I'm in London this weekend attending CanJam and I'm dealing with a bit of jet lag at the moment and am finding it difficult to sleep. With idle time on my hands as I wait for my sleeping pill to kick in, I thought I'd post some impressions about Hugo M-Scaler (HMS). At some point soon, I'm told Chord will start an official HMS thread but I'm not sure if and when I'll post again and so consider this a "one off" although I may drop in from time to time if I feel I have something useful to contribute and if time (and my wife) allows.
Back in March, when Rob visited me at my home in California, I mentioned in my long post that he had brought along a few prototypes. I wasn't allowed to discuss them at that time but what he brought with him were prototypes of TT2 and HMS. Along with Jay, chief reviewer for Audiobacon.net, we did a lot of listening and comparing but our listening was limited to speakers only -- specifically, my pair of Martin Logan Renaissance 15A electrostats.
Because I already owned a Blu Mk2, I wasn't that shocked by the improvement HMS brought and quite frankly, I was more surprised by how well TT2 directly drove my giant pair of Martin Logans. While ultimately, my 700wpc (into 4 ohms) Pass Labs X350.8 played louder, TT2 directly driving my Renaissance sounded just as dynamic and much much more transparent. The increased speed, detail, and depth were incredible and for music playback, the TT2 by itself was capable of powering my Renaissance to satisfyingly loud levels, as loud as any of us cared to listen. Rob attributed this to the very robust current output of the ultracapacitors built into TT2's power supply. It was one of those moments where I had to hear it to believe it and it was my first real taste of what Rob's upcoming DX amps will sound like driving big speakers.
This weekend, I got my first chance to listen to a production version of TT2 driving a variety of headphones and shortly after 13:00 (London time), I got my first chance to experience TT2
with HMS driving headphones.
To give you some perspective of its size, here is a photo of Rob holding HMS that I shot for Jay's website (audiobacon.net):
Not what I would call "fit in your pocket" portable but Rob tells me he now travels with HMS in his carry on and listens to it paired with Hugo2 on airplanes "because I can" since HMS can be externally battery driven (12-15VDC). On that note, TT2 can also be battery driven (12-15VDC) resulting in the most resolving and powerful portable headphone front end in the world.
Tomorrow, hopefully, I will have the opportunity to listen to more headphones on TT2/HMS including the demanding HiFiMan Susvara and Abyss Phi CC but even with the more efficient headphones that I had on hand today including the HEK V2, Focal Utopias, Audeze LCD-X, and Meze 99 Classics, I was impressed by the incredible authority and dynamic drive of TT2/HMS but not at the expense of elegance, poise and balance. This is now muscle amp territory but with greater refinement and without the fatiguing harshness or heavy handed bluntness associated with many brute force amps. Rob's DACs have never lacked for transient speed but with TT2, you now get a tremendous uplift in transient power. This was no more evident than when listening to the sharp, piercing physicality of a trumpet being blown or a drum being aggressively struck.
How did TT2/HMS compare against BluDAVE that conveniently sat beside it? Because DAVE is starting from a higher TAP count than TT2, M-scaler brings about a seemingly more dramatic impact on TT2 than DAVE upon first listen, however, upon careful A/B, even though both DAVE and TT2 were both operating at 1M TAPS, compared against DAVE, TT2 sounded more closed in and more shallow and these differences were not subtle. It's clear DAVE's 20-element design still trumps TT2's 10-element design as far as transparency is concerned and this was just as evident when he brought his TT2 prototype to my home a few months ago, however, if I am to be honest, because of TT2's better dynamic drive, I actually preferred TT2/HSM for certain headphones with certain types of music. We'll see how I feel when I get this pairing in my home but without question, I will be buying a TT2/HMS combo for my listening room in my home office and will probably find myself listening more to headphones again. I cannot recall ever enjoying listening to a pair of HEKs more than I did today.
How did HMS compare against the M-scaler in Blu2? I hope to do more careful A/B comparisons tomorrow but to my ears, HMS sounds a bit better. According to Rob, this is "because it is better" and he attributes this to the better isolation built into HMS. Do ferrites no longer matter? During our testing of the HMS prototype a few months back, I posted that we were all surprised (Rob included) to find that ferrites actually resulted in worse sound quality and while Rob, Jay, and I didn't always agree on what we preferred, as far as ferrites sounding worse, we were all unanimously in agreement on this one. Of course, there is an explanation for this but Rob has asked that I not discuss those details at this time. Does this mean the quality of BNC cables will no longer matter? Most know I firmly believe that cables do matter and it's not just about noise and so time will tell, however, I do believe cables will definitely matter less. When I first got my Blu2, I posted that I had problems with an irritating harshness with the "el cheapo" BNC cables that came with my Blu2. I appreciated no such harshness with these same "el cheapo" BNCs today which is a very good sign.
As for why Rob galvanically isolated HMS's USB input, he did it because he was getting dropouts and galvanically isolating the USB input cured these dropouts but interestingly, he also found SQ improved even though the BNC outputs were already galvanically isolated. Hopefully, this will end talk of having to put ferrites on USB cables because that's the last thing I want to do. According to Rob, to his ears, USB and optical are now equivalent although for the purists, HMS has 2 optical (Toslink) inputs and one optical output although the optical output will limit you to 1/4 million TAPS.
What does this do for prospective Blu Mk2 buyers? If you prefer the convenience of an integrated high quality CD transport and prefer the more expensive aesthetic of the Blu Mk2's Choral chassis, then Blu Mk2 remains your best option but as I see it, for those who are more practically minded, you could get by with any inexpensive CD transport and connect to HMS via optical or BNC SPDIF.
As for price and availability, as many have already seen, MSRP is 3.5k GBP which I think is very fair considering the massive upgrade in resolution and barring an unexpected parts shortage, shipping is supposed to commence in late August (same as TT2). Exciting times for sure and I hope the world grasps what a landmark opportunity this is for all DACs.
