[dac64]

@musickid, please continue to write, as Saturday 's morning is a long wait!

 

[musickid]

Something relevant if Rob could kindly answer.

Very simply with H2 we have green filter incisive with HF roll off and red warm with HF roll off. When supplying H2 a 705.6 kHz file from the mscaler as this is obviously a high res sample rate should we automatically employ either the green or red filter HF roll off filters by default or can we continue to use white incisive 256FS and orange warm 16FS filters with no negative outcome. I understand the HF roll of filters compensate for errors in the original ADC. My reasoning is that if the roll off filters are to be used with hi res music therefore the 705.6 kHz file from the mscaler is also hi res so one should employ the HF roll off filters. Unless i'm wrong and the mscaler does not carry through the "usual" errors found in the ADC so white/orange 256/16FS are fine to use....many thanks mk.

 

[Rob Watts]

Stick to green filter. If you use a 192k recording, then the M scaler will faithfully pass everything up to 96 kHz, so all the noise and distortion from the ADC will still be there. The HF filter attenuates this noise, and it will sound smoother as a result due to lower noise floor modulation, created from the noise on the recording.

 

[nogi replicant]

Sub’d

 

[BallisticGT3]

I am agonising over my Mscaler order. Not over when it will arrive (I ordered mine just after CanJam so should be very soon) but whether I should go through with it.

I have on loan a USB cable that I have to return after the weekend and have been fine tuning my system to get it to its absolute best to help with the cable comparisons. I am very pleased with the progress I have made recently with the Zenith SE/tX-USBultra/Blu2/DAVE chain and had begun to think I had closed the gap to CD playing on the Blu2 to the point where differences were too small to worry about. Wrong. Playing a couple of CDs yesterday brought me back to reality. Yes, the differences were smaller than they once were but those differences still registered as important, particularly with complex music.

I have still to explore the reference clock option for the tX-USBultra, and my Paul Hynes SR7 is still a few months away, but I have to think that any further improvements those changes might bring will still be limited by the Zenith.

The thing is I don't play CDs that often. I have a large collection but it is stored away in another room and not conveniently accessible for regular ad hoc playing. At least 95% of my listening is done playing from the ripped files on the Zenith. But if I trade-in the Blu2 I think it might feel like I've taken a backward step. But then again I want to get rid of all those ferrites on the BNC cables (would actually like to get shorter cables) and I do worry about how hot the Blu2 gets. What to do, what to do?

STR-1 - I have the same Zenith SE/Blu2/DAVE front end (minus the tX-USBultra) and can't tell the difference between a cd and the same track ripped to wav.
If your using the Zenith SE to do the ripping, then yes I could tell quite a difference. I now use dbpoweramp on a Pc to rip the wav file and transfer it to the Zenith SE over my home network.
I've no idea as to why ripping on the Zenith doesn't give as good a result as dbpoweramp.

 

[STR-1]

Thanks for that @BallisticGT3 . I have not used dbpoweramp or any other ripper other than iTunes on my iMac and the ripper built into the Zenith. My knowledge of these things does not amount to much and I do struggle to understand why different rippers that supposedly do bit-perfect rips can produce different results. Surely they are all using the standard algorithms for ripping into each file type, and any errors must be so small as to not be audible, at least not consistently across an entire track.

Perhaps I should refine my previous comments in respect of what the differences are between the ripped files and CD. It really all comes down to the CDs having just slightly more punch and being a little cleaner. That extra punch can be heard on the first track of Till Brönner’s album “Nightfall”, and the extra cleanness can be heard in the escalating complexity of “Tuesday” on Max Richter’s “Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works” album.

 

[marcmccalmont]

STR-1 - I have the same Zenith SE/Blu2/DAVE front end (minus the tX-USBultra) and can't tell the difference between a cd and the same track ripped to wav.
If your using the Zenith SE to do the ripping, then yes I could tell quite a difference. I now use dbpoweramp on a Pc to rip the wav file and transfer it to the Zenith SE over my home network.
I've no idea as to why ripping on the Zenith doesn't give as good a result as dbpoweramp.

I also rip cd’s to .wav on dbpoweramp then load them onto my N10 no difference between cd and rip

 

[dac64]

Should have finished breakfast by now!

 

[STR-1]

You must have stayed up late, or got up very early @dac64

 

[dac64]

Must be a tough call! And I had a good lunch!

 

[Triode User]

My HUGO MSCALER has arrived - 3.

Apologies for the radio silence.

First of all some more photos.

I have attempted to capture the finish of the HMS but the shiny silver colour makes it very difficult to photograph, especially as I am just using an iPhone.

There was a question about how the HMS will match the H2 and I am sorry I cannot answer as I do not have an H2.

For me, coming from the Blu Mk2 one nice thing is to see the change of colour of the input ball as the frequency of the input changes. I have included a photo of Red, Green and Orange.

The next post will be some listening impressions.

 

[tonyl59]

That's interesting. The DX OP ball showing the input frequency colour - is that only when the INPUT is set to Automatic? It doesn't mention that in the manual as far as I can see. Thanks.
Mine's arriving on Monday so I'll find out soon enough anyway!

 

[STR-1]

I see from the user manual that Chord have tightened up the warranty wording in respect of using power supplies other than the one provided. Oh well, at least we can try some ferrites on the provided supply’s dc lead.

 

[paul2qute]

YES IT IS TRUE!!!!!!!

I have just called my dealer and my MScaler is sitting on their desk waiting for me with my name on it. Might have it tomorrow!!!!!

Exciting times.

Oh happy days mate, does that mean the Hugo TT 2 is out now as well

 

[paul2qute]

My HUGO MSCALER has arrived - 1.

Pictures first :-

Wow what a set up