[Rob Watts]

Hi Rob Watts,
Im sure when I read your interview when designing the chord Hugo you were working late into the night over Christmas,do you have all the gear to work from home when your doing modifications,thought building the circuits need special machines at the factory as in fitting and soldering the parts

The prototypes come to me precision soldered - Chord do a special automated run for the prototypes. If I need to change components, it's no problem, I can solder with a needle tipped soldering iron for the small SMD parts, and regular chip resistors and caps are easy to change.
 
Actually, with modern SPICE simulation (this means you put the analogue design into a simulator which tells you the performance), and the fact that the base technology (that is say the pulse array DAC) is now very mature, I only needed to change 4 components, and that was down to the wrong parts installed. My calculations said the DAC would be 120 dB dynamic range, and it was exactly that.
 
The work over Christmas was FPGA coding, adding all the features needed, as the prototypes were tested 9 months earlier, followed by testing. 

 

[Hifi Nutter]

The prototypes come to me precision soldered - Chord do a special automated run for the prototypes. If I need to change components, it's no problem, I can solder with a needle tipped soldering iron for the small SMD parts, and regular chip resistors and caps are easy to change.

Actually, with modern SPICE simulation (this means you put the analogue design into a simulator which tells you the performance), and the fact that the base technology (that is say the pulse array DAC) is now very mature, I only needed to change 4 components, and that was down to the wrong parts installed. My calculations said the DAC would be 120 dB dynamic range, and it was exactly that.

The work over Christmas was FPGA coding, adding all the features needed, as the prototypes were tested 9 months earlier, followed by testing. 

That's really interesting thanks Rob

 

[SleepyOne]

holeout - Thanks re: cones & footers! I too agreed when using stock feet there really isn't much difference where you placed Hugo (a very good thing too!).

 

[Hifi Nutter]

It's really interesting Rob watts talking about the improvements made on the dac from the late eighties,nineties onwards,I bought my first cd player Sony and matching amp and it's sounded horrendous and the distortion Rob was talking about that makes it sound hard and to be honest un listenable and that's were music fatigue comes in that ppl talk about in here,i sold it to my brother telling him it has 8 x sampling 16 bit,didn't have a clue what I was talking about but he seemed impressed and bought it and loved the sound strangely enough,I then went the analogue route with the Linn sondek and naim like everyone did in the eighties to nineties,it wasn't until 2006 I went digital again with the wadia 861 se that I thought digital can rival analogue and now we have the Hugo which blows everything away,fatigue is a distant memory thank God,Tell the Mrs but it's one ear and out the other,yet when we outside listening to the Hugo she will unplug her headphones plug them into her phone to listen to her crap pop music and dance around the garden but then quickly gets bored of what I can only describe as music fatigue,I think amazing as the Hugo is its gonna be hard to convince the average music lover to pay out for something in their eyes is just another expensive system that to them isn't life changing,sad but true.Forgotten what the moral of the story is and sorry about banging on but I've got no mates

 

[smial1966]

HiFi Nutter,
 
You have lots of `mates' on Head-Fi, even if we are only virtual.  

 
Cheers,
Andy. 
 
Quote:

It's really interesting Rob watts talking about the improvements made on the dac from the late eighties,nineties onwards,I bought my first cd player Sony and matching amp and it's sounded horrendous and the distortion Rob was talking about that makes it sound hard and to be honest un listenable and that's were music fatigue comes in that ppl talk about in here,i sold it to my brother telling him it has 8 x sampling 16 bit,didn't have a clue what I was talking about but he seemed impressed and bought it and loved the sound strangely enough,I then went the analogue route with the Linn sondek and naim like everyone did in the eighties to nineties,it wasn't until 2006 I went digital again with the wadia 861 se that I thought digital can rival analogue and now we have the Hugo which blows everything away,fatigue is a distant memory thank God,Tell the Mrs but it's one ear and out the other,yet when we outside listening to the Hugo she will unplug her headphones plug them into her phone to listen to her crap pop music and dance around the garden but then quickly gets bored of what I can only describe as music fatigue,I think amazing as the Hugo is its gonna be hard to convince the average music lover to pay out for something in their eyes is just another expensive system that to them isn't life changing,sad but true.Forgotten what the moral of the story is and sorry about banging on but I've got no mates

 

[bmichels]

did some surgery on my USB cable, and now...it fits 

 
But boy, those MiniUSB female plugs seems sooofragile.  Hey M. HUGO, next time try to fit on the board a full size USB instead for the High-Def USB.
 

 

[weisse muller]

did some surgery on my USB cable, and now...it fits 

But boy, those MiniUSB female plugs seems sooofragile.  Hey M. HUGO, next time try to fit on the board a full size USB instead for the High-Def USB.

Chord said all their custom made USB cables are in now I'm sure if you ask they will send you a set

 

[jamato8]

 
I use this with excellent results. The cable handles all formats and is better sounding than anything else I have tried. The cable is is dampened every couple of inches. I ordered this because I like a flexible cable and one that obviously fits without any compromises and to the length I like. 

 

[Hifi Nutter]

Thanks mate really appreciate it

 

[bmichels]

 
 
I use this with excellent results. The cable handles all formats and is better sounding than anything else I have tried. The cable is is dampened every couple of inches. I ordered this because I like a flexible cable and one that obviously fits without any compromises and to the length I like. 

 
how much ? do you have a link to the buy-page ? 
 
thank

 

[zachchen1996]

   
how much ? do you have a link to the buy-page ? 
 
thank

 
There's no product page for a TWau Reference USB cable, you'll have to email Craig and custom order it.

 

[bmichels]

   
There's no product page for a TWau Reference USB cable, you'll have to email Craig and custom order it.

thanks. I will contact him
 
but before can you tell us how much cost this cable ? 

 

[zachchen1996]

  thanks. I will contact him
 
but before can you tell us how much cost this cable ? 

 
It depends on the length of the cable, but the IEM cable is $525

 

[PhilW]

Vertere cable all the way.

 

[Hifi Nutter]

Gutted my dad can't hear the Hugo,we use to demo gear together and he would of been blown away with.....the sound quality,he got a pair of the original grado rs1 headphones,I bought them not long after the twin towers went down Where they made the wooden boxes for the headphones,that's why they now come in cardboard boxes,a bit of useless information for Ya