Qutest, Hugo TT2, Mscaler

Dayjay
Beautiful looking amp, congrats. You might find that separating the Mscaler and TT2 from each other has benefits. Mine are a few Fraim shelves apart.

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I’ve just removed all the Naim boxes and doneexactly that

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@dayjay…Excellent Choice! Did you get it in black or silver? And it comes with the cool legs, I think I read you can mix the leg and body color. Like a Black Unit with Silver or grey legs etc… The other thing is that is the US the Ultima 6 is very well priced at $7000.00 I’ve seen it in silver with black legs looks very cool, maybe your dealer can get all three colors… Anyway congrats!

Thanks, I got silver with silver legs

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:+1:

One day I would be interested to try a Chord amp in place of Bryston, to see if there is any discernible difference to my ears… Certainly Dave and Bryston pair very well (as did Dave and Musical Fidelity P270, though Bryston a tad better).

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I have mine on different racks, and the mscalar on a different mains feed. All seems to be quite happy

@Simon-in-Suffolk Mine is a couple of feet down from the TT2 and Etude but is in the same power block. Do you think it’s worth moving to a separate wall socket away from the power block that feeds the TT2 and Etude?

I have definitely heard an improvement by separating the TT2 and Mscaler power supply, so well worth trying using different blocks or a block with some electrical separation (I use AQ Niagara).

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I’ll be sorting out some cabling this morning so I’ll try it out then! Thanks

Might be, I think it made a marginal improvement in resolution /clarity with the mscalar … and is easy enough to do.

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Looking forward to the thread next year where you have got bored of this pile of gear and decide to change it back to Naim again! :slightly_smiling_face:

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For sure the style of audio performance is different from Naim… I guess every high end manufacturer has its house sound, no doubt influenced by the design principles and key design aspects and innovations in their products … but the other motivation for Chord for me is simplification and reduced foot print. To me less is more… at the moment. :grinning:

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A change is as good as a rest.

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I guess so, enjoying your recordings in ways differently from when I use my Naim system is also an appeal. If I am honest I have come to realise that in the end I have probably been under powering my ATC SCM 19s with my Naim 250 for a long time… and I have been enjoying the new tighter low end performance from those with the Chord system… that has been a revelation.
My curiosity was piqued when I noticed far more low end info with planar headphones compared to my then loudspeaker system… I feel it’s more in alignment now.

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I’ll get onto it this morning!

:joy: … No :wink:

Next year is the year of the house, no major HiFi upgrades here! That all comes to an end this month really. The odd cable here and there but no change in the main 3.

I’ve had a great fun this year changing stuff about and I have experienced what both offer and my preferences are very firmly with the Chord sound. Its sound is dynamic, great clarity with tight bass and massive soundstage & precise layering just ticks all the boxes for me. It gives a strong sense of realism that is very addictive.

I’d been with Naim since 2015 and I really enjoyed my time with their amps. But, since July this year, I’ve spent at least 1-2 hours each day just listening and exploring different music (not including the time while working). The sound just pulls me back to listen to new stuff, to experience that sound, the feeling of being there. This wasn’t something I used to do. I also don’t miss the dominating scene of large black boxes in my office. The SN2 takes up nearly the same size volume wise as all the Chord stuff. I can spread Chord gear about and it just blends in.

Great that you’ve created a system that’s working for you.

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The Naim system wasn’t doing badly… 5 years without upgrading it. So, they must be doing something right :+1:t2:

I’ve decided which XLR cable I’ll get for the Etude and it wasn’t as hard as I thought but did provide am entertaining 5 days of listening. The candidates starting from the least expensive to most expensive were…

Tellurium Q Black 2 Ultra
Tellurium Q Silver Ultra
Tellurium Q Black Diamond
Entreq Challenger With Silver minimus Ground box and Silver Eartha cables. Pre-Loved pricing.

Price wise, biggest jump was between 1st and 2nd cable and the same difference again between 2nd and fourth… given pre-loved pricing of the last one. So, sound quality not price was the deciding factor here but, this is just my thoughts based on my system and ears etc…

TQBU2 - Very musical, fluid warmer bass and mids. Smooth and full, great detail and soundstage. Very entertaining listen. Great energy to it. Took nearly 2 days before I removed it to try the Silver.

TQSU - A very real natural tone. Not quite as warm as the black but its bass was tight, room filling with real slam when it was called for. Mids extremely detailed but neither they or the highs felt fatiguing. Very dynamic… Soundstage and openness was very impressive.

TQBD - Similar to the TQSU but warmer. There was more detail there but not much more. It felt like I was reaching the point of diminishing returns. There was a difference, just not as much as TQBU2 to TQ-SU.

Entreq Challenger - not as detailed as the TQ’s but the noise floor was lower and there was more texture in the lows. There was plenty of detail there and soundstage was impressive but something just didn’t feel right for me. While the TQ cables all seemed to reveal the Chord amp/DAC energy and pace, this cable seemed to suck some of the life out of it. Just felt slower… not even sure that’s possible but that’s the impression I got. I’d left this running all afternoon as before listening to it. Cabling is also bulky and a bit tricky to manage in small spaces.

Anyway, the one cable I kept gravitating back to was the TQSU. The others were impressive… some more expensive but the TQSU was the one that got my foot tapping all the time. Amazing pace and energy with bags of detail and clarity…. a realness to its soundstage and presentation.

It was one of those cases where the most expensive wasn’t the best (to my ears/system) and reinforces the need to home demo these cables… both Black and Silver TQ, as it’s the only way to decide which tone you prefer.

Hope this is useful to some… should they want to arrange their own audio therapy session!

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Nice informative eview.

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