Been following this thread.. I'm wondering if there were any conclusions about Qutest+M-Scaler vs. Hugo TT2. I have a Qutest and TT2 on my desk right now both feeding an Enleum amp into Susvara. The TT2 is just barely a bit nicer sounding - a little bit clearer, wider, and more bass punch - but only about 10% more on each of those attributes. Since I'm not using the amp stage of the TT2, it feels like I'm spending 3x more money for not a lot of benefit and wondering if i should instead track down an m-scaler to run off of the Qutest.
How much of the difference i'm hearing is due to the analog output stage of the TT vs its increase in Taps?
Hmm, what you are describing is basically how I would rate them too. And instead of spending the very steep price of TT2 alone in a big heavy ,shiny ,fancy looking box, I spent that money on an Mscaler.
Unfortunately in an almost identical looking fancy box as TT2! But I like Qutest/Mscaler MUCH more than TT2 on its own. To my ears and with my 99% Acoustic Music listening habits, Qutest/Mscaler brings more realism with acoustic instruments than TT2 .
ALL Chord dacs EVEN Dave need mscaling to sound more natural ,effortless and "less digital" imho.
I do not know for sure but I suspect both the added number of taps and upscaling to 32/705 or 32/768 with mscaling matter more to me than other things like output stage of TT2 over the cheaper Qutest.
Ideally I would REALLY want Rob to design a Top Reference Class mscaled portable dac .Or at least a very reasonably priced SOTA one in a black little box made for people who primarily LISTEN to music and could NOT care less how their HIFI toys look.
"You can choose any color you wish as long as you choose black" is absolutely fine with me.
90% of my music listening is with closed eyes both via my big electostatic speakers and via headphones . The main exection being when playing my piano.
In my youth I built some amps and put them in the cheapest grey boxes I could buy. I spent my money on the best possible internal parts I could get instead!
So to be honest I 'd be ok with duller grey too.
I hate having to pay ridiculous money for Designer Made Eye Candy HIFI.
For me HIFI has got one important thing to deliver: to be as transparent to what is actually on the recording as possible within reasonable costs involved.
Personally I do not really like any of the design choices of Robs dacs .
I use them only ,for their SQ in spite of the VERY steep pricing even of Qutest , not to mention Mscaler.
By the way one of those really annoying little coloured balls on my Mscaler is stuck and does not respond when pressed. But my HMS still works as it should via the remote.
And WHY, OH WHY does it have to be so big and heavy??? Isn't most of what it does, done on a small fpga via code inside ?
If and when CHI-FI catches up in SQ I would not hesitate even a second to buy CHEAP HIFI and sell my expensive Chord toys.
Luckily I bought my Chord toys in SE-Asia where prices are not as ridiculoulsy high as in Europe or the US. But here in Sweden I think TT2 costs at least 4 times as much as a Qutest.
PS. Sorry about the long rant.
I have had a tough week this most miserable of winters here in cold Sweden ,and I am more than a bit grumpy."But for good Beer's sake". Oops sorry again, I meant good music's sake,I am very reluctantly still suffering through yet another one.
Cheers Christer
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