[Rob Watts]

 

The green makes a very big difference with 96 and 192 - its easy to hear - but it is very much smaller with 44.1 as there is almost no noise to filter out.. 

Do you recommend the green filter option for DSD as well or have your improvements to DSD made white the generally optimal choice?

White to green (256FS filter HF filter on) is not a big change, but it certainly sounds warmer. DSD 256 benefits more than DSD 64, exactly like PCM. 
 
The problem with DSD is that my DAC's expose the problems of DSD - the biggest being that a DSD noise shaper has timing errors that are amplitude related (and not sampling related like PCM). With DSD, a very large transient (say fully negative to fully positive) will immediately change the bitstream output, so no delay. But a small amplitude transient will take much longer, as the signal won't get initially thru the quantizers, so the noise shapers integrators will take time to build up the error; this then means the transient is delayed. I have seen this on simulation - and the timing errors can be tens of microseconds. Given that one needs a timing accuracy of tens of nS, not uS, this is one of DSD's Achilles' heels. And like sampling related timing errors, it makes the leading edges sound soft - so you get an unnaturally warm and soft sound with DSD. So adding extra warmth, even though its technically more accurate, may not be the best thing to do. Nonetheless, I just leave it set to green, as DSD is a tiny percentage of the music I enjoy listening too.
 
Rob

 

[Mojo ideas]

I'm wondering as we aren't getting any younger if John Franks and Rob watts will put something in place when they retire like teaching all they know for someone to take over the business,it would be sad for all that knowledge to be lost forever, I'm happy to do an NVQ level 1 in electronics to carry on the Chord name

Ha I've thought that one through. though surprisingly Rob didn't seem to pleased, I told him my long term future plan is to map Robs brain at the quantum level and lay the data into a gigantic twentyfifth generation liquid cooled Xilinx FPGA then we can call on him whenever we need a new design, of course we will naturally, have to dissect his brain in the first place but as I told him "everyone must make sacrifices for the greater good "

 

[Rob Watts]

 

Absolutely production code! And very big holes for the RCA.
The engineer in me can't accept worse than -0.8 dB at 20 kHz, as worse than -1 dB can't be considered flat!

Hi Rob: I have ordered the new Hugo 2 and cannot wait to hear it! I really liked your presentation and explanations. The latest measurements are truly impressive, especially for for example distortion. In terms of dynamic range that is of course also extremely good. I however do not read from your comments that this as is important (ie something that you focus on) as much as other factors such as distortion and noise. Is that correct? The reason I am asking is that some Hi fi magazines seems to focus on the dynamic range (or possibly SNR which I thinks is similar (?)).. Would be interesting to hear your view. Thank you. Paul

I could easily have a dynamic range (DR) better than 130 dB - I think I could hit 135 dB from the DAC point of view - this is because the noise is actually not the DAC, but the amp noise and mostly just the resistor noise (Johnson Nyquist thermal noise). Because the noise is 90% down to this, then we get the remarkable situation where every single DAC coming off the production line has the same noise performance within +/- 0.2dB. Normally, there are huge measured differences from one DAC to another for distortion and noise, with massive changes with time and temperature - and this simply does not happen with pulse array. I have never heard any warm up or break-in time with Hugo 2, because of this and the fact that Hugo 2 has no AC coupling capacitors at all as it has the digital DC servo.
 
So why don't I go for lower noise? Firstly its not needed - unless you have hyper sensitive IEM's you will never hear it - but the real reason is distortion. If I were to reduce the resistor noise by a factor of two (reduce resistance by 4) then distortion would increase by a factor of 16 - and in this case that would be unacceptable with massive consequences for sound quality. The current element resistor value is in the sweet spot before distortion rapidly increases and at the same time having acceptable noise performance.
 
This illustrates some of the fine tuning and balancing that have to be made at the design stage.
 
Rob

 

[514077]

 

I'm wondering as we aren't getting any younger if John Franks and Rob watts will put something in place when they retire like teaching all they know for someone to take over the business,it would be sad for all that knowledge to be lost forever, I'm happy to do an NVQ level 1 in electronics to carry on the Chord name

Ha I've thought that one through. though surprisingly Rob didn't seem to pleased, I told him my long term future plan is to map Robs brain at the quantum level and lay the data into a gigantic twentyfifth generation liquid cooled Xilinx FPGA then we can call on him whenever we need a new design, of course we will naturally, have to dissect his brain in the first place but as I told him "everyone must make sacrifices for the greater good "

I'm chortling.  But, while you're here, @Mojo ideas, were you guys able to extend battery life for the H2?  It doesn't really matter to me, as I'm more of a desktop user.  But I'm curious, just in case.
Thanks for your time on here, Rob 'n' John.

 

[Deftone]

Specs look very impressive, I look forward to hearing it.

 

[boomtube]

Who's the best dealer to pre-order from in the US?

 

[raypin]

Mm..I have faith in Moon Audio. Positive experience for the past 2 years.

 

[phonomat]

Absolutely production code! And very big holes for the RCA.
The engineer in me can't accept worse than -0.8 dB at 20 kHz, as worse than -1 dB can't be considered flat!

The listener in me can barely hear up to 20kHz.

 

[rcoleman1]

Mm..I have faith in Moon Audio. Positive experience for the past 2 years.

Other options in the U.S.? Thanks.

 

[flyte3333]

Short answer: no. Long answer no... but I am basing my assessment on optical and USB sounding the same with a very high spec MSI lap-top with an i7, 32GB, 4K display (so its likely to be much noisier than a regular lap-top or a mobile) using headphones only. So further isolating the USB will have no effect; but of course different sources, different results are possible.
 
I must say I was surprised by the null result, I could hear clear differences before.
 
Rob

 


This is exciting stuff. So adding external USB galvanic isolation (like the Olimex) won't benefit the Hugo 2, in terms of sonic performance? The way perhaps Hugo 1 and Mojo may benefit

And when you're comparing USB to Toslink sonic performance, do you just use a cheap crappy un-shielded USB cable and a cheap Toslink cables to make those comparisons? Nothing fancy for either input ?

 

[raypin]

Mm..I was able to audition the Chord Hugo 2 during Canjam Singapore 2017. Optical out to AK 380 cu then fed my Noble Katana with Labkable Samurai (balanced). Played a couple of familiar tracks. While the sound is impressive, it is not a mini DAVE (proud DAVE owner here). Not even close. It is a second rate, trying hard copycat. Lol!

 

[jmills8]

Mm..I was able to audition the Chord Hugo 2 during Canjam Singapore 2017. Optical out to AK 380 cu then fed my Noble Katana with Labkable Samurai (balanced). Played a couple of familiar tracks. While the sound is impressive, it is not a mini DAVE (proud DAVE owner here). Not even close. It is a second rate, trying hard copycat. Lol!

Why would anybody think a $2,300 device will match or excell the same companys $10,000 device? Ill be happy if its better than the previous model(Hugo 1).

 

[Miksu]

...
The second reason for the filter options is that the incisive revealing nature of the filter does make it sound brighter. Now it is absolutely technically more accurate; it only sounds brighter because the brain can now more accurately perceive the starting and stopping of notes, and the starting and stopping transients have a lot of high frequency energy. When the brain can't perceive something, it simply ignores it, so it then sounds unnaturally soft, in that this is not truly transparent. But sometimes when you have say a bad bright recording, or say hard headphones, having a filter that allows you to hear high frequency energy may be a bit too much. But for sure you are using an aberration to hide another problem. So my advice is this; if you use the 16FS option (orange or red) all the time, then consider getting a warmer set of headphones, or trying out EQ. Normally you should be using white or green - I run with green all the time as its useful with 192 recordings.


 

...

Rob

 


This is very interesting. If records are mixed with non-Chord DACs which make the sound darker, the mixers are adjusting the levels accordingly to brighter? If that is the case there could be a 5th filter "balance real world too bright mixing". Maybe Mojo's darker sound actually balances this and thus sounds better than what Hugo1 sounded to me (Hugo1 was too bright for my liking).

 

[Triode User]

Why would anybody think a $2,300 device will match or excell the same companys $10,000 device? Ill be happy if its better than the previous model(Hugo 1).

Because of the pre roll out hysteria where people have got themselves worked up into a state where they have convinced themselves they are getting Dave performance for Hugo price.
 
If I believed that for one minute then I would immediately go out and sell my Dave and order a Hugo2.

 

[Triode User]

 

... The second reason for the filter options is that the incisive revealing nature of the filter does make it sound brighter. Now it is absolutely technically more accurate; it only sounds brighter because the brain can now more accurately perceive the starting and stopping of notes, and the starting and stopping transients have a lot of high frequency energy. When the brain can't perceive something, it simply ignores it, so it then sounds unnaturally soft, in that this is not truly transparent. But sometimes when you have say a bad bright recording, or say hard headphones, having a filter that allows you to hear high frequency energy may be a bit too much. But for sure you are using an aberration to hide another problem. So my advice is this; if you use the 16FS option (orange or red) all the time, then consider getting a warmer set of headphones, or trying out EQ. Normally you should be using white or green - I run with green all the time as its useful with 192 recordings.
   

...
  Rob

 


This is very interesting. If records are mixed with non-Chord DACs which make the sound darker, the mixers are adjusting the levels accordingly to brighter? If that is the case there could be a 5th filter "balance real world too bright mixing". Maybe Mojo's darker sound actually balances this and thus sounds better than what Hugo1 sounded to me (Hugo1 was too bright for my liking).

Aren't filters really just the modern version of a tone control and reflecting that we all prefer a slightly different presentation to the music?
 
I personally find the Mojo sound a bit on the soft side and much prefer the sound of the Dave/Hugo which seems more accurate to my ear.
 
Thats why its best to listen and then buy what you prefer rather than go by what someone else says. But also why maybe its a good idea to give the user some options for fine tuning the output as per Hugo2.