[martyn73]

and I thought that is OCD

The point of the £65 case is to protect the Mojo, and this aim is defeated if the case design causes damage. The design flaw in respect of the lanyard is obvious.
 
I've taken the Mojo on holiday twice and managed to keep it in a presentable condition with basic care and common sense, so it's frustrating that the metal catch on the lanyard can very easily make contact with an exposed portion of the Mojo.

 

[martyn73]

Is there any merit in a desktop version of the Mojo with XLR out for connection to an amplifier like a Stax SR-727II?
 
Presumably to be truly balanced a DAC would need to have a separate circuit for each channel doubling the cost. I'm using an MX-DAC and not sure if there's any real difference compared with the Mojo. However, the consultation today with the audiologist was alarming!

 

[howdy]

I want!


New cable by Forza

 

[PopZeus]

It's weird. So many portable audiophile devices use 3.5mm inputs for their coaxial signals and yet, after doing a bit of window shopping, I can't seem to find anyone that makes decent, not-too-fancy, 75ohm short cables with that sized connector. I don't need anything ridiculously over-priced, but the most common standard coax cables are all longer than 3ft and have straight RCA inputs. Anyone got a suggestion?

 

[EagleWings]

  It's weird. So many portable audiophile devices use 3.5mm inputs for their coaxial signals and yet, after doing a bit of window shopping, I can't seem to find anyone that makes decent, not-too-fancy, 75ohm short cables with that sized connector. I don't need anything ridiculously over-priced, but the most common standard coax cables are all longer than 3ft and have straight RCA inputs. Anyone got a suggestion?

 
For DX90?

 

[PopZeus]

   
For DX90?

Actually, yes. 

 

[EagleWings]

Thanks EW!
So are you going to try a new route? My main use for the Mojo will be for streaming Tidal.

 
Not sure. I don't want to take the android route. I am considering an iPod touch. At least it solves one of the two problems I mentioned. Probably going to return the Apple CCK and wait for the Forza cable to go on sale. Their products seem to be not-so-ridiculously priced. So hopefully this cable has an affordable price tag too.
 

Keep in mind, you can also download the songs for offline listening so that you can listen on the go in airplane mode. You probably already knew this, but just in case you didn't.

 
Thanks man. But the problem is, I use Spotify almost exclusively for exploring/discovering new music which involves playing random tracks and thus requiring a WiFi connection. I kind of own most of the music I listen to on a regular basis and it is on my Fiio X3ii. 

 

[EagleWings]

Post Deleted.

 

[x RELIC x]

Is there any merit in a desktop version of the Mojo with XLR out for connection to an amplifier like a Stax SR-727II?

Presumably to be truly balanced a DAC would need to have a separate circuit for each channel doubling the cost. I'm using an MX-DAC and not sure if there's any real difference compared with the Mojo. However, the consultation today with the audiologist was alarming!

Balanced topology in Rob's designs is actually not desirable for transparency as his DACs don't suffer from the shortfalls of typical DAC chips, which balanced topology, to a degree, helps solve. You can read about Rob's approach to balanced vs SE in the third post of this thread. I'll include some of them below, which includes comments from the Hugo TT and DAVE threads, both of which have XLR balanced output for convenience, however the DAC implementation is SE.

Spoiler: Rob and John on SE vs balanced DACs

Originally Posted by Mojo ideas View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrDerrick View Post

Of course the balanced output is going to be better than the Mojo, the Mojo doesn't have balanced output.

No that simply is not correct! A single ended design, done right with a large enough voltage swing will easily out perform a balanced output. Balanced designs are used by some designers to overcome inherent limitations within designs. Usually to overcome substrate noise on the chip that shouldn't be there or to increase the output voltage swing of their amplifiers. We don't suffer those limitation or problems so we don't need a dodgy fix for them. Our measurements clearly show this. Sorry to burst you bubble man.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mojo ideas View Post

Balance operation is a fix for problems we don't have. We have no substrate noise and we have plenty of output swing. Single ended done right is far better than a balanced design far less distortion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Watts View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by agisthos View Post
Rob you should give a definitive 'why SE is better' explanation. Get it over with, because many (most) audiophiles have been biased towards balanced and are not going to understand where you are coming from.

One good argument I heard from the Densen founder (Thomas Sillesen) is that each half of the signwave runs through a series of components that will always have tolerances different from each other, so when combining the signal they will not ever match, causing an increase in distortion (of some kind I cannot remember).

Charles Hanson, of Ayre, who is a proponent of fully balanced equipment, has even stated that for pure sound quality SE will always sound better, but this is on the bench, where the power supply and analog signal stages can be kept physically apart. When putting them in a box he prefers balanced.

Well this is a complex subject, and sometimes a balanced connection does sound better than single ended (SE) - in a pre-power context - but it depends upon the environment, and the pre and power and the interconnect. But the downside of balanced is that you are doubling the number of analogue components in the direct signal path, and this degrades transparency. In my experience every passive component is audible, every metal to metal interface (including solder joints - I once had a lot of fun listening to solder) has an impact - in case of metal/metal interfaces it degrades detail resolution and the perception of depth. So going balanced will have a cost in transparency.

In DAC design, going balanced is essential with silicon design; there is simply too much substrate noise and other effects not too. But with discrete DAC's you do not need to worry about this, so going SE on a discrete DAC is possible, and is how all my DAC's are done. But differential operation hides certain problems (notably reference circuit) that has serious SQ effects; so going SE means those problems are exposed, which forces one to solve the issue fundamentally. In short, to make SE work you have to solve many more problems, but the result of solving those problems solves SQ issues than differential operation hides when you do measurements.

Rob

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Watts View Post

Component count is very important for transparency. Doubling the number of parts in the direct signal path does degrade depth perception and detail resolution.

But there is another problem with balanced operation. Imagine a balanced differential in, differential out amplifier. The input stage is normally a differential pair (maybe cascoded) with a constant current source. Now the input stage is free to move up and down to accommodate the common mode voltage - but the input stage common mode impedance is non linear, and if the common mode voltage has a signal component (it always will have due to component tolerances) then this will create a signal dependent error current, thereby generating distortion. Unfortunately, the negative feedback loop of the amplifier can't correct for this distortion as it can't see the error on the summing nodes. So there will always be a limit to the performance. With SE operation, this problem does not occur, as the differential input stage is clamped to ground.

Now DAC designers are well aware of this - that's why all high performance DAC's use two single ended I to V converters from the current OP of the DAC's, then use a differential to SE converter to create the voltage OP. There are other reasons for doing this as well, as the DAC requires a very low impedance virtual ground for low distortion, and you can only get this using dual SE amps - another problem is RF and its much easier to decouple SE than differentially - this in turn creates a lot more noise floor modulation, making it sound less smooth.

But for me the most important is transparency. I had an amp that had two modes - differential or SE - listening in balanced mode flattened the sound stage depth dramatically,and it sounded harder, less smooth. That said, there are circumstances when balanced operation can be better than SE, for example when you are looking at connecting a pre-amp to a power amp, and what is best depends upon particular circumstances. In short, if SE operation is noisy, try balanced.

Rob

 

[rcoleman1]

I want!


New cable by Forza

 
Link?

 

[EagleWings]

   
Link?

 
You'd have to wait till next week..
 

 

[jaibautista]

Yes we would always allow any of you to replace your batteries however we did ensure that the battery within Mojo was very well specified it is not s normal type It has an extended operating temperature and this sort of thing usually pays off on terms of extending the life expectations of a battery quite dramatically. We could have gone for a far cheaper type but we wanted our customers to buy Buy a Mojo and to never have to worry about swapping batteries and of course we'd not have to worry about it either so there is a pay off for chord too.

 
Hi John,
 
Thanks for the reply!
 
I really appreciate the thinking, design, and engineering behind the Mojo. There is not a day in which I don't wax poetic for the Mojo, even if I've been using it almost every day since purchasing my unit almost five months ago. And such daily use is what's making me worried about the battery until quite recently, after having read @x RELIC x 's response to my query as well as yours. Buying the Mojo is certainly among my best purchases ever even if it's the most expensive audio-related item I've purchased. I was actually thinking of buying a separate desktop DAC for my home setup (I'm using an Lake People G109-A to power my HD600 and HE-400i) to preserve the Mojo's battery life; the Schiit Bimby came to mind. But after reading the feedback here, I think i'll just shelve those plans and continue using the Mojo as a line-out DAC instead.
 
Thanks again for the assurance!

 

[howdy]

   
You'd have to wait till next week..
 

Yeah it will be available this weekend or early next week, it will be around $140.00 but should have a 2 year warranty as all of his stuff does.
 
On another note, does anyone here have a 128gb iPod touch and if you do what is the approximate amount of Tidal FLAC songs. 

 

[canali]

Yeah it will be available this weekend or early next week, it will be around $140.00 but should have a 2 year warranty as all of his stuff does.

On another note, does anyone here have a 128gb iPod touch and if you do what is the approximate amount of Tidal FLAC songs. 

From what I've read and calculated, each Tidal flac (Hi Fi mode ) download offline at 1400kps is 10mb/min.
Say a 5 min song has then 50mb
128gb x 1024mb then divide by 50mb/song = 2621.44 songs
.
Of course deduct 6-10gb due to apps on ipod.

Am I right or off the mark in what you were asking?

 

[howdy]

From what I've read and calculated, each Tidal flac (Hi Fi mode ) download offline at 1400kps is 10mb/min.
Say a 5 min song has then 50mb
128gb x 1024mb then divide by 50mb.
Of course deduct 6-10gb due to apps on ipod.
Am I right or off the mark in what you were asking?

Thanks, yeah I was hoping for around 2500 to 3K songs so that's on par. I was considering a Sony experia but will probably get a iPod touch.