Chord Qutest——>No difference

Being well familiar with Arcam gear having owned several Arcam components and currently using an Arcam AVR….

I think it will be difficult to hear the difference that the qutest will bring. Arcam already has a warm robust sound signature so it is already warming the sound signature from your blusound node. 
 

your wife is probably spot on that it makes the music sound bigger as that would easily be the effect of the qutest in an Arcam system. 
 

to help bring out the differences more for the better qutest  I would look to upgrading cables in your audio system, interconnects and speaker cables included. Arcam has enough resolution to benefit from getting better cables. 
 

I love the Arcam sound for my surround sound system. Warm clear properly weighty midrange sound without added high frequency hype or sizzle and doesn’t have one dimensional bass like most AVRs out there. 
 

I owned a Qutest as well for some time and know that it is a good dac still in its price range. 

@sudnh i ordered a couple of new digital cables (BNC to RCA terminated) coax cables that should arrive any day now. Let me break them in for a week or so and I’ll post my findings.

As I prefer a warm sound, I went with Arcam early on, though down the line I may swap out my preamp for tube-based Rogue Audio.

@jetter I considered your proposal but it’s just not feasible in my home.

@fuzztone @ddude003 @theo @jasonbourne71 @carlsbad2 @audphile1 @milo0812 @audioguy85 @sudnh @jetter 

Hello everyone, I arrived at the sound I desired, and thought I’d share my findings.
So to begin, the problem -from the outset- was power. Though I own a pair of 175W/channel (@8 ohms) Arcam P1 monoblocks, they aren’t enough.
As suggested, I toyed with Qutest’s 1-3 voltage settings but still was unsatisfied until…I integrated an external power supply! The LPS is set to 5v3amps, with the Qutest @ 2vRMS, and that resolved everything. The Qutest now has sufficient power to give the resolution & soundstage I expected.  My current preferred filter setting is warm with HF rolloff.
During all my tweaking, I also eliminated my Hydra 4 from the system, with the pre/amps now going directly into the wall, and everything else into my Furman power strip. I find this eliminated a dampening sound, making the audio experience cleaner & brighter.

Per @jetter ’s recommendation, I bought Cullen digital cables but am using my Chord USB until burn-in (using the free Tara Labs cascade burn-in recording).

A special thanks to @jetter btw who went above & beyond helping me get some curve balls sorted out.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

Charlie