Chord Electronics - Hugo 2 - The Official Thread

[Peter Hyatt]

Edit

 

[ChisChas]

Quite a bit actually, it’s 500mA max Current for both.

Sorry but are you sure about this figure? I saw a post on the Dave thread that I think said that the Dave produced 0.5 mA of current in SE mode and 0.05 mA in Balanced.

Rob, please can you clarify? What is current output for Hugo 2 and Dave (the latter using SE & Balanced).

The Gizoid power/current page, I was referred to a short while ago in this thread, states the Utopias (my HP as of Tuesday), requires at 110 dB SPL, voltage 0.56 Vrms, current 7mA and power 3.92 mW. I entered an impedance of 80 ohms & a sensitivity of 104 for the Utopias.

 

[x RELIC x]

Sorry but are you sure about this figure? I saw a post on the Dave thread that I think said that the Dave produced 0.5 mA of current in SE mode and 0.05 mA in Balanced.

Rob, please can you clarify? What is current output for Hugo 2 and Dave (the latter using SE & Balanced).

The Gizoid power/current page, I was referred to a short while ago in this thread, states the Utopias (my HP as of Tuesday), requires at 110 dB SPL, voltage 0.56 Vrms, current 7mA and power 3.92 mW. I entered an impedance of 80 ohms & a sensitivity of 104 for the Utopias.

For headphone output yes. I am talking about the headphone output for the devices, not the balanced line-out on the DAVE which isn’t meant to drive transducers at all but rather feed a power amp.

Edit:

Categorically do not do this. The balanced drive has insufficient current drive and is intended to drive power amps only.

Dave can drive the HE1000 with ease - they are rated at 90 dB 1mW 33 ohms. Dave will give 1.4W into 33 ohms that translates to ear damaging 121 dB SPL with the HE1000.

Moreover distortion is virtually identical with a 33 ohm load - that is hundreds or thousands of times smaller than the best headphone amps. Unless you like the sound of distortion, and prefer reduced transparency, and no depth, don't use an external amp.

Rob

 

[Peter Hyatt]

2Go

Seeing photo on iPhone was small.

It looks Very nice.

I can’t wait thanks for announcement

 

[paulgc]

Wow. Looks incredible. Not rushing while getting Poly right isTime to start saving for a Hugo.

 

[ChisChas]

For headphone output yes. I am talking about the headphone output for the devices, not the balanced line-out on the DAVE which isn’t meant to drive transducers at all but rather feed a power amp.

So when the Gizoid formula table says the Utopia needs 7mA at 110 dB, the Hugo 2 & Dave have loads of spare current when they produce 500 mA for headphone output? Sorry but this area of discussion not my strong point so I need max clarification to understand properly (I'm no Rob Watts!). And I need the help of Head-Fiers like you to lay it out very simply for me.

 

[x RELIC x]

So when the Gizoid formula table says the Utopia needs 7mA at 110 dB, the Hugo 2 & Dave have loads of spare current when they produce 500 mA for headphone output? Sorry but this area of discussion not my strong point so I need max clarification to understand properly (I'm no Rob Watts!). And I need the help of Head-Fiers like you to lay it out very simply for me.

The device outputs the amount of power set by the volume to reach a certain dB level with a certain load. You can see by the chart that if you want more volume you need to feed the headphone more power.

I’m not sure what frequency the calculator is referencing (likely 1kHz), but bass notes would likely need more juice and higher frequencies would need less. The point is that the Hugo2 has far and away enough power for the Utopia to get ear damaging loud volume levels in seconds. I own both the Utopia and Hugo2 and I listen in the red volume range (lowest range) with the Utopia to get around 85dB average volume levels (relatively safe listening level - 110dB will damage your ears with a short length of listening time).

 

[Rob Watts]

I apologise deeply if anything I say in this post is in any way wrong.

I was recently on the cusp of buying a Poly, and was given a Poly/Mojo case by Audio T in Manchester. (I had asked if they could 'chuck me a Poly case' in with my Hugo 2 purchase. They were kind enough to say yes.)

However I later read of an issue when the Poly and Mojo play together from the SD card. I was told in the Poly thread, that they suffer hardware synchronisation and missing first half second of music. (The same as when using USB from a computer.) On a computer though we can buy JRiver and insert a second's silence to allow for hardware synchronisation. On a Poly I don't know if there is a solution when playing from SD card, (which uses USB). I asked in both Poly and Mojo thread, but no-one had found some software that compensated.

Unfortunately as I would only use the Poly as an SD-card player. I have now decided I could not live with clipping off the start of some tracks. I know it only affects the start of newly manually selected tracks, like when selecting a new album. However it upset me sufficiently enough on computer, to decide against buying a Poly.

Please, then is it possible that Chord can implement a fix for this, for Poly and 2Go. By inserting a second's silence to allow for hardware synchronisation. It would mean that after pressing play, that there would be a short pause before the music engaged. However I would be happy with that. (*Get's emotional thinking about this right now*.) Whereas under the current method playing from SD-card with the Poly, I would not buy a Poly. (Or a 2Go if it were the same.)


I understand that there is hype around the fact that the Poly reacts quickly. I realise that inserting silence to allow for hardware synchronisation would negate that hype. However for me the clipping the start of a track is a deal-breaker for me. .... Please can you either point us to some software that compensates for hardware synchronisation. I am hoping I understood right that Chord are developing a Poly app. If so, please can it compensate for hardware synchronisation. Or could you please implement a second's silence in the Poly firmware.

P.S. I think the Qutest is impossibly good looking.

This issue has already been fixed, well over a year ago now. What happened is the app when playing tracks would go through following sequence:
play - set to 44.1k >> stop - set USB to mute (no sample rate) >> play - set USB to 44.1k.

The DAC would then interpret the no sample rate as a sample rate change, and force a mute (a sample rate change must be muted as the app sometimes sends false data as the buffers are cleared).

But what I did was to recognise the 44.1>> no sample rate >> 44.1 as not an actual change in sample rate and did not force a mute - as the app/OS buffers would actually have 0 as data anyway. The mute is only enforced if a nett sample rate change actually happens i.e. 44.1 >> no sample rate >> 96 or 44.1 >> 96. Then you must mute the data as the app buffers will send out old/corrupt data at the wrong sample rate. This means that whilst playing tracks from the same album you will not get the mutes, and if albums are all the same SR you will never get mutes. Of course the issue in the past was fixed by forcing a 1 second initial silence - JRiver allows this for example.

 

[ChisChas]

I’m not sure what frequency the calculator is referencing (likely 1kHz), but bass notes would likely need more juice and higher frequencies would need less

The website page of the table results states that bass requires more juice so it's a useful resource. Thank you for clarifying this issue, I will try and 'educate' my dealer...................

 

[Rob Watts]

Sorry but are you sure about this figure? I saw a post on the Dave thread that I think said that the Dave produced 0.5 mA of current in SE mode and 0.05 mA in Balanced.

Rob, please can you clarify? What is current output for Hugo 2 and Dave (the latter using SE & Balanced).

The Gizoid power/current page, I was referred to a short while ago in this thread, states the Utopias (my HP as of Tuesday), requires at 110 dB SPL, voltage 0.56 Vrms, current 7mA and power 3.92 mW. I entered an impedance of 80 ohms & a sensitivity of 104 for the Utopias.

Both Hugo 2 and Dave can deliver 0.5A RMS as limiting current - but Hugo 2 can be voltage as well as current limited depending on load. So Dave will deliver 2.1W into 8 ohms, but Hugo 2 is 1.05W into 8 ohms.

The 50 mA current limit only applies to the balanced output, which is for balanced inputs on power amps, not for driving loads.

 

[ChisChas]

Thank you Rob, I love learning new things and I'm not someone who just wishes to hand over lots of £'s without understanding more. A Dave upgrade from my Hugo 2 would be a another purchase/upgrade on top of a new Questyle QP2R digital audio player, a Hugo 2 and on Tuesday, a pair of Utopias (all this headphone listening upgrades since The Indulgence Show) so I will keep asking for explanations, without which my limited knowledge and understanding will remain - limited.

 

[jayz]

Today I took delivery a Tacima CS947. https://www.whathifi.com/tacima/cs947/review ..................... I was for quite a long time very sceptical about results from equipment like this..

This thing actually works in most systems, I have a few of them, been using for a good few years now. I even have the older model.

For me, the only time I felt it made no positive benefit was with a pair of monoblock amps with overengineered power sections.

Try using it for your tele - it even improves picture quality.

 

[jarnopp]

I apologise deeply if anything I say in this post is in any way wrong.

I was recently on the cusp of buying a Poly, and was given a Poly/Mojo case by Audio T in Manchester. (I had asked if they could 'chuck me a Poly case' in with my Hugo 2 purchase. They were kind enough to say yes.)

However I later read of an issue when the Poly and Mojo play together from the SD card. I was told in the Poly thread, that they suffer hardware synchronisation and missing first half second of music. (The same as when using USB from a computer.) On a computer though we can buy JRiver and insert a second's silence to allow for hardware synchronisation. On a Poly I don't know if there is a solution when playing from SD card, (which uses USB). I asked in both Poly and Mojo thread, but no-one had found some software that compensated.

Unfortunately as I would only use the Poly as an SD-card player. I have now decided I could not live with clipping off the start of some tracks. I know it only affects the start of newly manually selected tracks, like when selecting a new album. However it upset me sufficiently enough on computer, to decide against buying a Poly.

Please, then is it possible that Chord can implement a fix for this, for Poly and 2Go. By inserting a second's silence to allow for hardware synchronisation. It would mean that after pressing play, that there would be a short pause before the music engaged. However I would be happy with that. (*Get's emotional thinking about this right now*.) Whereas under the current method playing from SD-card with the Poly, I would not buy a Poly. (Or a 2Go if it were the same.)


I understand that there is hype around the fact that the Poly reacts quickly. I realise that inserting silence to allow for hardware synchronisation would negate that hype. However for me the clipping the start of a track is a deal-breaker for me. .... Please can you either point us to some software that compensates for hardware synchronisation. I am hoping I understood right that Chord are developing a Poly app. If so, please can it compensate for hardware synchronisation. Or could you please implement a second's silence in the Poly firmware.

P.S. I think the Qutest is impossibly good looking.

Greenbow,

In the last couple days, @joe28 from Glider has solved the DLNA 1/2second truncation with Mojo/Poly in the latest beta. So, presumably if you will use the Glider app to play your SD card, if will be gapless and complete songs! Glider really is very good.

Happy listening!

 

[x RELIC x]

The website page of the table results states that bass requires more juice so it's a useful resource. Thank you for clarifying this issue, I will try and 'educate' my dealer...................

A couple more things that may help (if you don’t already know). One is that there is the source volume to consider. Typically you want to maximize the volume of your source. There’s also the recording levels to consider. For loud and heavily dynamically compressed music, like most modern pop music, you’ll likely want to turn down the Hugo2 volume compared to quiet high dynamic range music, like well mastered classical pieces, in which you may want to increase the Hugo2’s volume.

At the end of the day if you are listening at the blue range regularly with the Utopia from the Hugo2 then I would look in to the source feeding the Hugo2 or go see an audiologist.

 

[MikeRight]

2Go is exactly the same I had imagined.
Good design job... but now tell us something more!

Release date, specs, features, price,...