when they were first introduced, the technology will only improve and become more affordable with time. Does the increment improvement in sound justify the cost? To fully answer that question, one has to ask, what is the value proposed in a $4000 pair of headphones or a $4500 tube amplifier? For the vast majority of people, it is an absurd proposition. But for a very few, the art of listening is worth the investment.

 

[Triode User]

Need some assistance please from the group. I just set up my newly purchased Dave, which I have put in the place of my TT2. When I connect the Dave to my WA33 headphone amp and use the Dave as a DAC, everything works beautifully. I am feeding it by USB with a Roon setup on my Macbook. The Dave also is working great directly as a headphone amp. However, when I insert my HMS into the mix, which previously worked flawlessly in the same set up but with the TT2, I am now getting intermittent drop off of sound and a bit of intermittent background noise coming from my left headphone. The display on the Dave also occasionally flickers, together with the sound. There must be a setting or something that I am missing, possibly on the Dave or in Roon? I tried reversing the ports on the BNC cables, and changing some of the settings on the Dave, but the result was the same. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

As mk said, try the different BNC inputs to the Dave. Also, are you using the HMS cables supplied with it? The ones supplied have been reported as sometimes being a bit flakey with their connection.

 

[PJDubyaM]

Thanks, some of my questions were answered there. Has anyone tried it and commented on their experience?

Here's what I thought back before my TT2 turned up:

Had my M Scaler for about a week now. It's just going into a Mojo via spdif at the moment, so I'm not getting the full million taps. I'm getting whatever what looks like purple is.

(I'm a little colour-blind. Three or four of the colours signifying Mojo input signal are essentially identical to me.)

It wasn't a night-and-day difference, but two things are proving to be game-changers for me:

1) Can genuinely have headphones on all day whilst I'm working, zero fatigue. Unsure whether this is the M Scaler or the Empyreans, perhaps a little of both. But:
2) LPs that were a tough listen for me before, I can now listen to and enjoy. Last day or two I've done Fatima Al Qadiri’s ‘Brute’, Jlin’s ‘Black Origami’, and Hieroglyphic Being’s ‘The Red Notes’. And just now am listening to Blanck Mass's 'World Eater'.

There's something about the system's ability to resolve walls-of-noise and / or masses of layers, into actual music, that I'm rather enjoying.

Got a black TT2 on order, expecting it hopefully in the next few weeks. Really really looking forward to that. If any of the Chord peeps fancy prioritising black TT2 orders going to Soundstage... you'll make me a very happy chap.

 

[ZappaMan]

Before I begin, I would like to give my thanks to Todd for offering the Chord M-scaler program.

I believe I am the first person to take advantage of this loaner program. While I am not a fan of being the first adopter of cutting edge technology, I was intrigued enough by the press for the Chord M-scaler to give it a try.

As far as disclosures go, I am expressing my own opinions. This review has not be edited in any way by a third party.

The test rig was set up as follows: mac mini (Apple Music/Apple Lossless files) -> glass fiber TOS link cable -> Chord M-scaler -> dual BNC cables (Audioquest) -> Chord Qutest -> RCA cables (Blue Jean cables) -> Manley Absolute Headphone Amp -> Moon-Audio Black Dragon XLR cable -> Focal Utopia.

Sample tracks:
Faithfully - Boyce Avenue/New Acoustic Sessions, Vol. 2
75 Septembers - Cheryl Wheeler/Driving Home
After All - Dar Williams/Green World
Don't Take your Time - Erin Bode/Don't Take Your Time
Someone Like You - Adele/Live at Royal Albert Hall
Pachelbel: Canon & Gigue - Platinum/Pachelbel's Greatest Hit - The Ultimate Canon
Fanfare for the Common Man -John Williams & Boston Pops Orchestra/American Classic

Admittedly, for the first week (after > 48 hour burn-in time), I was at a loss to tell what all the effusive praise was for. To really appreciate the M-scaler requires patience.

The M-scaler is a transformative technology: It will NOT, as the tired trope goes, allow you to hear things you never heard before in your musical choice. Rather, it will change HOW you listen to them. It is a qualitative rather than quantitative enhancement. The music gains an immediacy and liveliness that gives texture and sense of depth, and one that envelopes you rather than signalling from a distance. Take your favorite piece of recorded music; then imagine yourself going back in time to the studio where it was recorded. Replace the microphones for ones with less distortion and better placement for imaging. The sound you achieve is what the M-scaler accomplishes. Instead listening to tracks on a CD, you can almost imagine yourself plugged into the studio panel as the track is being recorded.

This effect tends to be most pronounced in music with lots of bass (e.g. Fanfare). However, even in acoustic pieces, the ensemble sounds more focused and less muddled. For those of you looking for a more detailed exposition of the M-scaler's capabilities, I refer you to the review by Jay Luong of Audio Bacon.

Finally, the most difficult quality to assess is the value of the Chord M-scaler. Like outboard DACs when they were first introduced, the technology will only improve and become more affordable with time. Does the increment improvement in sound justify the cost? To fully answer that question, one has to ask, what is the value proposed in a $4000 pair of headphones or a $4500 tube amplifier? For the vast majority of people, it is an absurd proposition. But for a very few, the art of listening is worth the investment.

Thanks, great to hear slightly different opinions on things.
But your Apple Music is perhaps a poor choice as it’s already been butchered by apples conversion codecs? It’s not flac quality is it ?

 

[gnomen]

My TT2 is arriving this week so the next step is to find a decent pair of BNCs to connect to the M Scaler. Did you try any cables before the sotm? Wave Storm / Stream, etc. The Atlas Mavros are somewhat reasonably priced. Wondering if anyone has tried or compared them.

I am auditioning a loaner HMS at the moment and the dealer also sent a pair of Atlas Mavros cables to evaluate. So far the HMS has repeated in my home system the performance I heard in the shop demo. So I am very pleased. It has all the same virtues as the TT2 but smoother, fuller, more depth, even better spatial resolution, faster transients etc.
I swapped out the stock BNCs and introduced the Atlas Mavros about half way through the trial period. There really is a difference: smoother, fuller, and a slightly sibilant edge (if I am describing it correctly) was now gone. So for me they are certainly a candidate. Given the positive reviews the Wave cables have received on here I would also like to audition them when I graduate to my purchased system.
Having said all of the above, there is still a residual 'hardening' on certain notes which I was hoping the HMS would resolve. It has not done so. I am wondering if it is, in fact, caused by RF getting into the signal chain, and whether cables, power supply, dedicated network server or some other upstream improvement is still needed in order to correct it.
The trouble with cables is, they are so hard to evaluate successfully. The reviewers have praised all the major manufacturers, so there is no discrimination to be had there. Any of the quality cables will easily outperform a stock cable, be that USB, XLR or BNC interconnects. So whichever one you audition is likely to give you a positive impression. And it's not as if any particular store can lend you three or four of the top brands to compare. They all have their own favourites.

 

[ekfc63]

I had some Moon Audio BNCs that I connected to my Hugo 2 before I sold it (it was 2 BNC into one mini coax). The sound was good; definitely better than stock.

Then I was trying to decide what to buy next, and I thought I would try the SOtM cables first, as the way Jay described them on AudioBacon.net, they seemed perfect for what I wanted (high resolution and powerful low-end).

My thought process was that I would try the SOtM cables first, and if I didn't like them, I was going to go with the WAVE cables. The WAVE cables appear to be more rigid than I would like too, and then of course there are the duty taxes for buying a product of that cost and bringing it into the US. I really enjoy the SOtM bnc cables. It's hard for me to think what would could be better. Though, maybe I don't know what I'm missing on the WAVE cables.

Another concern is, I intend to buy a master clock and usb re-generator, and those use BNC cables too. I feel it makes more sense for me to go with 3 SOtM cables, as opposed to 3 WAVE cables (cost- and ergonomic-wise). The YMMV. I keep hearing great things about the WAVE cables, so I think Nick is on to something.

Have the SOtM cables reduced the RF noise at all?