Very interesting impressions, and not too long or rambling - because the reader needs to understand the context for any impressions to be useful.
Within the caveats of "early days" and the variables you mentioned, your results seem to indicate that digital cables, both before and after the m-scaler, still matter quite a bit, even if they may not matter quite as much as they did with the Blu-2.
And also that the Hugo m-scaler may sound a bit better, or at least darker, than the Blu-2 with the same cables.
BTW, when comparing HEK vs Utopia headphones, did your HEK also have the supa dupa Prion cables?
Yes, I also thought it was an interesting and useful set of thoughts and comments from
@STR-1 and thanks for them.
@STR-1
One point in your HMS review stood out for me: that adding ferrites to the dual-coax link made the sound worse(surprisingly) ...and
@Rob Watts was looking into this. I'd appreciate an update.
I am very keen on buying an HMS to pair with my hugo2 and based on the Blu2 thread, assumed ferrites were the route to nirvana.
Thanks
Dan
For the benefit of Christer, all my following observations are made listening to Marcus Miller on his Laid Black album, track one. When played nice and loud this track makes it easy for me to hear harshness and glare. It is also good for detecting shape and detail in bass notes. If by 3 minutes in you get a feeling of wanting to turn it down then there is a problem. If by then you want to turn it up then it is a good sign. The copy I have is 24 bit, 48kHz purchased as a download from Qobuz onto a Zenith SE connected by USB cable.
Having now listened to the HMS for just under a week, side by side with Blu2 and I am still very very impressed.
I also am doing a range of listening tests and my views so far are -
1. The Hugo MScaler is fixed as far as a need for extra ferrites.The darkness and lack of glare (ie lack of RF) of a straight out of the box HMS goes a long way towards the sound of a 'sorted' Blu2. Possibly / probably far enough for many people.
2. I agree that clip on ferrites do appear to make HMS worse.
3. Solid core ferrites which are tight fitting on the cable do not appear to make HMS worse (certainly up to 20 per cable).
4. Hugo MScaler used with a bare 1m set of quality BNC cables does not sound as good to me as a Blu2 with WAVE Storm 20 ferrite cables (what I regard as a 'sorted' Blu2).
I define good or better in all this in terms of darkness, lack of glare, increased bass definition and reduced listening fatigue.
5. Hugo MScaler used with WAVE Storm 20 ferrite cables sounds as good as a Blu2 with the same cable.
6. Longer cables also appear to be better than shorter - I have compared 1m and 2m so far. 2m appeared better than 1m but not as good as a 4 ferrite 1m cable.
7. With 20 ferrite WAVE cables I find that that both MScalers are pretty impervious to different USB cables and I therefore now use a simple Supra 2.0 USB cable. Before I used to have a Chord Sarum T USB cable. As an aside I have found that with the same 20 ferrite cable the difference between servers is now more subtle to the point of being difficult to hear (for me at least).
8. 20 ferrites are probably not needed for HMS to be as good as a sorted Blu2 because of the already very good RF isolation built into HMS. I am currently listening to a variety of cables with different numbers of ferrites to find the point where I think more ferrites make little or no difference.
If there is one thing that Blu2 has taught me it is that dark is good and any brightness betrays RF noise. Once you arrive at the darkest possible sound then the trick is to take time to let your ears and brain adjust to the new sound which initially might sound as if it has less detail. After a while your ears will adjust and you will hear the true detail previously hidden by the brightness or false detail of the RF artifacts. Related to this I suggest being wary of selecting any digital cables (not just MScaler dual BNC) for their sense of detail or similar as that can only be RF artifacts giving an illusion of detail. (I could add in a YMMV to that but it would be disingenuous).
Just to emphasise again, the Hugo MScaler has proper RF filtering built in and sounds amazing straight out of the box with no added ferrites. I am fiddling because I have the facilities to make up loads of different cables to see how easy it is to get the HMS to sound as good as a 'sorted' Blu2.
