True to their word, Meridian sent me a new Explorer2 DAC which arrived this morning.
I use Pure Music on my MacBook and could get no blue light. I checked that the 1717 firmware was already loaded as promised and it was.
After a lot of seeking in Pure Music and its manual, hidden under an inappropriate menu called Music Streaming, I found the command to switch off upsampling. The shortcut of Command Shift U, I have memorised!!! Still no blue light... hit play... Blue Light!!
I am now listening to 2L files in full at CD resolution with STAX 009s until I am feeling nice and relaxed and ready to post on the impressions thread!