Through the bass, the CT10’s presentation is responsive and deep. There is dynamic punch, emotion and a musical interplay between the lower guitar chords in our right ear, and the melody toying with our left. Joni’s voice is tonally precise, with the space around her vocal allowing for nothing short of exceptional instrumental detail in terms of the strummed guitar strings. We switch to Sennheiser Momentum 2 wired headphones and, with the clicking now eliminated, the difference is startling. It appears to be an issue with the Bluetooth module interfering with wi-fi in the CT10, rather than any edginess to the sound presentation. Switching to wired headphones, the interference disappears entirely. We pair the five-star Melomania 1s to our comparison player, the Sony NW-A45 and the interference in the higher treble disappears. All I Want sees Joni’s voice soar up through her incredibly effortless head voice, but there’s a perceptible clicking sound. We kick things off with Joni Mitchell’s Blue album, loaded to the Activo as a FLAC file. It's very tweakable, too, with no fewer than ten EQ levels to tweak and six ready-tweaked presets for various music genres. On paper, then, the Activo CT10 should be a great little PMP for hi-res streaming and offline playback. Tidal is embedded in the player and serves hi-res MQA streams, typically at 24-bit/96kHz. That means it’s capable of streaming hi-res music wirelessly. We link a pair of Bluetooth headphones, Cambridge Audio’s Melomania 1s, and an on-screen notification tells us we’re using an aptX connection – the Activo CT10 is among the few budget players to support aptX HD as well as MQA (Master Quality Authenticated).ĪptX HD allows playback with up to 24-bit resolution and sampling rates as high as 48kHz over Bluetooth, provided you pair it with wireless headphones that also support aptX HD. Tapping ‘Album’ is too close to the ‘back’ arrow on the cramped screen and so we’re continually being sent back to a previous screen while searching for music. The Smartphone-style user interface is bright and easy to understand, but also suffers as a result of the screen size. The screen is too small for keyboard functionality, and we grew frustrated as we tried and failed several times to key in our Spotify and Tidal account username and password. One potential issue is that the touch screen is small, making more involved tasks a struggle. Tidal, Spotify and Amazon Music are all built-in, so with a subscription and wi-fi, you can stream or download your song choices to access when you’re out and about. Unlike some entry-level PMPs (personal music players), wi-fi is onboard, which widens the ways in which you can access music. We download the Mac file transfer software and, after a few minor issues with the Android File Transfer, we are able to load music directly to the Activo CT10. We recommend doing both, even though you’ll need the former more often than the latter.Ĭharging time is four hours and, once fully-charged, the battery life is a claimed 10 hours. Once the player is hooked up to your computer, you’ll also need Astell & Kern’s MQS Streaming Server software, enabling you to stream music over shared wi-fi from either your computer or a local server with a DLNA connection. Certainly no system for pay/salary reviews and increases that I saw.Ĭonstant fights from upper management to middle-management and mis-direction to the crews.Mac users will need to download the free Android File Transfer Utility from the Activo website to manually copy music files onto the CT10. No sense that any sort of moving up in the company will be possible. They will not provide porta-johns on site. No parking at sites - you have to pay for your own parking. You are expected to use EI if you are sick. They make you sign a document saying you will work for zero OT unless "authorized by the company". There are always material shortages, and man-power shortages. Everyone is constantly running around like a chicken with it's head cut off and sometimes things don't get done/or missed. The Calgary Office Management- have really no idea how to function as an efficient team. Very little training, you have to provide ALL Your own tools and safety equipment.įoremen for the inside crews had no leadership training or ability to lead (at least that I saw) Little if any work plans or structure for jobs passed on to the onsite crews. Work load is high and everyone seems stressed and rushed to do things at the last minute. It is mainly a contractor to a contractor for a large telecom company- wages are the LOWEST in the industry that I have seen.
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