Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[genefruit]

Oh, I googled it -- just didn't come up with a useful answer

You and @genefruit came up with the same answer

But the useful answer was to drop the Singxer -- with the M Scaler it's not needed.

My initial take as well would be to drop the Singxer but since there are some who side on the use of optical into the M Scaler to provide RF isolation from the source, this is a path to provide this isolation.

 

[LCMusicLover]

Confirming that USB straight into M Scaler is actually preferred to USB ==> Singxer SU-1 ==> MSc.

 

[JohnA1]

So ,you can hear 14khz ,but not the effect of your Mscaler?

correct.
I can hear *something* in the full range tone sweep, probably much reduced though

My ML SequeI II are very transparent from around 250hz and up, and really make acoustic instruments and the human voice sound quite close to REAL with 1M upscaling.

Sequel II? these are probably over 20 years old.
My SL3s (next model) were made in Jan 2000 (you can find from the serial nos) and they are certainly not flat all the way to 20K. Maybe the mylar coating wears off, who knows.
Only so much hoovering and washing can do..

 

[Christer]

correct.
I can hear *something* in the full range tone sweep, probably much reduced though

Sequel II? these are probably over 20 years old.
My SL3s (next model) were made in Jan 2000 (you can find from the serial nos) and they are certainly not flat all the way to 20K. Maybe the mylar coating wears off, who knows.
Only so much hoovering and washing can do..

Oh yes my Sequel IIs are old, but about five years ago they were fitted with new panels. And sound great again apart from the upper bass crossover section around 250hz where the bass takes over from the very transparent electrostatic panels.
And if you own the SL3s you already know that, both the compromise, and the wonderful transparency from the mids and up.
But that is a compromise I can live with knowing that few other speakers other than competing electrostats sound as clean resolving and realistic in the midrange and treble.
I have been tempted to get the XL ART which is a full range electrostat,well not quite full range, it only goes down to around 50hz.
But I listen to a lot of classical music Wagner, Bach organ works Beethoven sonatas and such and need to hear down to at least 32Hz double bass bottom note and deep organ notes so I am keeping my Sequels until I can hopefully buy the XL ART second hand and add a subwoofer.

Anyway back on topic of the AMAZING Mscaler, I forgot to mention that it has been transformational for me in many ways.
It is the first time I can listen to rbcds and really enjoy many of them.
Before getting my Mscaler I basically only listened to hi res digital and vinyl.
Its been months since I played any vinyl, but many cds.
The magic with Mscaler is how it renders transients imho.
And transients are all over the frequency spectrum. Top to bottom.
Not only in the treble.
Cheers CC

 

[118900]

Oh yes my Sequel IIs are old, but about five years ago they were fitted with new panels. And sound great again apart from the upper bass crossover section around 250hz where the bass takes over from the very transparent electrostatic panels.
And if you own the SL3s you already know that, both the compromise, and the wonderful transparency from the mids and up.
But that is a compromise I can live with knowing that few other speakers other than competing electrostats sound as clean resolving and realistic in the midrange and treble.
I have been tempted to get the XL ART which is a full range electrostat,well not quite full range, it only goes down to around 50hz.
But I listen to a lot of classical music Wagner, Bach organ works Beethoven sonatas and such and need to hear down to at least 32Hz double bass bottom note and deep organ notes so I am keeping my Sequels until I can hopefully buy the XL ART second hand and add a subwoofer.

Anyway back on topic of the AMAZING Mscaler, I forgot to mention that it has been transformational for me in many ways.
It is the first time I can listen to rbcds and really enjoy many of them.
Before getting my Mscaler I basically only listened to hi res digital and vinyl.
Its been months since I played any vinyl, but many cds.
The magic with Mscaler is how it renders transients imho.
And transients are all over the frequency spectrum. Top to bottom.
Not only in the treble.
Cheers CC

I always thought that musical “information” such as placement and transients, etc was necessarily “carried” by the “higher” frequencies as only these have the specific capability to “support” information, hence low frequencies being able to be managed by a single subwoofer rather than needing two.

i do wonder how accurate my knowledge is though.

ps: nothing beats electrostatic transducers in my opinion.

 

[Christer]

I always thought that musical “information” such as placement and transients, etc was necessarily “carried” by the “higher” frequencies as only these have the specific capability to “support” information, hence low frequencies being able to be managed by a single subwoofer rather than needing two.

i do wonder how accurate my knowledge is though.

Oh yes we definitely hear more placement and directions in higher frequencies than lower ones. The deeper down the more dificult it gets to locate sounds for us.
But other animals like elephants and whales communicate over long, really long distances with subsonic sounds where sound is at best something we can feel rather than actually hear and for supersonic sounds some animals like bats and insects are sometimes communicating at frequences we can´t hear.
If I am not wrong, I think our hearing is most efficient between roughly 1khz an 4khz.
But some tropical cikadas and crickets rub wings or feet at a for me personally still very piercing frequency around 9 -10 khz.
And being right next to a really deep belly rumbling elephant makes even Richard Strauss´s famous opening deep C Zarathustra note sound almost like a whisper compared to the almost earthquake tremor one can feel then.
But if you are close enough and I have been,there is no doubt at all where it is coming from.
And in music it is only the very deepest notes from bass instruments like tuba organ and the very lowest notes of the string bass, that are really difficult to locate both live and recorded.
If the string basses are seated on the right of the podium as in the standard European Orchestra seating,I want to hear them from there,not mixed to the middle.
And a bass drum hit although difficult to locate is still a transient.
Cheers CC

 

[JohnA1]

Oh yes my Sequel IIs are old, but about five years ago they were fitted with new panels. And sound great again apart from the upper bass crossover section around 250hz where the bass takes over from the very transparent electrostatic panels.

How would you evaluate the difference made by the new panels?
I've just got a quote of £1.5K to replace mine, pretty steep at first glance.

Haven't noticed any upper-bass xrossover issues, maybe they had fixed the blend-in by the time of late SL3s.
I biamp them, so each bass section has 400W of Musical fidelity muscle
Had recently taken out the crossovers to inspect/replace caps etc. They were all fine actually.

 

[Christer]

How would you evaluate the difference made by the new panels?
I've just got a quote of £1.5K to replace mine, pretty steep at first glance.

Haven't noticed any upper-bass xrossover issues, maybe they had fixed the blend-in by the time of late SL3s.
I biamp them, so each bass section has 400W of Musical fidelity muscle
Had recently taken out the crossovers to inspect/replace caps etc. They were all fine actually.

I can´t remember how much it cost but much less than your quote for sure.
But no problems with treble drop. I check out well before they do I guess.
The crossover region is not really a big problem for me either. But with some instruments and voices I can hear that I do not have the same ultra- transparency as in mids and treble if I compare to for example my HEKV2 headphones via my MF headphone amp.

So how do you biamp? With a separate amp for bass section or just split cables from the same amp?
I am using the KW550 MF amp without biamping but might be interested to try biamping if it would bring even more transparency.
But the KW550 delivers 630 watts per channel into 8 ohm and 910watts per channel into 4 ohm so I am not exactly lacking any power.

I rarely go above 11 or 12 o´clock on volume.
With a lot of cd material I am on 9-10 o´clock .
But some full dynamic range hi res large scale symphonic classical from BIS and some other labels need a 1-2pm setting.
The first big climax in Mahler´s 2nd symphony from Channel Classics clocked in at a bit over 250 watts with a Macintosh amp to fully bloom with these speakers.
Which MF amp or amps are you using?

Regarding the Mscaler if you have problems hearing its benefits, live with it in your system for a while and then unplug it for a while and see if you miss anything.
I just did something similar with my Stream/Storm BNC cables recently using only Stream for weeks and loved it but re- connecting Storm again I found that partly recording dependent but Storm rules in the end. Fuller warmer and more realistic especially with rbcd material.
Mind you I am only using the Qutest,not Dave like you. But even with Dave and via headphones the Mscaler was easy for me to appreciate.
In fact to me it brings such an obvious over all improvement that I preferred Qutest/Mscaler over Dave alone when Mscaler entered the stage.
Cheers CC

 

[JohnA1]

I can´t remember how much it cost but much less than your quote for sure.
But no problems with treble drop. I check out well before they do I guess.
The crossover region is not really a big problem for me either. But with some instruments and voices I can hear that I do not have the same ultra- transparency as in mids and treble if I compare to for example my HEKV2 headphones via my MF headphone amp.

So how do you biamp? With a separate amp for bass section or just split cables from the same amp?

separate monoblocks for the bass bins. They are XA-200s good for 400W at the 4 Ohms of these drivers

I auditioned the SL3s twenty years ago with XA-200s and I thought that would be more than enough.
Since I had a XA-100 power amp lying around, I tried hooking it to the bass section to see if it makes any difference. Didn't expect much.
Well how wrong was I, the difference was immediate in bass control.
The SL3s have been bi-amped ever since.
For the panels I use a NuVista 300, more than enough current for the 1.5 Ohm capacitive load they present at 20KHz, over 1000W in fact.

I am using the KW550 MF amp without biamping but might be interested to try biamping if it would bring even more transparency.
But the KW550 delivers 630 watts per channel into 8 ohm and 910watts per channel into 4 ohm so I am not exactly lacking any power.

Your amp is a beastie, but it may be worth trying a separate amp for the lows. The main amp will be seeing an easier load and might sound clearer.
You never know.

Regarding the Mscaler if you have problems hearing its benefits, live with it in your system for a while and then unplug it for a while and see if you miss anything.

That's what I'm doing
Got the Scaler almost at the same time as the QuTest, so I've changed 2 things at once - big mistake for evaluations...

 

[ra990]

I haven't seen much discussion of pairing the MS with a non-Chord DAC. While my TT2 is being repaired (over a month now, I'm dying!) I had basically stopped using the mscaler but figured I'd give it a shot with my backup system. I used TOSlink to an SMSL M200 (AKM4497) and, I was able to tell the difference immediately. It's mostly on redbook/standard def files, because upscaling is limited to 192k over optical, but even that jump is pretty noticeable. Details and separation seem noticeably improved.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

I haven't seen much discussion of pairing the MS with a non-Chord DAC. While my TT2 is being repaired (over a month now, I'm dying!) I had basically stopped using the mscaler but figured I'd give it a shot with my backup system. I used TOSlink to an SMSL M200 (AKM4497) and, I was able to tell the difference immediately. It's mostly on redbook/standard def files, because upscaling is limited to 192k over optical, but even that jump is pretty noticeable. Details and separation seem noticeably improved.

Yup I also tried the m scaler with my lofi 2 channel system.
My integrated amplifier is denon pma 800ne which has built in dac PCM5141 so with optical input I could go to 176,4khz (from rbcd).
But still the improvement was noticable and I wouldn't say it was small. Nothing transformational but not that small either.

Fun fact some time ago I tried the M scaler with the audio gd r2r dac, it was their R2R-1 dac I believe. And the change was marginal if any. At least that's my feeling.

 

[genefruit]

Any thoughts about using a switch like this between the wall charger and the battery to disconnect from the mains while using the Mscaler/TT2 off of a battery? Furthermore, perhaps one between the battery and the Mscaler to turn off the Mscaler while charging the battery? Yes, I realize you can unplug the items instead but a switch seems easier to manage and a bit more elegant. Would inline switches provide a ground loop break or must the ground loop be broken with a physical separation such as unplugging the device from AC?

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08933K6G7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[118900]

Any thoughts about using a switch like this between the wall charger and the battery to disconnect from the mains while using the Mscaler/TT2 off of a battery? Furthermore, perhaps one between the battery and the Mscaler to turn off the Mscaler while charging the battery? Yes, I realize you can unplug the items instead but a switch seems easier to manage and a bit more elegant. Would inline switches provide a ground loop break or must the ground loop be broken with a physical separation such as unplugging the device from AC?

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08933K6G7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wouldn’t it be better/safer to use an extension from a known and reputable brand with an on/off button incorporated that the chord power wart plugs into? You would have the option of cutting power to all your equipment doing that

 

[JohnA1]

As another option to consider, I'm using this battery for both Scaler and QuTest:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YP823NA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has on/off switch at the front so no need to hack further. No chance for ground loops either, so no ferrets

 

[genefruit]

As another option to consider, I'm using this battery for both Scaler and QuTest:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YP823NA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has on/off switch at the front so no need to hack further. No chance for ground loops either, so no ferrets

so when you charge it, do you plug the cable in and remove the cable when you're listening? I'm trying to avoid the plug/unplug cycle unless the value of using the battery is only/maximized when a physical separation from the main occurs. If a standby situation, such as a switch works then that's useful to know.