Chord Blu MKII CD Transport

An upscaling CD Transport. Yes you read right, this CD transport upscales your discs using, according to Chord, "the power of the new Xilinx XC7A200T FPGA, which has a standout 740 DSP cores, to develop sophisticated WTA (Watts Transient Alignment) filtering and upscaling algorithms which can output digital data at 705.6kHz (16 x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution)." Whew!

The Blu chassis is shaped to fit perfectly on top of the Chord DAVE DAC, and Chord says they had to design these as two separate units since the Blu's Xilinx XC7A200T uses 10 amps (!!!) of current, and needed to be isolated from the DAVE. To connect the Blu and DAVE, there are dual BNC S/PDIF (RF-isolated) 705.6kHz outputs "to feed DAVE directly."

For use with other DACs, there are more conventional digital outs and even a digital input so you can upsample your other sources. Blu MKII should be available in the US around April for roughly $12,000.

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