[514077]

Just diverting from the impossible, quantizing diferent levels of products subjectively:  Talking about tracks to be played on one's new Hugo2,  how about Hoff Ensemble's Quiet Winter's Night?   It is a very ambient-sounding album, and A/B'ing the two Hugos will be an interesting exercise, at least for me.  Anyone else have some more ideas?

 

[Dobrescu George]

  Just diverting from the impossible, quantizing diferent levels of products subjectively:  Talking about tracks to be played on one's new Hugo2,  how about Hoff Ensemble's Quiet Winter's Night?   It is a very ambient-sounding album, and A/B'ing the two Hugos will be an interesting exercise, at least for me.  Anyone else have some more ideas?

 
I like to torture equipment - tracks that are horribly hard to play. 
 
Rings of Saturn - the heavens have fallen 
 
Obscurcis Romancia - Sanctuaire Damne 
 
DAnce Gavin Dance (almost anything from them is really hard to do for most equipment)
 
Haggard 
 
Things that make mistakes really easy to spot 

 

[miketlse]

Just diverting from the impossible, quantizing diferent levels of products subjectively:  Talking about tracks to be played on one's new Hugo2,  how about Hoff Ensemble's Quiet Winter's Night?   It is a very ambient-sounding album, and A/B'ing the two Hugos will be an interesting exercise, at least for me.  Anyone else have some more ideas?

I will try and post some tracks/albums tomorrow. I am listening to a lot of new music genres, and keep hearing tracks that I would like to hear how the Hugo 2 handles them.

 

[Deftone]

   
I like to torture equipment - tracks that are horribly hard to play. 
 
Rings of Saturn - the heavens have fallen 
 
Obscurcis Romancia - Sanctuaire Damne 
 
DAnce Gavin Dance (almost anything from them is really hard to do for most equipment)
 
Haggard 
 
Things that make mistakes really easy to spot 

 
I was expecting you say something thats like Diana Krall lol but then you tripped me up, nice selection.
 
im not realy that in to DragonForce but i use this sometimes its goes at a pretty good pace.
 

 

[Hooster]

  Just diverting from the impossible, quantizing diferent levels of products subjectively:  Talking about tracks to be played on one's new Hugo2,  how about Hoff Ensemble's Quiet Winter's Night?   It is a very ambient-sounding album, and A/B'ing the two Hugos will be an interesting exercise, at least for me.  Anyone else have some more ideas?

 
I just had a listen to Hoff. I suspect you will need some serious firepower to make that sound interesting/listenable. I found it to be on the boring side... 

 

[Dobrescu George]

   
I was expecting you say something thats like Diana Krall lol but then you tripped me up, nice selection.
 
im not realy that in to DragonForce but i use this sometimes its goes at a pretty good pace.
 

 
 
Dragon Force is lovely!~ 

You should check out Sonata Arctica, you might like it as far as power goes! 
 
Or, of course, Dream Evil. 
 

 
 
I never test equipment with easy songs. Even some metal is easy to do for many pieces of equipment, I want to see how equipment reacts to the most complicated, overly crowded songs. This is where good equipment is easy to spot. 
 
Before searching now, I did not know who Diana Krall is (was?).
 
My tastes in girl-voice kinda songs are much more caustic - Jill Tracy.
 
Especially the dark lyrics that haunt every chant of Jill Tracy are what I feel most comfortable with.
 

 

 
I don't think my music goes slower than this without brooding on the very deppressive songs of Grey Daze or La Dispute 

 

 

 
The rather sad side: Whenever I get something in my hands, I need to immediately change their mSD cards or load my things because almost always it's full of things I don't listen to 

 

[514077]

 

   
I like to torture equipment - tracks that are horribly hard to play. 
 
Rings of Saturn - the heavens have fallen 
 
Obscurcis Romancia - Sanctuaire Damne 
 
DAnce Gavin Dance (almost anything from them is really hard to do for most equipment)
 
Haggard 
 
Things that make mistakes really easy to spot 

 
I was expecting you say something thats like Diana Krall lol but then you tripped me up, nice selection.
 
im not realy that in to DragonForce but i use this sometimes its goes at a pretty good pace.
 

Is that a diferent vocalist.  Doesn't sound like ol' Zippy.
But your right.  Body Breakdown was a relatable song for me during my kidney failure.  Think I'll test with that.

 

[musickid]

Heinz made 57 varieties. imagine if we all had the same taste in music. what a boring North Korea type world that would be. variety is indeed the spice of life. with regards to the 4 filters i am about 70% of the way to fully understanding exactly how they work. I know others have called for a simplified block diagram here. Rob has provided some excellent feedback till now. once the operation of the filters is fully understood the hugo 2 is fully understood. this equates to more than just a superficial explanation for me.
 
thanks mk

 

[Hooster]

  Heinz made 57 varieties. imagine if we all had the same taste in music. what a boring North Korea type world that would be. variety is indeed the spice of life. with regards to the 4 filters i am about 70% of the way to fully understanding exactly how they work. I know others have called for a simplified block diagram here. Rob has provided some excellent feedback till now. once the operation of the filters is fully understood the hugo 2 is fully understood. this equates to more than just a superficial explanation for me.
 
thanks mk

 
I myself am about 62% of the way to understand the filters. Well done.
 
To be perfectly honest I am a bit more pragmatic in my outlook. What I would really like to understand are things like how long can we expect the battery to last if the device is kept permanently connected to power. 

 

[musickid]

imagine a world where we all strived to understand the same things......lol
 
the battery life is essential too. mk

 

[Neo Zuko]

As other posters have correctly stated, its because it is earthed (or a path to the mains power), and so currents then flow from the source to the power amp, into the mains, then back to the source via the source mains PSU. If ground loop has RF or signal related currents flowing, then it will create micro voltage drops on Hugo's ground plane, and this is the mechanism for it to then alter the SQ.

When I get back home from Asia (Mook headphone show in Jakarta this week-end) then I will be re-running the listening tests with some ground loops added, and then see what happens.

The instant you add optical, or galvanic isolation, then the source can't transmit currents into Hugo's ground - that's why isolation sounds better. additionally, battery powered sources that only connect to Hugo 2, also can't create currents into Hugo's ground plane.

Rob

Sorry if this has been answered already. If my main source is a laptop on a battery that is not plugged in, I get that there is no need for galvanic USB isolation. However, is that still the case (no need for isolation) if I plug that laptop in to the wall to charge while playing music (as it still maybe runs off the battery section)?

I don't know how a laptop power system works when charging, however I assume that the laptop is still running on battery power and that the power cord is separately charging the battery. Does it follow that you still don't need galvanic isolation as it's still technically running off the battery?

Also can you tell me what the best product(s) is or what a good product(s) is for isolating the Hugo 2 myself?

Ideally I would have a Hugo 2 dock that added XLR out and Galvanic USB isolation along with Chord Poly-like wireless functions with full size SD card playback via iOS features. Then the Hugo 2 truly becomes an all in one solution.

Edit: never mind I saw you answered a question like this already.

 

[flyte3333]

Sorry if this has been answered already. If my main source is a laptop on a battery that is not plugged in, I get that there is no need for galvanic USB isolation. However, is that still the case (no need for isolation) if I plug that laptop in to the wall to charge while playing music (as it still maybe runs off the battery section)?

I don't know how a laptop power system works when charging, however I assume that the laptop is still running on battery power and that the power cord is separately charging the battery. Does it follow that you still don't need galvanic isolation as it's still technically running off the battery?

Also can you tell me what the best product(s) is or what a good product(s) is for isolating the Hugo 2 myself?

Ideally I would have a Hugo 2 dock that added XLR out and Galvanic USB isolation along with Chord Poly-like wireless functions with full size SD card playback via iOS features. Then the Hugo 2 truly becomes an all in one solution.

 
Hi, Rob is the expert so I look forward to his reply but in my learnings on the Computer Audiophile forum (from John Swenson - designer of the Uptone Regen, microRendu etc) running your laptop off battery will help but your USB audio source will still be a noisy PC going direct to a Dac.
 
Rob includes galvanic isolation on his non-portable Dac's USB input, to isolate from the computer's noisy USB output.
 
Lot's of guys in this thread have an Intona (or similar) between their Dac and Computer. I've recently tried a PS Audio LANRover and it really does take the already great performance up another level. I've had to return that one this week unfortunately because it didn't play nicely over my network. But when directly connected to the PC it was incredible.
 
Another gentleman (or two) here has a microRendu with Uptone LPS-1. Here the USB audio source isn't the noisy PC but a specially designed little computer (the size of a cigarette packet) designed with components selected for audio playback only. There's another similar device, the SoTM SMS-200, which has amazing reviews.
 
Having said all that, Rob's mentioned the difference between the Hugo 2's Toslink and USB input performance (in terms of noise effects) is almost non existent, compared with Mojo and Hugo 1. So it's possible adding USB galvanic isolation before the Dac's input may or may not improve things. Which is amazing. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
 
I've made a really bad assumption in assuming you have a noisy PC. You can get really high end USB cards for PC's now that feature similar custom designs, designed and built specifically for audio. SoTM and JPlay have been making these for a while. They are pricey though.
 
The most cost effective solution (which isn't cheap) if you really want an effective USB solution is a USB isolatng device like the Intona. If you don't have any 24/96 or higher music, then the Olimex USB Isolator is extremely cost effective and even recommended by Rob in an old thread. Otherwise you need a high speed isolating device like the Intona,
 
There are 2 new ones coming out that also feature Regen features built in - iFi iGalvanic3.0 and Uptone ISO REGEN. I would wait until the prices and reviews of these have come out, over the next 2-3 months or so. 
 
Again, I'm nowhere near as qualified as Rob so I'm not answering for him but it's an interesting topic to me.
 
Cheers !

 

[Rob Watts]

 

  Heinz made 57 varieties. imagine if we all had the same taste in music. what a boring North Korea type world that would be. variety is indeed the spice of life. with regards to the 4 filters i am about 70% of the way to fully understanding exactly how they work. I know others have called for a simplified block diagram here. Rob has provided some excellent feedback till now. once the operation of the filters is fully understood the hugo 2 is fully understood. this equates to more than just a superficial explanation for me.
 
thanks mk

 
I myself am about 62% of the way to understand the filters. Well done.
 
To be perfectly honest I am a bit more pragmatic in my outlook. What I would really like to understand are things like how long can we expect the battery to last if the device is kept permanently connected to power. 

The simple answer to that is - a very long time. Hugo 2 will actually work with the battery disconnected. Also I have put in a desktop mode (charger connected for > 24 hours), so the battery voltage is reduced to 8.0 to 8.2 V for longest possible battery life. And in this mode, the battery is not using up the charge/discharge cycles - so it should last practically indefinitely. 
 
Rob

 

[x RELIC x]

  The simple answer to that is - a very long time. Hugo 2 will actually work with the battery disconnected. Also I have put in a desktop mode (charger connected for > 24 hours), so the battery voltage is reduced to 8.0 to 8.2 V for longest possible battery life. And in this mode, the battery is not using up the charge/discharge cycles - so it should last practically indefinitely. 
 
Rob

 
I'm guessing you mean to 8.0V from 8.2V. This is a very welcome change, thanks Rob.

 

[elviscaprice]

  The simple answer to that is - a very long time. Hugo 2 will actually work with the battery disconnected. Also I have put in a desktop mode (charger connected for > 24 hours), so the battery voltage is reduced to 8.0 to 8.2 V for longest possible battery life. And in this mode, the battery is not using up the charge/discharge cycles - so it should last practically indefinitely. 
 
Rob

 
This is new news and would get me onboard to purchase the Hugo 2.  So if I we're to remove the 2 Lipo batteries, the Hugo 2 would operate with a 5V 2amp supply via the USB micro power connector?  I would imagine that sound quality would be dependent on the power source?