UPGRADE PATH FROM CHORD QUTEST

I find most rock recordings to be subpar, so if you’re happy with the sound with other genres it’s probably the recordings and making them sound more palatable may come at the price of making good recordings sound worse — not a good trade IMHO.  That said, if there are improvements you’d like to achieve in general (and who among us don’t have those?) it would seem to me either your DAC or preamp would be areas where there’s significant upside potential, and maybe one thing to consider is the new LTA Audio Aero DAC that member @teajay just reviewed and offers a 14-day trial.  Personally I’d seriously consider doing that just to see what it could bring, and my guess it’d be a lot and that you wouldn’t return it.  Just my $0.02 FWIW.

Your Martin-Logan's are excellent coherent speakers, however they would not be my first choice for rock music.

I really doubt that upgrading from your Qutest would yield the results you're hoping for.

If you're otherwise completely content with the ML's, perhaps a secondary system that focuses on rock and roll music could be a solution.

Best of luck for an answer.

      LP

Sorry if I was not clear in stating the types of music I listen to. Many recordings that I stream sound thin, whether classical, opera, rock, or ballads sung by Sinatra, Diana Krall. etc. For example I streamed Rachmaninovs 2nd Piano concerto using the Qtest DAC and the Lumin U2 mini and the sound was unlistenable. The music itself is as good as it gets.  I was just thinking about getting more detail from my DAC. I like the Chord Qtest Dac, It was a great leap from the DAC I previously listened with. I was just thinking whether I can replace my DAC with the budget that I mentioned and take another leap. Thank you.

I don’t believe the DAC is the problem here..I have NEVER heard or read about any modern Chord product not passing enough detail...I go back to my very first thought..What kind of tubes are in the PreAmp?Modern production Chinese & cheaper Russian tubes are notorious for sounding thin or bright compared to good NOS or the better modern production tubes from Genelex & Mullard...
I also wonder about your cabling?

I may be replacing my preamp with the Bryston BP-19. Not planning to replace the stock tubes in the Rogue Audio RP-1.  Never said that the Chord Qtest is a problem. I believe that better sound quality can be achieved with a higher quality Dac. So far the Aero Dac has been mentioned. Was looking for advice from fellow music lovers as to their experience with Dacs.  Many members of this site has listened to numerous DACS. As far as cables go I use Cardas Cygnus all around from speaker cables to interconnects.