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Chord Hugo M Scaler with Qutest DAC.

Moppit said:
I've got a Minix headless pc kicking around with Windows..might be worth exploring running this as the processing pc. Any thoughts what sort of processor is needed? I seem to remember Roon dsp requirements require min i5 level..the Minix is nothing special...
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I think it depends on what you want to do with it. I upconvert Redbook to DSD128 and use one of the more complex filters, a lighter noise-shaping algorithm and also a bit or EQ, so I've had to complement my old i7 with the graphics card.
Redbook to PCM only should be more straightforward but i5 is probably a must.

Perhaps you could ask for help at the Computer Audiophile forum, there's a lifelong topic about HQ Player.
 
@Moppit I also have a Raspberry Pi and looked at the HQPlayer site to see if that would be a possible setup. HQPlayer only supports Ubuntu, and RPi ships with Debian. You can install Ubuntu on a RPi, but I tried it and it ran slowly, so I decided to switch back. Additionally, HQPlayer supports offloading some processing to the graphics processor, but you need an NVIDIA card with CUDA support, which the RPi doesn't have. It seems to be intended for full-sized, somewhat high-performance computers.
 
TheDecameron said:
Have any other manufacturers achieved the same objective as Rob Watts but with different processing?
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Much as I find the M Scaler + DAVE to sound superb (which I absolutely do!), I prefer the DCS Rossini + external clock, which seems to combine the very best attributes of the Chord combo with the very best of the Naim ND555. The DCS dac is a lot more money though.

We have also heard one other dac that seems to match the best aspects of the Chord combo but which makes music flow a little better or sound more naturally organic rather than slightly mechanical. Price-wise, it is similar to the Chord combo. More on this one once we have had another chance to listen to it.
 
Foot Tapper said:
Much as I find the M Scaler + DAVE to sound superb (which I absolutely do!), I prefer the DCS Rossini + external clock, which seems to combine the very best attributes of the Chord combo with the very best of the Naim ND555. The DCS dac is a lot more money though.

We have also heard one other dac that seems to match the best aspects of the Chord combo but which makes music flow a little better or sound more naturally organic rather than slightly mechanical. Price-wise, it is similar to the Chord combo. More on this one once we have had another chance to listen to it.
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Right, you’re not getting away with a cliff hanger! Also, I have trouble keeping up with the dcs hierarchy these days.
 
The Rossini is the middle one in the DCS range, at a (cough) £17k + (more outraged cough) £5.5k for the "optional" external clock.
It makes the Chord combo look like excellent value for money, even at £12k.
 
What does an external clock actually do? I see them mentioned more frequently lately with Auralic unveiling the Leo.

.sjb
 
Sloop John B said:
What does an external clock actually do? I see them mentioned more frequently lately with Auralic unveiling the Leo.

.sjb
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Hi SJB,
I'm not technically competent to answer. The reviews that I have seen say that the external dac makes a subtle but worthwhile improvement to the sound of the Rossini. That's not what I hear though. The bare Rossini sounds like huge resolution but no music to these ears, massive detail but no emotional connection. I prefer the Moon 780D v2, Chord DAVE (without M Scaler) and Naim ND555 to the bare Rossini. Strap this external clock to it though, and the Rossini suddenly starts to play beautiful, flowing, engaging music. I love the result but baulk at the idea of paying so much money for something that should have been in the Rossini from the start.

Hope this helps, FT
 
I noticed that the external clock for the Puccini sacdp also hosts a usb input to run external digital sources through the Puccini internal dac. It’s straight from the naim marketing book- get them in, keep them in, sell them more stuff to get to the quality endpoint they could have with one product at the start.
 
Sloop John B said:
What does an external clock actually do? I see them mentioned more frequently lately with Auralic unveiling the Leo.

.sjb
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It’s an idea borrowed from professional audio where multiple devices are slaved to a common clock, to mitigate timing problems like jitter.

Auralic’s implementation is a little unusual in that clock synchronisation is done via Lightning Link (a repurposed HDMI interface). Auralic’s standard clocks are already extremely precise, but the Leo is a true atomic clock (actually two of them) and a couple of orders of magnitude more accurate than the already extraordinary G2 clocks.
 
TheDecameron said:
Have any other manufacturers achieved the same objective as Rob Watts but with different processing?
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Not remotely. I’m lucky enough to have an M Scaler and a DAVE. The DAVE was fantastic. Better than I ever thought possible. Wonderful. Sweet, involving, engrossing, just lovely music. Way, way better than any DAC I had owned. Then I tried an M Scaler and it was like I had only been looking at the world through one eye, and had suddenly opened the other eye. My music became so much more tangible, demanding, involving, compelling, rich, solid, credible. There is a real sense of performance, like you are listening at a concert, hearing something very special and close and real. If you trundle through Rob Watts’ posts on headfi you’ll find one where he explains the differences between what the M Scaler does and what HQ Player does. If I were you I’d ask a decent dealer to give me a TT2 and an M Scaler on loan. Then decide which one you want first. I can’t imagine music without my M Scaler.
 
AndyU said:
Not remotely. I’m lucky enough to have an M Scaler and a DAVE. The DAVE was fantastic. Better than I ever thought possible. Wonderful. Sweet, involving, engrossing, just lovely music. Way, way better than any DAC I had owned. Then I tried an M Scaler and it was like I had only been looking at the world through one eye, and had suddenly opened the other eye. My music became so much more tangible, demanding, involving, compelling, rich, solid, credible. There is a real sense of performance, like you are listening at a concert, hearing something very special and close and real. If you trundle through Rob Watts’ posts on headfi you’ll find one where he explains the differences between what the M Scaler does and what HQ Player does. If I were you I’d ask a decent dealer to give me a TT2 and an M Scaler on loan. Then decide which one you want first. I can’t imagine music without my M Scaler.
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Thanks Andy. Hopefully there will be a demo at the dealer event I’m attending this weekend. I have a Hugo2 with the dual input, so that should give me some impression of what the m scaler does.
 
Enjoy the demo. I have only ever heard the M Scaler to make a quite remarkable improvement to the Chord dac that it feeds.
 
Foot Tapper said:
Hi SJB,
I'm not technically competent to answer. The reviews that I have seen say that the external dac makes a subtle but worthwhile improvement to the sound of the Rossini. That's not what I hear though. The bare Rossini sounds like huge resolution but no music to these ears, massive detail but no emotional connection. I prefer the Moon 780D v2, Chord DAVE (without M Scaler) and Naim ND555 to the bare Rossini. Strap this external clock to it though, and the Rossini suddenly starts to play beautiful, flowing, engaging music. I love the result but baulk at the idea of paying so much money for something that should have been in the Rossini from the start.

Hope this helps, FT
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I am always amazed at how two people can come to totally different outcomes. I recently tried the dCs Rossini and Clock and found it overly bright, fatiguing and did not enjoy my time with it at all.

Reverting back to my Aurender, MScaler and Dave setup was literally music to my ears, to me there was no comparison.

I actually thought the dCs clock added very little to the mix imho, adding MScaler was a revelation.
 
Foxman50 said:
I am always amazed at how two people can come to totally different outcomes. I recently tried the dCs Rossini and Clock and found it overly bright, fatiguing and did not enjoy my time with it at all.

Reverting back to my Aurender, MScaler and Dave setup was literally music to my ears, to me there was no comparison.

I actually thought the dCs clock added very little to the mix imho, adding MScaler was a revelation.
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The longer I live, the more I get it that we simply hear ( or rather, place emphasis on different things) differently. The rule of thumb I work to is, does this product reveal more information and get closer to the real thing? After that, tonal balance, timing and flow might or might not be a deal breaker. Having said that, some reviews and internet opinions about products can be remarkably consistintent- Sennheiser HD800s are a case in point.

First time I heard dCS was when another pfm member brought a Puccini round and I thought wow! I’ve never had that level of resolution before. Same with Devaliet which (in the context we are discussing) turns out to be good VFM and rovides great resolution, certainly compared with a cdp and valve amps of higher cost.

Digressing slightly, when SACD came out I got a very pleasant surprise and it was not what I had been expecting. I’d heard the the rival, DVDA at a show in the States ( presented by none other than Bob Stewart) which was exactly what I was expecting- more information from the disc but hard and shiny.
 
AndyU said:
I can’t imagine music without my M Scaler.
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Very good, the M Scaler, but I suppose it's down to systems and maybe older ears; I did borrow one to hang off the back of my DAVE and it improved the sound. But then, DAVE on his own is pretty fine and, after my few days' loan of the M Scaler, returning to a bereft DAVE really wasn't much of a tiresome drag. I guess if I've got the odd £3.5K banging around in my skyrocket I might borrow the M Scaler again (it took me three goes to really like DAVE in comparison to my trusty QBD76HDSD).
 
TheDecameron said:
Digressing slightly, when SACD came out I got a very pleasant surprise and it was not what I had been expecting. I’d heard the the rival, DVDA at a show in the States ( presented by none other than Bob Stewart) which was exactly what I was expecting- more information from the disc but hard and shiny.
Click to expand...
I was actively involved with the launch of DVD-A (from the music side, not tech) and I attended a few presentations in LA as part of that - maybe we were at the same presentation! At the time SACD was regarded by us as very artificial sounding compared to the “pure” sound of PCM. Now - I find DSD much more natural sounding and have consigned my DVD-A discs to the loft.
 
mikechadwick said:
I was actively involved with the launch of DVD-A (from the music side, not tech) and I attended a few presentations in LA as part of that - maybe we were at the same presentation! At the time SACD was regarded by us as very artificial sounding compared to the “pure” sound of PCM. Now - I find DSD much more natural sounding and have consigned my DVD-A discs to the loft.
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It would be good to run a fresh comparison of the two formats- might make a good historical piece in HFN.
 
Having recently learned to rip SACDs, and previously ripped my modest DVD-A collection, it does seem that the former rips do have a nicer, dare I say more analogue, sound. Doing a comparison between rips of the CD and SACD layers of the same disks I was quite taken aback by how much better the latter sounded.
 
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