Qutest, Hugo TT2, Mscaler

Oh, in that case definitely check them out. When I bought the TQ silver they had one of their tech guys ring me back to talk over different options as I was initially looking at trying out the Chord Epic speaker cables. They offer 60 day money back trial which takes some of the uncertainly out of the purchase knowing they can be returned.

Yes I’m thinking about it. The NUC runs Roon which gives me Qobuz / Tidal options. It’s in a fanless All case like the Nucleus with the good PCIe & SSD hard drives… totally silent and compact. I’ve been using Qobuz for over a year now and really like the selection and quality of the tracks. Plenty of HiDef material and the CD quality is also really good. The 1tb SSD drive stores about 20k tracks I have for local playback.

@Analogmusic has mentioned getting rid of it a couple of times now and I never really tried but with a few tweaks to the network setup, power cables for the Cisco switch etc and the Roon NUC via USB is sound extremely good. Been running the system without the G1 for the last 5 days so far and it sounds better in terms of bass detail and soundstage depth.

I don’t really want to keep extra boxes just for the sake of it… I could pop the money to one side until I decide what I’ll do about the power amp. As I say, no hurry so I can easily wait around until a good deal presents itself!

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I had never heard of Wave Storm until I read your post. I am curious about these because I have a TT2 and MScaler. I also happen to live about 5 miles from where Wave Storm is based (a one man operation I believe?). You are clearly impressed. How did you hear about them? Are there any ‘reliable’ reviews? Did you have a demo before buying?

I heard about them on the head-fi forum, Google Wave High fidelity for his website, he has links to reviews on there. He offers free trials but told me nobody has ever returned a pair after using them.

I do the same. Makes things easy.

Glad you are enjoying them. Once heard I couldn’t surrender the gain.

I have another upgrade widget if you are interested? :wink:

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Well settling in to my DAVE and Etude on medium term demo… really enjoying it now.

It has been interesting… the added detail and energy from DAVE needs careful handling though.

I was curious why there was such a marked difference between speaker replay depth and insight - and with my Empyreans - i would expect a difference between the two - but it really was too significant in terms of detail and feel - and then it struck me - room reflections from the greater detail and HF energy.

So I loaded some room response filters I had created many months ago and loaded the filters into Roon. YES - speaker playback sounds great again with great balance and huge insight through the mid and treble. I can now sometimes hear the type of microphones used for vocals - and the degree of damping in vocal booths as well clear playing hihats on some tracks - rather than just a generic Tshh on more of my recordings now - just like I can with my Empyreans

Interconnects between DAVE and Etude are balanced True Signal Audio.

My DC1 between NDX2 and DAVE is ferrite clamped twice - and yes i definitely prefer that cable ferrite clamped. I have an ER between switch and NDX2 - I am not sure it is doing a huge amount in my setup - but certainly no harm.

Now - on some recordings I notice ever so slightly a feel of bleached timbres - only noticeable on some recordings but there - and yes I can notice on my Empyreans and speakers although possibly lessened with the introduced ER. So… off to my dealer in Lockdown mode to borrow an MScaler to see if that fills those timbres in…

Simon,

Which ferrites are you using?

Hi Simon,
Enjoy your trials with the M Scaler. It does pump out some narrow band RFI down both power supply cables and the dual BNC cables to the DAVE. If memory serves, it’s about 2-2.5 GHz.

A few of us have tried Wurth Electronik 74271633S split core ferrites on each BNC cable with considerable benefit. If a trial of these works for you, then you can go all in and try a set of Nick Bacon’s Wave High Fidelity Storm cables.

Knocking out this M Scaler generated RF noise does “darken” the sound in a good way.

Whichever path you end up choosing, keep enjoying the music.

Best regards, BF

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Using a power bank also stops it. Apparently detaching it from the mains stops the flow of the noise you mentioned generated by the M Scaler to the DAC. Using a large power bank 2-3 hours a day and I get about 5 days use before recharging it (takes a 3 hours).

At some point, I’d like to try the wave cables to see how they compare. I think that is probably the best long term solution but for £125, the power bank is a great value.

Interesting. Which one do you use? It isn’t possible in the UK to buy the one that is often mentioned on the Head-Fi forum.

Best regards, BF

I know… searched everywhere for it.

I’ve been using the Krisdonia 50,000 mAh version at 12v. Apparently Rob used his at 9v but given there wasn’t much difference in power usage, I stuck to as near as 15v as possible. It has the option for 5, 8.4, 9, 12, 16 & 20v I think. Avoid 16 and over though.

Amazon sell them @MrUnderhill also picked one up and seemed rather happy with it… hopefully that’s still the case :grinning:

Various RF attenuators I have in my radio engineering draw… they attenuate HF, which is from 3 MHz up. Edit They are permeability #43 ]

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Ok, at those frequencies, the losses in any conducted common mode noise will be immense in those coax leads so unlikely to be problematic unless extremely short leads. Probably just as well as any radiated RF at those frequencies would legally have to be at minute levels… unless you had a licence!! Outside of the ISM band.
I think I’d be more wary of lower frequencies which can cause issues with audio. I’d be wary of HF to VHF frequencies. For now I’ll focus on physical separation. Thanks.

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Sure is!

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Will be interested to see what your take is this time with the M Scaler, I know you had reservations first time round. I’m about to demo one as well just waiting on my dealer to contact me.

I put an innuos zenith mk 3 in front of my m scaler/tt2 today. Super impressed so far. Can’t wait to hear if it improves further when my Wave cables arrive next week

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I have a Zen Mk3 feeding a Dave, considering the Phoenix reclocker and/or an M Scaler, second option is edging it.

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Pub or a chilled out night with Hugo and a dram or two of single malt :thinking:

Ok… so there was no choice really but hell, I’d of probably picked that anyway! Plenty of space now with no G1!

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What app do you use to control the Zen?

Roon