[Progisus]

Audiobacon, in his review, said he prefer .5 million taps sometimes (unless I’m confused), but great to have an open mind too, as it’s very counter intuitive.

I read that review as well and also found those results. If you ignore the lights and flip through, several times I found myself at the Blue (550k) taps with the H2.

 

[organicmac]

If you're using DAVE with MScaler, the idea that 0.5m could be better than 1m is very strange indeed

 

[TheAttorney]

To clarify the recent audiobacon/light confusion....

Blue is 0.25M taps (176.4 kHz)
White is 0.5M taps (352.8 kHz) with single BNC
White is 1M taps (705.6 kHz) with dual BNC

Audibacon prefered Blue in some circumstances as an alternative, warmer. presentation to Dual White, but he wasn't claiming that Blue was overall better than Dual White.
And he felt Single White was somewhere in between. I sometimes find his comments and descriptions a bit confusing, even though I enjoy his reviews overall.

As it happens, I rather like Blue as well. So, with the right BNC cable, this is indeed a significant step up from no HMS at all - for those that don't have the appropriate DAC.
And Single White is probably better still, but I haven't compared that because it requires faffing around with connecting/disconnecting the second cable.

But Dual White is definitely best, with a much more open and expansive soundstage than Blue.

 

[alota]

The step up from 0.5m to 1m taps is huge. It's like buying a ducati and just pushing it with 0.5m taps. It's my opinion that's all or do we all have to agree with each other on every single point? I bought the mscaler so i could see DBNC 705 light up on my TT2 in the knowledge i was getting the very best SQ for my money and the accompanying musical enjoyment that naturally follows. A music fan yes. It's alright really.

Ok thanks. Was just curiosity

 

[rkt31]

I think you should be more clear. What i understand that you are feeding m scaler dsd through any one of the input out of BNC, optical or usb. Then you are upscaling dsd to full rate pcm and you are getting sound out of one bnc and While feeding pcm you are getting sound out of both bnc. Am i right ? With full upscaling bnc 1 and bnc 2 output individual channel not stereo as single bnc (spdif) can't support stereo at 705.6/768 khz. Try swapping bnc at output of tt2.

To clarify the recent audiobacon/light confusion....

Blue is 0.25M taps (176.4 kHz)
White is 0.5M taps (352.8 kHz) with single BNC
White is 1M taps (705.6 kHz) with dual BNC

Audibacon prefered Blue in some circumstances as an alternative, warmer. presentation to Dual White, but he wasn't claiming that Blue was overall better than Dual White.
And he felt Single White was somewhere in between. I sometimes find his comments and descriptions a bit confusing, even though I enjoy his reviews overall.

As it happens, I rather like Blue as well. So, with the right BNC cable, this is indeed a significant step up from no HMS at all - for those that don't have the appropriate DAC.
And Single White is probably better still, but I haven't compared that because it requires faffing around with connecting/disconnecting the second cable.

But Dual White is definitely best, with a much more open and expansive soundstage than Blue.

After blue is there a single white and then double white ? I get red,blue, white and then red again. At white tt2 shows dual bnc. Is my HMS faulty ?

 

[Progisus]

After blue is there a single white and then double white ? I get red,blue, white and then red again. At white tt2 shows dual bnc. Is my HMS faulty ?

There are two white modes but only one light. Single bnc or dual bnc depending on the capabilities of your dac. In my case 768 into h2 on dual bnc or 384k on single bnc into tt1.

 

[CreditingKarma]

I have no doubt that the mscaler make a difference in SQ. I do think that it makes more improvement to the lower cost chord dacs like the qutest and hugo2. When I had one with the hugo2 I found that going back to the h2 without the mscaler left a harsher edge to the music. I found the improvement to be less noticable with the TT2 when I had it. There was still an improvement but it was not as obvious.

To me the mscaler is one piece of ger that you buy once your entire system is set and there is nothing left that you want to upgrade ( does that ever happen?). There are places where you can spend that money and get bigger improvements in sound to my ears.

 

[rkt31]

There are two white modes but only one light. Single bnc or dual bnc depending on the capabilities of your dac. In my case 768 into h2 on dual bnc or 384k on single bnc into tt1.

Yes, you get either 768( when both BNC connected to compatible dac ) or 384 if only one BNC connected or dac without dual bnc. Even if you connect single BNC (bnc1 ) on tt2,H2 or dave you would get 384. What i meant to say you won't get both 384 and 768 in upscaling cycle.

 

[llamaluv]

Slightly OTT,
Nonetheless, I'm curious about people's experience using HPA4 and AHB2 with their Chord rigs and their experiences.

I owned the AHB2 for a short while for my headphones-only system, and also borrowed a second one to run in bridged mono for about a week. This was with the M/DAVE upstream.

I think there's a lot to like about the AHB2. To me, it sounded so clean that it actually enhanced my perception of euphonics/harmonics/harmony in the music. Bass is deep and true. Treble is very detailed and smooth. I also heard noise floor baked into recordings I never noticed before. I also felt I heard more "M-Scaler effect" with the AHB2 than with my other amps at the time, especially when it came to transients and leading edges.

Also, in bridged mono, everything sounded better. If I were to have decided to keep the AHB2, I would have felt almost compelled to get another.

However, I felt like it sounded too "polite" for my tastes, and almost as if there was a ceiling on its dynamic capabilities. This was with the Susvara and the SR1a. My second caveat is that because it's so neutral, a person may not like its synergy with a DAC like the DAVE combined a neutral-to-bright headphone like the SR1a or Utopia or even Abyss. That's a very personal thing though so mileage may vary, and is a watch-out for any combination of neutral gear, ofc.

My misgivings about dynamics are what led me to give up on the AHB2 but I also wouldn't want that to dissuade anyone from giving this amp some serious consideration, because what it does well it does really well and also maybe it was just me or my system, who can say. And also, if two AHB2s were to fortuitously fall off the back of a UPS truck and into my possession, I know I would gleefully keep them set up in my system.

 

[rkt31]

I owned the AHB2 for a short while for my headphones-only system, and also borrowed a second one to run in bridged mono for about a week. This was with the M/DAVE upstream.

I think there's a lot to like about the AHB2. To me, it sounded so clean that it actually enhanced my perception of euphonics/harmonics/harmony in the music. Bass is deep and true. Treble is very detailed and smooth. I also heard noise floor baked into recordings I never noticed before. I also felt I heard more "M-Scaler effect" with the AHB2 than with my other amps at the time, especially when it came to transients and leading edges.

Also, in bridged mono, everything sounded better. If I were to have decided to keep the AHB2, I would have felt almost compelled to get another.

However, I felt like it sounded too "polite" for my tastes, and almost as if there was a ceiling on its dynamic capabilities. This was with the Susvara and the SR1a. My second caveat is that because it's so neutral, a person may not like its synergy with a DAC like the DAVE combined a neutral-to-bright headphone like the SR1a or Utopia or even Abyss. That's a very personal thing though so mileage may vary, and is a watch-out for any combination of neutral gear, ofc.

My misgivings about dynamics are what led me to give up on the AHB2 but I also wouldn't want that to dissuade anyone from giving this amp some serious consideration, because what it does well it does really well and also maybe it was just me or my system, who can say. And also, if two AHB2s were to fortuitously fall off the back of a UPS truck and into my possession, I know I would gleefully keep them set up in my system.

Ahb2 is a 100w power amp. Benchmark now also makes headphone amp based on same AAA tech. Even in low gain mode ahb2 may be too much for headphones.

 

[llamaluv]

Ahb2 is a 100w power amp. Benchmark now also makes headphone amp based on same AAA tech. Even in low gain mode ahb2 may be too much for headphones.

You are correct that the HPA4 is the headphone amp version of the AHB2.

As for it being "too much headphones", "even in low gain mode", it's not. The AHB2's low gain mode is just 9dB, which is in the same ballpark as high-powered solid state headphone amps.

 

[rkt31]

You are correct that the HPA4 is the headphone amp version of the AHB2.

As for it being "too much headphones", "even in low gain mode", it's not. The AHB2's low gain mode is just 9dB, which is in the same ballpark as high-powered solid state headphone amps.

Low gain mode has very high input sensitivity and dave has very high output too. So using headphones with ahb2 ( no headphones would require 100w) would require dave to operate in lower output range with more attenuation in low gain mode. So you won't be using the Dave's clean output in higher range. So better to use hpa4

 

[llamaluv]

The question to which I was responding to was:

I'm curious about people's experience using HPA4 and AHB2 with their Chord rigs and their experiences.​

--to which I replied with impressions, y'know, merely based on my own experience. In other words, not just based on what I would intuit ought to be the case based on manufacturer specs. Pretty sure that has some value.

This was to drive the RAAL SR1a and the Susvara by the way, which I didn't bother to mention but I guess I should have known better and should have so as to not get into a debate around the suitability of speaker amps for headphones, which is not a topic I'm that interested in rehashing, and is probably too off-topic for this thread anyway.

 

[rkt31]

I use tt2+HMS directly into ahb2 with speakers and both ahb2,tt2 in low gain mode. Ahb2 is like a window, it does not add anything of it's own. It will reflect even the tiniest distortion or emi or rfi of source. so it requires complete rfi and emi removal from source. An ultra clean output of the likes of tt2+HMS shines through ahb2 in the form utmost realistic sound which is not a sound as such but a live performance. I would suggest everyone to try tt2/dave+HMS into ahb2 before buying any other amp. ( both tt2 and ahb2 in low gain mode ) also i would suggest new wharfedale evo 4 series speakers which have very refined treble response besides being very pocket friendly too.

 

[shaluka]

Is MScaler + TT2 better than the standalone Dave ?