Christer
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2015
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Does anyone know what advantage native DSD will provide over the DSD capabilities of the original Hugo and Mojo? Is it mainly to allow higher res DSD?
I wonder the same as you.
But does HUGO 2 really do DSD natively?
If so, it would be the first ever Chord DAC to do so.I interpreted the presentation covering DSD as more refined filtering employed. But still the same decimating approach as before?
Another thing that now seems clarified via a response from Rob over at the DAVE thread is that HUGO 2 will NOT have galvanic isolation. Bummer. That is one area where my Benchmark DAC2 HGC is vastly superior to my HUGO. The Benchmark is super smooth and full bodied compared to HUGO´s suceptibility to RF ground loops or whatever has caused it to sound unlistenable in my home system far too often apart from those flimsy bad RCA connections.
This means I would still have to buy an Intona or similar proper galvanic isolator for home use.
Moreover Rob claims the reason for this lack of galvanic isolation even on HUGO 2 is that it is mainly intended for" planes,trains and automobiles."
I never listen to music on planes although I too am a frequent flyer.
I don´t own any noise cancelling headphones and there are no such phones that I consider good enough for the classical music I almost always listen to.
Besides I don´t think that my fellow travellers would appreciate my taking out my baton and conducting along to what I would be listening to at such times.
Unfortunately I rarely get to fly 1st class or business class anyway.
The same applies to trains although they are generally a bit less noisy.
And when I drive my car I partly go into creative mode but keep the main part of my attention on the road ahead and the traffic around me.
I would be a real traffic danger if listening to Mozart or Beethoven while driving.
Classical music is intoxicating!
I simply don´t get this obsession of listening to music while doing something completely different while doing so.
Music as a background to something else except dancing, is basically just noise to me.
It sounds promising though, if HUGO 2 actually sounds fuller and with more body than sometimes thin and wiry HUGO.
One of the most underestimated things in audio engineering these days is the need for LOTS AND LOTS of power especially at loud climaxes in symphonic music.
At home my amp reaches peaks of 300- 400 hundred watts on a regular basis. Sometimes more.
HUGO doesn´t do Mahler very well for example.With good headphones there is simply not enough power from HUGO.
If warmth ,fullnes and power are done without compromise and colourations that could actually be an indication of more resolution and better more realistic SQ.
With few exceptions as for example some bad venues acoustic music actually sounds both warmer and fuller than via HUGO and most other digital for that matter. The only exception being DSD which actually has a tendency to almost always sound warmer and softer than the real thing. No digititis with DSD. But at the expense of lower resolution. At least with standard DSD 64.
With this new information coming I will probably not really be in rush to buy HUGO 2. I will carefully compare it to competitor´s products in the same price range first and according to some here and over at Computer Audiophile there might be some interesting alternatives which might give HUGO 2 a good run for its money.
And one thing that confuses me is the M scaler everybody seems obessed about,which to me seems to be some kind of upsampler and according to some other experts upsampling could be done in software both cheaper and better than in
"überexpensive hardware".
Anyway hopefully Rob doesn´t do his serious testlistening on "planes, trains or automobiles".