Chord "blu" CD transport

£3K seems a more realistic, I'm sure They've changed Tact'd as (From what I believe, It wasn't based on the Dac 64 camcase, but more in keeping with 'Mans' range of gear and a lot more than £3k retail .
Still case stiffiness and construction would concern moi, Is it going to have a seperate 'off board psu?', not a lot of room in there for all the gear and a good power supply, and decent case, cynical me, too bloody right

 

tony,
chord are maniacs for switch mode psu's. their founder was an aeronautics electrician who specialised in smps so i doubt you'll see any big toroidals in any chord gear... well ok maybe the 12000 but even that's an smps i believe.
cheers

julian

 

You're right Jules - the left side of the DAC64 is a little compartment with the switched mode PSU in it. Gets VERY hot I would imagine the transport will be the same.



Michael.

 

Good job SMPSs last a little bit longer than the " average light bulb" comparison that I was taught about

Oww ..... dig that chopper noise. Who is it that thinks they don't sound hard.... :duck:

 

I wonder what it would sound like with a 'Proper' power supply on it Humm, Might be worth investigating this, might even turn in a good sound then

 

tim,
none of the smps in my house have ever gone pop, and they've outlasted many a lightbulb

tone,
smps are used by many a manufacturer. i seem to remember long ago pre b/c you were rather impressed with the linn klimax.. this uses a smps hence it's waffer thinness.

not that i'm an advocate of smps but if they produce a sound some like then there's a market for them (in audio - they've pretty much taken over everywhere else).
cheers

julian

 

Tone - isn't your Belcanto just one big SWPS anyway? That's what class T amps do isn't it? :devil:

Michael.

 

Ju, may well have been, but time moves on, space and size constrictions being a useful pluses, but I'll take me torridial any day (with a few minor aditions), we have the odd psu kicking about, I give Me bro a call see if he won't mind his 64 up for a bit of surgery :MILD: , there is just so much out there that can be improved for not a great amount, I think this one is going to turn in some intresting results. will try and get some photo's up next week, plus a spot of groveling to Martain

 

Tut tut, fraid not odd bean :newbie: :newbie: :newbie: :cry: maybe thats an old class 'd' sir
Strictly linear my good man very quiet too

 

Ju

ever had any halogen downlighters go pop on you and then discover its the transformer, not the bulb? I believe that most 12v transformers are smps these days - and they don't seem to be particularly robust either.

reg

 

Hmm long lasting SMPS? Ever seen all the broken Philips CDR's thatcome up for sale? Guess what's wrong with most of them

SMPS have been around almost forever, only reliability problems have kept them from world domination, after all they are cheaper, lighter and smaller because they don't need a big transformer. Admittedly semiconductor technology has improved and so the high speed chopping FET's etc are better then they were, and now they can run faster (as opposed to 25 kHz where they used to be ... niiicccceeee..., hardness anyone ).

I'm surprised Naim haven't adopted them already for that added "edge of th seat"-ness in fact. Oh know, I know why......
...after all they're not interested in a circuit unless it can be traced back to the advent of the transistor are they....



Cheers

 

You get out the wrong side of bed today timpy? Being very contrary which is not usual at all

Michael.

 

Noooo, just messing about. :boogie:

Cheers

 

Nah, he's always like that, when he's working on his fave project (no it's not trying to extract life out of M/f kit), although I wonder what happens when you take out the Choke reg'd power supply
You lot are lucky, I got to work with him :buddies:

 

tone & tim,
as i said i'm not advocating smps' i like me beefy toriodals or c cores back breaker grade if you please. however i've had my printer, pc's, tv, vcr, etc. for between 5 and 10 years. they all use smps and none have ever gone pop. the phillips cdi is a p.o.s. (nice processor, shame about the huge amount of video memory that poor processor had to deal with) i was involved in a few games for that and the trauma is still with me.. the horror... the horror... the horror.

digital amps of which the b/c is a sub / super set (depending on your pov) do similar things to smps however they are dealing with much lower voltages and current so the switching frequencies can be much higher (or adaptive in tripaths case) effectively increasing 'bit rate' - in quotes cos it's not quite that simple with pwm.

tim, i don;t think naim have adopted them because they've stuck with what works and what their customers like, you may say what you like but they do know what their customers want.
also there seems to be a myth that smps dump grunge back into the mains and you know how anal most naimies are about mains. i don;t really notice 'that' much difference if i've got the pc on or not. the major thing is the fan which is physically very noisy on my laptop, i notice an improvement more when that gets switched off by the power management much more silent silences .
cheers

julian

 

real picture

in case it hasn't already been posted, I've noticed there's a real picture (as opposed to the CAD images) up at the
Canadian Distributor

cheers
Matt

 

Thanks Matt and welcome to the forum. A few of us got a hands on look at the "Blu" transport at the Heathrow Hifi show back in September. See here.

I even had a quick chat with John Franks about it but wasn't that impressed. At £4200 Chord are having a laugh. The lid of the transport seemed a bit naff and it slammed down rather cheaply. They could at least have put a nice smooth hydraulic action on it

When it's available here in Portugal I'll borrow one and hook it up to my DAC64 to see if they somehow have done something really amazing (even though I'd never spend anything like £4K on a transport) but I have a feeling my modified Teac T1 + Monarchy upsampler will walk all over it.

Michael.

 

Wouldn't the rack look like this?:

Don't think I'd really like that - no matter what it would sound like...

 

If you want a gorgeous looking piece of kit, look no further:

http://www.aaton.com/products/sound/cantar/

 

Err yes. Beautiful. If you say so.