Thank you ecwl. Much appreciated.I think the first upgrade is to connect your old Blu Mk1 via Toslink at 44kHz into the Hugo 2. Upsampling on the old Blu Mk1 is inferior to the Hugo 2 upsampling. Toslink is less likely to lead to subtle noise leaking into the Hugo 2. So it makes more sense to bypass the upsampling.
I’m not a fan of T5p so that’s would I would upgrade next but you must have chosen it for a reason so maybe that should be your last upgrade.
Since you own the QBD76 too, here’s another question for you, what do you like more?
Blu with dual BNC into QBD76 or Blu via Toslink into Hugo 2. If you like the former, you should upgrade to DAVE first. If you like the latter, you should upgrade to M-Scaler first.
I have tried the Toslink from my Blu MK1 into my Hugo2 at 88kHz sampling rate and to my ears the dual BNC from my Blu into my Hugo2 giving me 176kHz sounded much better. I also tried Blu MK1 into my Mojo (when I had it) and my Hugo2 with 44kHz sampling rate and both the 88kHz and 176kHz sampling rates gave a far better sound to my ears.
I find the T5P Gen 2's to be a great headphone beating thre T1 Gen 2's and HD800S's to my ears. Only negative for me is they can get a bit uncomfortable after about an hour of constant listening and I need to to take them off for 10mins or so before using them again.
Blue Mk1 with dual XLR or BNC giving me 176kHz into my QBD76 DAC is great for my two Chord Choral speaker systems but with the QBD76 connected to a dedicated Headphone Amp, the Mojo and Hugo 2 both used just as a DAC into a headphone amp and on their own as a DAC and heapdhone amp sound far superior with the Mojo and Hugo2 just used on their own the best for listening just to headphones. The Mojo and Hugo2 gave a much clearer sound connected to my speaker systems than the QBD76 did but not as much body and depth.
Im guessing if I bought the Dave it would serve me two purposes i.e. a great sounding speaker system and a great sounding headphone system although no good for portable use. Only problem is I would have to always travel with the Dave and my Hugo 2 for portable use as one of my Chord Choral speaker systems is in UK and the other one in my home in Spain.
Also as a couple of other Head-Fi members have pointed out, buying the Dave would hopefully stop any further required upgrades on the source for a good few years to come, although always in the back of my mind would Chord come out with a Dave2 this year with a more powerful headphone amp to match the TT2.