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Stever750

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  1. Popped back into the thread after some time away, is there any progress / likelihood of there being an EQ included at some point? This is far more important (for me anyway) than sample rate. Just give me 24 bit depth, lossless and a GEQ let alone a PEQ built in and I'll give you all my money!
  2. I should add it does this with two separate PCs, and in both USB and optical connections, and using Wasapi or ASIO
  3. @David CraffI have the exact same issue. Unstable next track rate change. If next track is 96k following a 44k track, the rate changes at the start of the track then 5s or so in the relay clicks on my marantz dac and the rate drops to 44. It does this every time for a particular track. Some tracks play at 96, when they are supposed to be 44. This issue is not present with tidal or amazon HD, there all tracks rate changes are set at the start of each new track.
  4. Well, sorry but the advice to buy a new PSU was a £25 bum steer, no better than the original fat one that came with the machine when I bought it in 2010. It's so bad in renders the USB connection on an Audiolab M-DAC unusable. The answer is actually one of these: https://www.olimex.com/Products/Modules/Interface/USB-ISO/
  5. My quest to partner the Caspian M2 with a better DAC, or even replace it continues... Today I got a newish used M-DAC for £440 off ebay, initially not at all impressed: No bespoke USB ASIO driver, so configuring JRMC didn't work great using WASAPI, lots of clicks and wouldn't play 16/44 without upsampling to 24 bit It also messed up the file associations in JRMC, and added a clone of all of them in .wma config. A real PITA. Initial impression via USB was where the hell has the music gone? Flat, lifeless, and frankly unlistenable due to the high level of PSU interference (incidentally buying the newer slimmer Viao PSU does not cure this!!! ). It's effectively therefore only any use via optical for me, I know the manual suggests donwnloading ASIO4ALL but this seems a bit home made for a £600 DAC when the much cheaper Dacmagic does this much more elegantly. In fact, compared to the Qute and even the Dacmagic, the M-DAC is a bit Heath Robinson, a bit of a home made tweakers delight. That said, once it's warmed up its a sonic treat. A nice big full dynamic sound, a bit less in focus than the Qute, and a bit less smooth and more obvious where the Qute just seems t vanish; but the differences are so small that I'm struggling to justify the extra £££s for the Qute.The M-DAC has as much detail, and tracks bounce along with great PRAT, which is for me the beauty of the Caspian. Incidentally, I've fond that the optimum filter setting is the "standard" optimal transient. Sweetest treble, and most natural sounding to my ears - took a while to choose it as I did it "blind"
  6. Agree with the last point, though I'd add having heard them all, the opinion of hi fi mags, in fact anyone else is irrelevant: I know which one I'd recommend. I'm done woth the Qute for now, and am auditioning the M-DAC, what a mixed feeling I have, but that's another post.
  7. I've posted a short review of the Qute on a separate thread previously. I have an M-DAC arriving Tuesday next week, so will be able to compare the NAD to the three DACs + The Roksan. The M-DAC will have to be pretty special to equal the Qute, which is (in audiophile terms) night and day compared to the DACmagic+ In sensible people's terms, I'm still not sure that kind of sonic improvement is actually worth spending an additional £700 or so. That's a whole bunch of CDs, and it's not as if I detest the sound of the dacmagic, in my system the whole thing just rocks along with gusto.
  8. The M2 has a particularly fast rise time due to its open bandwidth design, which in theory would result in a good transient performance critical to pace. I guess I'm just not bowled over by Class D either....it might be arguably more "accurate", but to these ears it's less enjoyable.
  9. I'm going to one of the few to against the flow here. I returned the NAD back to the dealer yesterday, having swapped my Caspian M2 and DM+ back into service. Nowhere near as smooth or as detailed, but the music just bounced along more enthusiastically, has a bit more space around the soundstage and just a more infectious delivery. Next direction is to try a better DAC in the same system, currently auditioning the Chord QuteHD on a 14 day trial, and have an M-DAC off ebay to test out too from Tuesday next week onwards, so I'll have a good idea of what to do. I have to say the M2 + Qute is pretty inspiring, has the openess and detail that the NAD has, but with a stronger bass. Maybe it's just the amp / speaker interaction, some just work astoundingly well, I know a few Brits have found the Roksan and ProAc combination works very very well. It's a shame in some ways because I have a fond affection for NAD kit, having been one of the many beer addled students who had a 3020 / 3130 and loved it.
  10. I've got a 2010 model, just ordered a new Sony PSU from Amazon, they are differenet in appearance (slimmer) and rates at 19.5V so presume that's the newer one.
  11. Thanks for the advice - how can you distinguish between the two? I'd get a new one today if I was sure it was a new silent one!
  12. Getting there, need a new DAC to replace the DM+ in a JRMC Caspian M2 ProAc D18 system. So far, the QuteHD is top of the list, and the demo version I've got is very nice too so far...
  13. Well it burbles away through a DACmagic+, and the Chord Qute on USB, despite grounding both devices via the amp. Unplug the PSU, and silence! Is this the only lappy to make such an horrendous racket when on mains? It's plugged into a Tacima block, so it has a fighting chance. Incidentally, USB playback through a NAD C390DD is silent.....
  14. I'd be intrigued to know how many users there are with Chord DACs with any different interconnect cable experience, both optical and USB
  15. From my post on WHF I've posted my initial thoughts elsewhere, but a quick summary of the Qute It's simple to set up, beautifully made, but I'd prefer a cheaper case unless it adds to the sonic performance. If it's important to you, then it's a thing of beauty, much more so in the flesh so to speak. OUt of the box, this thing is smooooth, with a very nice analogue (LP12 ish) treble, with lots of subtle detail. The detail is such that the spatial positioning or focus of the sonic image is clear and precise, adding an air of realism especially to live recordings that haven't been mucked about in the studio, Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social club is a great example. The bass is nice and tuneful, and deep. There's a great sense of majesty to recordings where it's in the original mix, but my impression is that oversued cliche that it simply disappears from the chain, it doesn't seem to impart any particular tonality or presentation. In my system, this means that the combination of the M2 and the D18s is even more sharply matched, and I'm fast coming to the conclusion that these two are as a good a match as the iconic pairing Naim/Isobarik, or NAD 3020/AR18BX. Bearing in mind it's only a couple of hours old, I'll need to run it in and leave it for a few days and post some updates, but so far I'm impressed. The only isue I have is a pesky ground loop causing noise from te PC PSU - it's a Sony Viao, and when I spoke to Chord they were a little nonplussed by the problem, I'm the first to report such an interference which ocurs on USB only of course, since optical isolates the PC. I've set JRMC to WASAPI-Event as advised by Matt at JR, and it sounds as good as the USB connection for 16/44 and 24/96 tracks that I have.
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