New Pro - Non sound quality observations

[Confused]

I finally received my nice new 1000 Pro yesterday.  For a while now I have been planning to make a few changes to my rack and to how everything is wired up.  So getting new amps provided a fine opportunity to get this done.  I mentioned this to Oxford Audio's Alasdair yesterday, making it fairly clear that I was not looking forward to this task.  Alasdair disagreed, stating that such tasks were fun, 'it's like grown up Lego' where his exact words I think.  OK, everything is done now, lovely!  Was it fun like grown up Lego?  Nope, a mixture of hassle pain frustration and mental torture, not I how remember Lego.  My rack is modular and I have quite a selection of the different rods that provide the shelf spacing.  Task 1 was to completely dismantle the rack, clean everything up and rebuild with shelf spacings revised to best suit my current set up.  This was straightforward, just very dull and time consuming work.  This task did have one highlight. With all the kit removed from the rack but all cables still in place, the mixture of many power, hifi and Ethernet cables, running neatly (ish) through a central cable tidy did look incredibly organic.  It looked like a complete cardiovascular system, centred around the 'heart', which is where Devialet master was located.  I really wish now that I had taken a picture of it, but I didn't.  So next task was the 'rebuild'.  This of course offered the first real bit of fun of the day, unboxing the new amps.

It's now I get to my first 'New Pro - Non sound quality observations'.  Firstly they are heavy, noticeably heftier than the Expert.  In the box you can lift and carry around the 'old' expert without thinking about it, the Pro is just that bit heavier and although still reasonably easy to handle, you do start to really think about the weight of the things.  A second observation is that I am convinced that the chrome finish is significantly darker.  Oddly enough I did not notice this when I auditioned the 1000 Pro in a rack next to a D800, so I might be kidding myself here, but I don't think so.....    Either way I am not too bothered because different or now, the finish looks superb. 

So to the system rebuilding.  Previously I had the curious situation of having a CD player at the top of the rack that was not actually connected to anything!  With my old D240, the CD was indeed connected digitally as you would expect, but going dual mono with the Audioprana S/PDIF to AES/EBU link cable, I lost one input and so the not used very often CD remained on the rack but could not actually be used.  My plan was to use the Toslink input to the Mutec MC3+USB to provide an additional input.  The even more cunning part of this plan was to also use my wyred 4 sound remedy reclocker before the Mutec.  The W4S has switchable Coax and Toslink inputs, so I now have a Blu-Ray player digital out, to the W4S, then to the Mutec, in addition, I have Toslink from my TV to W4S to Mutec.  So this gives me a double reclocked TV and frees up two Devialet inputs, the long neglected CD player has regained its digital input, plus I now have one optical input spare.   So far so good, everything done and working as it should.  By this time it was about 11:30pm, I fired up the PC to do a quick trial play of something via the microRendu and Mutec.  Here I hit a problem, the PC could not find the mR on the network.  No mR meant no playing tunes via the Mutec.  I started double checking all the Ethernet connects, checking the mR was getting power.  Tried powering down the mR, rebooting the PC, checking many things on the PC, swapping Ethernet cables, you get the idea.  At times like this you start thinking all sorts of things, for example my PC did quite a major Windows update on Friday, could this have messed something up somewhere?  It was now well gone midnight, so I put a quick post on Computer Audiophile re the mR issues and went to bed.  This morning, armed with a nice coffee, I checked for posts on CA, some guy from Virginia USA posted 'Make sure the micro SD card is still seated... I thought mine had died only to find I had released the card accidentally during a USB cable swap'.  I checked the mR, the SD card was indeed protruding, but by an absolute fraction, maybe 1mm, I clicked it firmly home, checked on the PC, mR was there alive and well.  I have to say that we are in an age now where we take a lot of modern technology for granted, but some idiot it the UK gets stuck plugging his hifi in, a quick post on line and some bod in the USA chips more or less saying yeah, I've done that too, here's how to fix it.  This is quite remarkable when you think about it.   I think I would have found the issue eventually, but for sure my man in America saved me a lot of time and frustration.

Anyway, the 1000 Pro is set up and appears to be working as it should.  It actually sounds pretty decent straight out of the box, although it had been plugged in and simmering nicely on standby overnight.

I shall sign off with one last 'New Pro - Non sound quality observation', the new 'electric blue' graphics in the display look excellent I think, although still invisible and utterly useless when sat on the sofa.

So what now?  I think I'll play a few tunes, why not? .....