A Lust (Love) Letter to the Chord Hugo2
What is the enjoyment of music? I’m sure there is a purists definition of the concept, but would it mean something not quite so esoteric to the uninitiated? Would it be better to liken the enjoyment of music to the enjoyment of anything else in life: art, food, wine, sex? You can have lots of it, and really like it, but does that make it “good”? I’m talking abut wine of course; get your minds out of the gutter!
I’m really not one to review things, but I do have strong opinions on the things I like, and hate; especially things I hate. I’m looking at you crappy hair cutting place I used to go to! Anyway, I digress…after having waxed poetic (on the Head-Fi forums) about my previous DAC/amp, I felt compelled to write about the Chord Hugo2. And perhaps waxing poetic is a bit of an overstatement…it was a basically a wine-infused love letter to music, the hardware maker, and anything else that popped into my cabernet soaked mind that evening in early August last year.
So while last time was a rant, I’m hoping this time to be just a tiny bit more focused and maybe even throw some audiophile sounding terms into the mix, like musicality and transparency...those are real terms right? I might even once again mention how most of my headphone purchases have been made on the down low since if my wife were to find out she’d likely wrap the cord of the phone around my goodies, squeezing the life out of them whilst she called the meanest, cruelest, least-scrupulous divorce attorney she could find. Of course I am being hyperbolic; who has a corded phone these days?!
Love letters are interesting things, really. We fall in and out of love. We proclaim from the highest hills that our love for someone will have no end and we could never imagine being with someone else. Yet. For myriad reasons, love wanes, just as surely, hopefully, it waxes again someday. And isn’t that true with our love of the devices through which we listen to and enjoy high fidelity music? As with love, it is so with music devices; I am no expert. But not being an expert never kept me from making a fool of myself for the fairer sex. Similarly, not being an expert on hi-fi has not kept me from buying bits and pieces here and there as I chase that elusive goal of The One; sound familiar?
But let’s be honest, this is the where the similarities end when comparing hi-fi equipment and love; lust is the more appropriate adjective/verb (adverb?) in this domain. We all lust for that perfect sound; telling ourselves that the next piece will be the Endgame…knowing deep in our hearts, we are likely lying to ourselves and any of our friends that still talk to us about this stuff. Hey! If I can listen to my brother-in-law talk about his love of aquarium fish and rock tumblers, he can listen to me talk about headphones and DACs! I told him last year, this is it, I have it! I’m done! Yet knowing I’d be lusting for something else one day…
And that day came last week when the Chord Hugo2 arrived at my home. Frustratingly, yet predictably, the night before my return to work…and I get up early. So I decided to wait until the night before my first day off before I plugged it in and gave it a good listen…is what I should have done! Instead, like the eager new boyfriend that has been enjoying first base and given the sign to head to second, I threw caution to the wind and blindly, swiftly, unhesitatingly, sprinted my way towards a likely easy out…
That first night with the Hugo2 I A/B’d between my other DAC and Hugo2 until way too late at night/morning. I tore myself away from my exhaustive listening session and got about four hours of sleep that first night. Fortunately I smartly knew that in a few days it would be Friday and I could take the time to really give the Hugo2 a listen with some proper free time and not miss out on sleep during my work week….is what I should have done….
That first week with the Hugo2, I averaged about four to five hours of sleep each night. Ironically, by my Friday, I couldn’t keep my eyes or ears for that matter, open to have a great late night listening session…I was wiped out from four nights of heavy listening to my new love, I mean lust….the Chord Hugo2.
My setup is simplicity with no frills. I once had an office. Then I had kids. Now I have a coffee table, or counter, or patio table, or bathroom counter while the kids (and wife) think I’m doing my business. Anyway…forgive the tangent; free-roaming and non-sensical tangents are part and parcel to being a dad with young kids. My setup:
- MacBook Pro
- Chord Hugo2
- Focal Clear (OG) headphones
- Tidal, fed to Roon (still figuring out if I want to go all in on Roon). And Tidal since I liked it more than Qobuz and Spotify is lagging on their flavor of hi-res music…c’mon, Spotify!
I do not have:
- Fancy pants headphone cables, power supplies, line conditioners, BNC/DMZ/RNC/NBC/PDQ connection adapters, or one of the pretty leather hand-stitched pouches for carting around my Hugo2.
After reading countless pages on Head-Fi about the Hugo2; well not countless, you can count the pages, it’s just a lot of pages and felt countless. But It gave me a good idea of what to expect when considering the Hugo2; yet more importantly I was able to read insights from Rob Watts. My takeaway from Rob was that simplicity, both in his design philosophy as a pathway to the most pure (linear) sound through the DAC and on our side as listeners was to put as few impediments as possible between us and that accurate sound we wanted to achieve. Isn’t that the goal of all this? We want the sound that makes us feel we are in the first row at that concert or in the studio booth when that track is being recorded. At least I think that is Rob’s goal. Well it’s mine at least.
So all this ranting, do I have an opinion? If my sleepless week can attest, like staying on the phone chatting with a new love(lust), I couldn’t hang up. I wanted to hear and know more. Songs spoke to me in ways I hadn’t heard or been able to before. I also started to understand what separation meant, because I could hear it! And while I had read terms of transparent or clear, I could not understand what pin-drop, silence really, REALLY meant.
Maybe terms like this aren’t quite useful. I am a non-audiophile lover of music…is that redundant, like chili con carne with meat?
So in plain speak, what did the Chord Hugo2 sound like to me?
The sound felt as though it expanded past my headphones if that makes sense….I’m sure someone might describe that as soundstage. But I felt like the breadth of the music was exploding outside of my Focal Clears; not that the Clears couldn’t keep up, it felt (god help me for the Spinal Tap reference) it took my cans to 11.
On a previous review of my now replaced DAC/amp, I wrote that when I test out new headphones or amps I usually give a 30 second listen. But with that new DAC/amp (now replaced by the Hugo2) I was listening for 2-3 minutes. Well now, I am not only finishing the song I have heard a bazillion times (scientific reference, don’t dispute me) and then continue listening to the next song instead of tracking ahead! This is significant in many ways. First, it tells me what I am listening to is not fatiguing…I want to hear the entire song. But also, and perhaps more telling, this was an unstated goal for an end game (don’t roll your eyes at me!) setup…to actually want to listen to an entire track, and the next, until you have completed the album/CD/playlist. Remember when we used to do that?
I could go on and on (I think I already have) but really, if you have been on the fence to give the Hugo2 a listen, do it. But be warned, as Elvin Bishop (who?
https://tidal.com/browse/track/3237739) cautioned, sometimes you can fool around and then, without warning, fall in love. So while I was in deep lust with the Chord Hugo2, it has now blossomed into full blown love. This is where I want to be for the foreseeable future. While the Focal Utopias may be the end game for headphones, I will have to wait a very long time to justify and afford their expense. For now (poor me!) the amazing Focal Clears will “have to do”.
Attached to this rambling post is my testing playlist and a phot of my setup. If you read this far, thank you, but go do something productive! Cheers!
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/3685763e-8990-4371-816a-5656e2cfac29
