I have put my new mscalar in line between NDX2 and Dave… not night and day… I think the main noticeable difference is tightening up the stereo image and depth through the speakers… and a little bit of added bite and precision in the upper mids in 60s Motown recordings … and a bit more euphoria in wall of sound type productions … but we are talking subtleties here… but nice.
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Give it a week or so things become more apparent, my MScaler is a keeper even with the Qutest at the front end I bet the Dave is rather special.
This fits with what the impression I have formed from a variety of postings about the MScaler, namely that it depends a lot on what it is fed with/from, for some people ‘night and day’ improvement, for others minor/subtle. So for me it is definitely an audition first not take the plunge and buy when I see one at a bargain price.
For me it was a significant improvement, but then that’s with the lowly Qutest. Perhaps the better value is to be had from the TT2 alone, rather than the MScaler / Qutest. I find the MScaler gives recordings a wonderful texture (I appreciate that sounds like gobbledygook but best I can do). I did a proper audition first, and actually Simon was very useful in this regard with setting up and understanding (above).
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Depends on views and equipment I’m sure. I like mine onto TT 2 but the phoenix had more impact I think. In a good system every component works together to make a whole
That’s probably more down to the general behaviour of lower end DACs. Modern DAC chips have an easier time of of hi-res input and conversely have to do a lot more work as the resolution decreases.
This is why 16/44.1 to 24/192 on a Walkman or iPhone is a massive jump in performance but the same two recordings on a high end $10 DAC, much less so. I’d expect the impact of the Mscaler to be inversely proportional to how capable the DAC is that it is feeding.
That’s interesting, and is actually what I was asserting. Perhaps that’s why the impact isn’t heard when paired with DAVE.
When we tried the M Scaler on a Qutest, we found the impact to be literally transformational. It was much, much better.
We then swapped out the Qutest for a DAVE in the same system. Adding the M Scaler to DAVE in that system was surprising. The only dramatic improvement was imaging. The sound field grew amazingly in terms of width, height and depth, so much so that we wondered at first if it was a bit overblown. After the first couple of minutes, we rather liked it. However, this aspect of musical reproduction has never been the most important to us, so we moved on.
What then happened was much more subtle but also more profound. Adding the M Scaler made music sound far more real, more natural, more credible on an almost subliminal level. It is hard to put into words but it made DAVE evolve from an analytical resolution machine into a profoundly capable music maker.
Which is why we ended up buying one.
Best regards, BF
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I think transformational is a good descriptor when paired with a Qutest, and good to hear you’re enjoying it with the DAVE. I could have saved, sold some bits and found money for a DAVE - at a stretch - but found the MScaler with Qutest so good; it just worked so well with the rest of my system, that I’d rather keep these two together.
BF… I agree imaging is a noticeable change with mscalar on Dave… but so is upper mid resolution. You can really feel that the saturation and clipping in old 60s recordings… it really gives it that authentic in the studio feel… it’s there without MScalar… but it’s just more like you are sitting at the mix console with MScalar … especially with near fields…
I will listen to some live recordings this week… this was always a plus with the mscalar Dave with headphones… so I will see how it works with my new system.
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authentic. A great descriptor.
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Any user of the Qutest should try powering it with an SBooster PSU + Ultra II, really does lead to a step up in sound quality.
Bluesfan sentence here is what I find with the M-Scaler. It is not an OMG moment when plugged in, but I hear its influence on everything I listen to.
Whether I enjoying myself listening to my TT on my nearfield system, or the Mojo from my laptop, my main system is just so much more musical by being insightful.
I completely understand why some people wonder what the fuss is about, but after listening to it I would hate to lose what it brings to the party.
…oh, and powering it with the Krisdonia battery a la @anon23154165 adds to the fun.
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While I am saving up for a new streamer, I decided to use my windows laptop hooked up to my Mscaler/TT2 to get Radio Paradise. Sounds surprisingly good just using cheap USB cables that came with the TT2.
I added a few ferrites to the cable, and I will try running it off the battery later, see if that adds anything. The laptop (Thinkpad) was barely being used anymore, since I usually surf the web with my iPad.
I also thought about ordering a Raspberry Pi 4 as a cheap solution for now. Not sure if that would be better than my Laptop.
Couldn’t resist, just bought a Poly.
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Have you shortlisted the streamer you’re after? I’m in a similar boat looking to upgrade from my Project Stream Ultra.
Time to “put the kettle on”
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I had to google that first to make sure you weren’t buying a new pet!
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So I have added True Signal Audio Silver Cables in preparation for the etude. Running these with my current set-up Innuos Zenith > Mscaler > TT2 > 250.2 > Neat Ultimatum XLS has been a very pleasant surprise (and potentially expensive). It has definately brough more resolve to the current set-up and I look forward to seeing how it will work with the Etude later this week (fingers crossed). Thank you @Simon-in-Suffolk for the suggestion.
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Hope it goes well… I settled on Tellurium Q Ultra Black balanced interconnects into Etude from Dave, and True Signal Audio speaker leads driving my ATCs.
INteresting. Did you try the True Signal Audio XLR’s as well? And if so, what was the deciding factor(s) to go with the Tellurium Q Ultra Blacks?