Popular Post TheAttorney Posted February 22, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted February 22, 2019 An excellent review @austinpop. So clearly presented, with all the comparison information one could wish for. I've had my own HMS for a few weeks now (added to DAVE) and my own thoughts broadly agree with yours. In particular: 1. The quality of source and all upstream components still matters. 2. My single rail SR7 (set to 15v) gave an incremental improvement, in paricular giving a more natural presentation over stock power supply, which in comparison sounded a bit "etched". 3. Tweaking the stock BNC cables gave incremental improvements: With only one cable connected at a time (i.e. not using the full 1M taps), I tried multiple clip-on ferrites (17) and JSSG 360. They were both better than stock, but I couldn't decide which was best, but it didn't matter because of the next change: 4. After some research and PMs, I tried a pair of Blaxius^2D BNCs as being a relatively low cost upgrade (around 250 Euro each + VAT in EU countries). I'm nowhere near the allegedly 150 hour burnin required for these, but even from the first day I was taken aback by the improvement they gave. My subjective initial reaction was that they doubled the improvement given by the stock HMS. One of those "Whoa, I didn't see that coming!" moments. I'll report back after some more burn-in when I'm out of the honeymoon period. So I'm curious how the Blaxius would compare to the other cables you tested. Any chance you could get a set to review? I've been following the Habst reviews with interest, but they are just soooo expensive. One word of warning is that the Blaxius is thick and very stiff, with a large radius of curvature, so choosing the right length is important. PeterSt and Jiffi32 2 Link to comment
TheAttorney Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 1 hour ago, ted_b said: Regarding the M Scaler vs HQP, I am VERY interested in someone doing some relatively equivalent comparisons... Anyone? I have used (and still have) HQP on laptop to drive my portable iFi iDSD DAC/amp. Leaving the weird BugHeadEmperor aside for a moment, it was the best sounding s/w app I knew of at the time, and the upsampling and filters etc made worthwhile subtle improvements in that environment. A bit extra detail/dynamics/smoothness etc - but the original sound stayed fundamentally the same. It's a huge apples/oranges shift to try to compare that to HMS/DAVE, but nevertheless I feel confident that the subtle upsampling effects that HQP gave would never compare to the transformational impact the HMS has on DAVE. I say "transformational" because of, for example, the way HMS adds significant image height across the whole width of the soundstage. The HQP upsampling didn't even begin to be able to pull off a trick like that. I should add that I find HMS transformational in some ways and rather subtle in others. When I listened to a HMS/TT2 in noisy meet conditions, I noticed the difference the HMS made, but it seemed rather underwhelming under such conditions. I agree with those who say it takes some time to tune in to the full range of benefits. BTW, I made a typo in my last post that I can't now correct: I described my SR7 as single rail. What I meant to say was that it is single regulated (with 3 rails). Currawong 1 Link to comment
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