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Chord Electronics - Hugo 2 - The Official Thread
Apr 7, 2018 at 12:29 AM Post #11,986 of 22,475
Wow, I’ve been listing to H2 plus WA8 individually and together. MQA sounds phenomenal. It’s the future. I feel anyone who says it’s not great, is just hanging on to the past.

By the way H2 is 100% best headphone DAC available right now. Anyone who says different is just full of BS.

Chord and PS audio have the best DACs on the market period. I am a newbeeie however my ears don’t lie. I know what I am hearing.

Tidal works phenomenally well, if you want to stream you can’t beat Tidla or MQA. Anyone who disagrees is just wrong.

I have both desktop and living room setup with very good hardware. Even A/B al the different scenarios SACD, AIFF, ALAC, FLac, Streaming Tidal via MQA & Mconnnect etc... I can say with surety there is not that much difference. Maybe minuscule at best.

Rob Watts and Chord 100% makes the best DACs and hardware available, PS audio is next. I have connected via Smartphone, via USB, via Coaix, Via HDMI, & I have OPPO 205. whenever I put on a track or song using Tidal MQA the sound quality is absolutely better. This is true with both my living room stereo system as well as desktop audio system at work and at home.

I’ve spend time reading and watching al the MQA Tidal back and forth, however to my ears MQA sounds better on all scenarios.

This isn’t an attack at Natemact, sorry to get on the soap box, but I am just getting crazy by reading all the different H2 emails. I’m surprised Rob even responds to some of the back and forth emails that have been recently been going through.

I know this is controversial I do t really care
 
Apr 7, 2018 at 2:47 AM Post #11,988 of 22,475
Currawong said:
I don't suppose you were listening to the MQA "Masters" were you? They are deliberately compressed to make them sound more detailed. Also, all the Universal Music tracks are audibly watermarked, so I've been considering ditching TIDAL altogether.
Click to expand...

It’s a can of worms of course and way OT but I have just resigned my subscription to Tidal so that I can ditch MQA and taken out a Hi Res (192khz) streaming suubscription with Qobuz. Not too OT though because non of the Chord DACs unfold MQA because of Rob Watts view that MQA degrades the sound.

Buster1679 said:
Wow, I’ve been listing to H2 plus WA8 individually and together. MQA sounds phenomenal. It’s the future. I feel anyone who says it’s not great, is just hanging on to the past.

By the way H2 is 100% best headphone DAC available right now. Anyone who says different is just full of BS.

Chord and PS audio have the best DACs on the market period. I am a newbeeie however my ears don’t lie. I know what I am hearing.

Tidal works phenomenally well, if you want to stream you can’t beat Tidla or MQA. Anyone who disagrees is just wrong.

I have both desktop and living room setup with very good hardware. Even A/B al the different scenarios SACD, AIFF, ALAC, FLac, Streaming Tidal via MQA & Mconnnect etc... I can say with surety there is not that much difference. Maybe minuscule at best.

Rob Watts and Chord 100% makes the best DACs and hardware available, PS audio is next. I have connected via Smartphone, via USB, via Coaix, Via HDMI, & I have OPPO 205. whenever I put on a track or song using Tidal MQA the sound quality is absolutely better. This is true with both my living room stereo system as well as desktop audio system at work and at home.

I’ve spend time reading and watching al the MQA Tidal back and forth, however to my ears MQA sounds better on all scenarios.

This isn’t an attack at Natemact, sorry to get on the soap box, but I am just getting crazy by reading all the different H2 emails. I’m surprised Rob even responds to some of the back and forth emails that have been recently been going through.

I know this is controversial I do t really care
Click to expand...

Bold and categoric statements!

I am glad you like the H2.

A possible minor correction, is not Dave rather than H2 the best headphone dac available or is it my BS coming to the fore there?

Have you tried any of the other non MQA hi res streaming options from Qobuz and others?

Also, take time to find Rob Watt’s statements / views on here about MQA. As the Chord DACs do not unfold MQA what are you using to do the unfolding?

Perhaps have a look here for a different view to yours of MQA
www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

Anyway, all of this is way off topic but it does concern sound quality through H2 so is perhaps it is a permitted diversion.

And by the way, this is not an attack on you, merely a proposal that there are alternative views on MQA and why it's unfolding is not supported on Chord DACs.
 
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Apr 7, 2018 at 4:53 AM Post #11,989 of 22,475
OT, but it has been shown that MQA use some form of compression or other processing to make it seem more detailed. I've found tracks with unpleasant distortion in MQA format where they've obviously been rushed through without any proper testing of the results. Then there are those with very distinct pitch changes, and that's before we get into it being lossless and not high-res at all.

Then, we have the issue of Universal sending audibly watermarked music to TIDAL. The future for me is buying as many CDs as I can of the music I like while I still can get them without all the crap.
 
Apr 7, 2018 at 11:24 AM Post #11,990 of 22,475
Anyone using SOtM sms-200 Ultra and sps-500 with H2? I appreciate your comparative feedback on other digital sources that you tried. People on internet are totally gaga over these things and got me curious. So far, I tried H2 using RPI Hifiberry Digi+ via Optical (AQ Coffee cable) + ifi SPDIF Purifier, S8+ using UAPP via USB, Macbook JRiver via USB. None really made material difference in terms of sound quality. That tells me that all of the sources that I tried are just on the same level. Do the SOtM combo really worth $2K???

Edit - Just tried S8+ Bluetooth AptX .. wow .. transparency, detail, and, staging are amazing. Android / Samsung must have updated AptX / Bluetooth implementation. I mean I tried Bluetooth while back and was not really impressed. But now, this has to be most musically satisfying connection in my system!
 
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Apr 7, 2018 at 1:31 PM Post #11,992 of 22,475
Buster1679 said:
Wow, I’ve been listing to H2 plus WA8 individually and together. MQA sounds phenomenal. It’s the future. I feel anyone who says it’s not great, is just hanging on to the past.

By the way H2 is 100% best headphone DAC available right now. Anyone who says different is just full of BS.

Chord and PS audio have the best DACs on the market period. I am a newbeeie however my ears don’t lie. I know what I am hearing.

Tidal works phenomenally well, if you want to stream you can’t beat Tidla or MQA. Anyone who disagrees is just wrong.

I have both desktop and living room setup with very good hardware. Even A/B al the different scenarios SACD, AIFF, ALAC, FLac, Streaming Tidal via MQA & Mconnnect etc... I can say with surety there is not that much difference. Maybe minuscule at best.

Rob Watts and Chord 100% makes the best DACs and hardware available, PS audio is next. I have connected via Smartphone, via USB, via Coaix, Via HDMI, & I have OPPO 205. whenever I put on a track or song using Tidal MQA the sound quality is absolutely better. This is true with both my living room stereo system as well as desktop audio system at work and at home.

I’ve spend time reading and watching al the MQA Tidal back and forth, however to my ears MQA sounds better on all scenarios.

This isn’t an attack at Natemact, sorry to get on the soap box, but I am just getting crazy by reading all the different H2 emails. I’m surprised Rob even responds to some of the back and forth emails that have been recently been going through.

I know this is controversial I do t really care
Click to expand...
Try caring. When someone expresses an opinion, cool. When someone says 'you're wrong if you disagree with me,' even if some of your opinions 'may' be right, I tune them out. I'd take 192 over MQA any day, because I can keep my Hugo2, and not be forced into buying a lesser DAC with MQA. And, I believe Rob's reasons for not preferring it. I like debate over dictation, so I've chosen to block you from now on. Life's too short.
 
Apr 7, 2018 at 3:12 PM Post #11,993 of 22,475
opienor said:
Just discovered this to be a really powerful combo. The wonderful sound of the Hugo 2 DAC with the added power of the Questyle CMA600i through MrSpeakers Ether Flow. Very punchy and fun:gs1000smile:

27409303298_9b242fd5b4_k.jpg
Click to expand...
I swear by the 600i Mojo combo for my LCD3. I have a Qutest on order to step it up a notch. The 600i is an underrated product because most people have not heard it with an external DAC.
 
Apr 7, 2018 at 3:58 PM Post #11,994 of 22,475
Buster1679 said:
Wow, I’ve been listing to H2 plus WA8 individually and together. MQA sounds phenomenal. It’s the future. I feel anyone who says it’s not great, is just hanging on to the past.

By the way H2 is 100% best headphone DAC available right now. Anyone who says different is just full of BS.

Chord and PS audio have the best DACs on the market period. I am a newbeeie however my ears don’t lie. I know what I am hearing.

Tidal works phenomenally well, if you want to stream you can’t beat Tidla or MQA. Anyone who disagrees is just wrong.

I have both desktop and living room setup with very good hardware. Even A/B al the different scenarios SACD, AIFF, ALAC, FLac, Streaming Tidal via MQA & Mconnnect etc... I can say with surety there is not that much difference. Maybe minuscule at best.

Rob Watts and Chord 100% makes the best DACs and hardware available, PS audio is next. I have connected via Smartphone, via USB, via Coaix, Via HDMI, & I have OPPO 205. whenever I put on a track or song using Tidal MQA the sound quality is absolutely better. This is true with both my living room stereo system as well as desktop audio system at work and at home.

I’ve spend time reading and watching al the MQA Tidal back and forth, however to my ears MQA sounds better on all scenarios.

This isn’t an attack at Natemact, sorry to get on the soap box, but I am just getting crazy by reading all the different H2 emails. I’m surprised Rob even responds to some of the back and forth emails that have been recently been going through.

I know this is controversial I do t really care
Click to expand...


I happen to be a big fan of both chord and PS Audio DAC's but i also think we are talking opinion not fact lol
 
Apr 8, 2018 at 1:17 AM Post #12,000 of 22,475
after about 80 hours burn in. Hugo 2 settled into an ultra smooth yet extremely detailed sounding gear. while experimenting with filters I found green filter ( incisive with high frequency roll off ) has made the sound all the more analog like and has become the default setting. listening music sitting in other room is my best test of a system. if that way with other activities music is not distracting , the test is passed . hf cut filter does exactly that. Hugo 2 makes everything live . great achievement
 
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