- I was referring to measurements of Chord DACs in general, inclusive of Rob's, Stereophile's,
ohmimage measurements of the Mojo and measurements from other sources. While I will allude that my technical understanding of the measurements is fairly limited, I have been fortunate enough to own Chord DACs and compare them to other DAPs. This is where Mojo comes in.
- Mojo was also claimed to have superior measurement over other DAPs and DACs, that were priced many time more its price tag. It was theorised that it should sound better than those DAPs. But when I compered to the LPG, I did not find it to be the case.
- What you say is true about the Lotoo PAW Gold (except it does run a class-A). Which is why it raised a red flag. I could refer you to a number of audiophiles who have multiple reference points, who share the same observation as mine that the LPG sounds better than the Mojo.
- If many of us are observing that a certain product 'X' sounds better than a product 'Y', while the measurements actually suggest otherwise, then are we measuring the variables that should be indicative of perceived sound quality?
- I don't mind giving props where it is due. You could check my Hugo 2 review under my profile and it performed better than the LPG and I had no trouble admitting it. I am not a Chord hater. After all, I own a Hugo 2 and I wouldn't own it, if I thought it didn't sound good. I am just not comfortable when claims like 'Chord DACs are superior over all the other DACs in the market' are made. It just creates a lot of hype and misleads people, when in reality there are plenty of great DACs out there that sound as good as Chord DACs.
- And thanks for pointing out the ETC measurement. I am guessing it is in one of RW's slides from the seminar. I will have to look that up later. I used to fervently read up on his posts and watch his seminars. But once I realised, there are other DAPs and DACs that sound equally good, I stopped caring about. But I don't mean that in any disrespectful manner to RW. All I have is respect for him and his engineering. Just that, there was a time when I used to think that, Chord DACs were superior to all the other DACs in the market. I just don't believe in that anymore.
- I was using the pairing of HD800S with Sony PHA-3 in a rhetorical sense. Meaning, PHA-3's performance is not to the level Hugo 2. I was using it as an illustration to prove a point that, brightness of the HD800S is what caused the fatigue when listening out of the Hugo 2, which is actually touted to help reduce the listener fatigue.
- Yes, most of the amps that pair ideally with the HD800 (and the other 300 Ohm Senns) typically have high OI, so that they can handle the headphone's 600 Ohm Impedance bump at 100Hz. But I wasn't referring to the HD800, when I said 'Lack of Synergy between Headphone and Source in terms of Impedance'. There are a few multi-BA IEMs with highly fluctuating Impedance Curves and some are very sensitive to the source impedance. There are a few IEMs which actually work better with a higher OI sources.
- Regardless of whether it is an IEM's or Headphone's flaw, my point was that, fatigue is more easily caused by other factors such as brightness, too much bass, listening at loud volumes, than, say noise floor modulation.
- Sure you haven't experienced fatigue on you HPs via the Hugo 2. But that does not conclude that, it was the low noise floor modulation on the Hugo 2 that prevented any fatigue. It could be numerous other factors such as lack of brightness in the recordings and headphones, your tolerance to treble, loudness at which you listen etc.
Anyways, thanks for this great post. I did learn a couple of things here. I will look up the ETC measurements later. I hate to drag this debate further and will stop here. Happy Listening!
