Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[Icenine2]

I thought the WAVE's were enough.............Ha!

 

[zen87192]

Yeah.... spread 'em for max effect

 

[ZappaMan]

I was reading this today at the TT2 thread. I had no clue this was a "thing". I'll try this out tomorrow but the pain is finding the space to separate these two. I just had to laugh at myself doing what I "thought" was everything to make this rig as good as it could get. Jeez.

Just lay them out on the floor when no one else is about to stand on them - late at night under optimal conditions - then see if you can hear any difference.
I set mine up with opto dx and wave cables with about 3 meters between them.
I’m thinking of getting longer fiber cables to seperate further, but problem them becomes I need longer speaker cables to get my speakers into the middle of the room (while mscaler and dac are at opposite walls of the room)

 

[Icenine2]

Ha!

 

[Icenine2]

I did a bit of A/B and a definitive "no clue". Insert expletive if you want. I kept running Beatles "Because". At one point I had convinced myself it did sound better separtated, stacked again and no clue. One thing for sure I did notice is after side by side the stacked looks weird to me somehow!

 

[Progisus]

I did a bit of A/B and a definitive "no clue". Insert expletive if you want. I kept running Beatles "Because". At one point I had convinced myself it did sound better separtated, stacked again and no clue. One thing for sure I did notice is after side by side the stacked looks weird to me somehow!

Don’t let it mess with your mind. Wave cables are all you need. Side by side does look better imho. Cables stretched out from the rack is wack.

 

[Icenine2]

I wonder if thicker isolation feet between the two would be enough? I also just said this on the other thread but maybe I should just buy a DCS Bartok

 

[muski]

I recently picked up an Opto DX and it feels like the missing link in my system. I've really had some trouble integrating the m-scaler and my problem has been the noise and I think I had my system fairly dialed in, I am running everything off of separate batteries and I have PI2AES=>Optical=>Mscaler=>Optical=>TT2 but whenever I would connect the m-scaler with dual BNC I'd start to get harshness so I actually ended up preferring optical between the m scaler and my TT because it kept everything isolated and gave me enough of the m scaler that it seemed like the best way to go for the time being. I spent a lot of time thinking about the wave cables and I'll be honest they are pricy but at least you are getting something that provides specific technical benefits that the DAC designer recognizes the benefit of (I don't feel like most high end cables can say something like that) so I've never particularly minded the wave cables cost and the thought behind them makes sense. To me though I liked the idea of keeping everything isolated just because at every stage I've found sonic benefits from doing so and I'm already running batteries so the whole number of boxes thing doesn't bother me.

I'm really impressed of the sound out of the Opto DX and I think the most impressive thing is I wan't able to set things up until night and it wasn't ideal listening conditions because I had just unplugged, moved around equipment at the end of a long day so it wasn't a particularly relaxed state of mind but I started to listen to demo songs that I am familiar with and found I had listened to the whole album which is always a really great sign of just enjoying the music. It sounds cliche but I was hearing new details in demo songs that I've heard a lot so I felt it did clean up the noise but also it feels like I was really able to listen to the m scaler at full potential for the first time and it feels like it's taken a while to get there. I guess the way I'd describe it is the Opto DX removes the faint harshness and listening fatigue that I could get before running optical and that frees up the m-scaler to just bring great soundstage depth and separation through complex passages and I do feel like there is something to the whole pacing thing where the timing of things through intricate passages also seems really impressive and I don't know if this is because of the improved stage or if it is recreating the time domain better but I enjoyed whatever it was doing. Just ended up being a fun night where I listened to a lot of music and really enjoyed it.

I'm also a very happy Opto-DX and SRC-DX user. I like the way you characterized the improvements—I feel the same way.

If you want to go further down the optical rabbit hole, the Sonore opticalRendu is an excellent streamer.

Sonore also makes a 12v LPS that further tames the M Scaler's slight harshness (not as much as an Opto-DX, but definitely an improvement).

Cheers,
muski

 

[shaylin3]

I found that some users use 12v for their lps, usually 12v or 15v is more suitable for M Scaler?

 

[bpcans]

@shaylin3, I use 15v Sbooster’s on both my M Scaler and my TT2 where they’ve really helped to lower the sonic floor of my system.

 

[Widell]

I wonder if thicker isolation feet between the two would be enough? I also just said this on the other thread but maybe I should just buy a DCS Bartok

Would the Bartok scale up music as well as the HMS? Also then there would be no more tinkering and upgrading and if ever you get the Susvara or similar hard driven HP dont think Bartok would have enough power?

 

[Icenine2]

I believe that the Bartok does all of those things. Of course you can add the Rossini if I got that name right to take it up another stab but that’s another $20,000. What I did not know when I looked at the technical information yesterday was how large it is. It’s 17”x17” footprint. I’d have to get a shelf system to put that on!

 

[SteveHulk]

Would the Bartok scale up music as well as the HMS? Also then there would be no more tinkering and upgrading and if ever you get the Susvara or similar hard driven HP dont think Bartok would have enough power?

I guess this shows a difference between people

I just love thinking about how to wring the best from my system. Each upgrade is like listening to a new library of music. Some upgrades work, others don't. The process is an adventure!

 

[Icenine2]

Bartok. After thinking about that I looked at MSB Discret DAC and headphone amp. A whole other world of super expensive. I'd love to know what that sounds like.
Excuse the side-step

 

[ZappaMan]

I guess this shows a difference between people

I just love thinking about how to wring the best from my system. Each upgrade is like listening to a new library of music. Some upgrades work, others don't. The process is an adventure!

In a similar vein, roon radio is amazing, because of the discovery of amazing genres of music you’d not normally delve into, makes me happy (when not much does lol).