So it’s just like my Qutest? The Qutest needed 500 hours to burn in but was very listenable after 100 hrs. The Qutest with the Aurender N150 before the M-Scaler (HMS) was installed had a very nice layered soundstage depth and excellent between the speakers imaging. Very little soundstage width compared to vinyl or even to the soundstage width of my old Bluesound Node 2i with the Qutest.
‘As you mentioned, clarity and detail are excellent with Chord products — it was on my Qutest prior to the M-Scaler.
I’m up to 15 hours listen-time. Fully powered 24x7. I know it needs much more burn-in but I’m really hoping for some soundstage width and vinyl-like organic more liquid sound from the Qutest-HMS combination. And I know the Nordost SS cable needs 80 hours to get burned-in and 25 hrs to really be even a just okay quality rating.
I’m using a fully-tubed integrated amplifier. The Chord pairing should be decent for system synergy. It was prior to the HMS addition.
I’ll keep listening. Thanks for the input!