Simply because I think it’s unlikely that they would supply something that was bad, as it would degrade their product’s performance and presumably they wouldn’t want that. They would want their product to perform as well as possible at a given price point.
My assumption is that being specialist audio companies they care about these things and that they would have looked into it all thoroughly before marketing anything. Their SMPS’s are printed with the company name on the back - whether that means they are just ‘badged’ or whether it means that Chord have designed them or had some input I don’t know.
I know from listening that the sound is excellent so I assume that the supplied SMPS must at least be perfectly adequate. How much better the performance could be with a better supply, either SM or linear I have no idea and no great interest in.
No, not at all. I only know that the MCRU LPS sounds much better. If it had sounded no better or worse - which TBH in a way I was kind of hoping for, then I would have returned it and just used the BT SMPS. Cheaper, more compact and less costly to run.
Regarding BT’s stance on this. Yes I was a little concerned that I may be violating their terms and conditions by using a non-BT supply. Therefore I contacted them. It took a little while to get their representative to understand exactly what I wanted to do and why. However he eventually understood and said that if I could source a supply that I thought provided better performance than the supplied SMPS then I should go right ahead. No problem at all and I would in no way be violating their T & C’s. I got him to send me an email confirming this, which I’ve kept, just in case.