[Sam Edwards]

  Wow, that's a long thread. I think I'll have a look through it tomorrow. The Kanex Pro seems an interesting device and at $56 on Amazon at the moment is very reasonably priced. Ideally it would be great if I could have all my disks ripped properly but maybe this is the next best solution? Are you using one of the old PS3s to extract DSD from your SACDs?

I would steer clear of the Kanex since it doesn't support 24bits. I think Ted_b found a better unit that doesn't truncate the signal. 

 

[Sam Edwards]

Astell and kern users with a Hugo is all bling look how much money I've got,it's like having a top of the range Ferrari with a state of the art roof rack your never gonna use,all the money you pay for a astell and Kern your by passing to go to the Hugo anyways,paying two thousand and 200 quid for 240 gig what a total rip off

You're not going to find the best without trying a few things out.
Horses for courses. The AK's are great for exercise and planes, Hugo is better for desktop and hotel rooms. 

 

[elviscaprice]

For me, I don't ever use any portable player on the move in public, consider it unsocial and dangerous.  Especially the Hugo,  combination portable transport with some kind of high end cans. 
But in a static position, definitely would do in the right circumstances in public.  Thus for me a PC playing JRiver with two accessible unique USB ports is ideal.  (I don't think there would be much of a difference in sound between a PC JRiver and a transport such as Astel & Kerns.)
Right now you can get an Asus T100t 32tb at Tiger Direct (free shipping if you sign up for 2day with an Amex), total cost is $234.99.  Make sure to get the extra $15 discount on their webpage with your email. 
This little 10.1 inch (2.6 lb) unit will operate on full Windows 8.1 using JRiver.  Great battery life, as much as the Hugo.  Use a micro OTG usb cable for the micro usb port.  Here you can use any kind of a flash drive, if access to power, a full HDD is possible.  Also you have the SDXC card reader port.  There is a usb 3.0 port for the Hugo and it's fully needed dedicated 2.0 on the keyboard.  Is a cheap alternative along with internet wifi in static locations on the go.
 
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8926588&cm_mmc=EML-_-Main-_-MBWEM4108-_-tigeremail4108&SRCCODE=MBWEM4108&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=MBWEM4108

 

[Sam Edwards]

Sound quality wise, the Hugo is my favorite component. I'm hoping with a Seagate Wireless 2TB and a CCK for my iPhone 5 I can finally leave my AK120 at home for most trips. I'll report back when the Seagate arrives. I've already converted all of my high resolution flac files to ALAC in preparation. 

 

[deadie]

I left my Hugo on during the night, forgetting to leave it plugged in and this morning it was off. Now it will not turn on. Plugged in with the charge light on, and after one hour, it will still not turn on. Is there a way to reset the Hugo?
Well, after a little over an hour now, it has finally come to life. Must be that one of the batteries takes a while to come up to snuff, so to say. 

 
I confirm these findings / behavior.  My Hugo's batteries were completely discharged, then when I plugged it back in, the white recharging light came back on, but it wouldn't play.  It took over an hour for things to get back to a steady state to allow playback.

 

[Currawong]

From the Posting Guidelines: http://head-fi.org/a/posting-guidelines
 
Quote:

 Avoid getting personal. Do not make personal attacks, even veiled ones

 DON'T reply If someone makes an off-topic, rude or otherwise inappropriate comment

 
Just a reminder. 

 

[SoundFreaq]

   
I confirm these findings / behavior.  My Hugo's batteries were completely discharged, then when I plugged it back in, the white recharging light came back on, but it wouldn't play.  It took over an hour for things to get back to a steady state to allow playback.

 
This makes perfect sense. If the batteries are dead, even when you plug it in, since it's powered from the batteries only, there's still not enough, or anything there for it to run off of. Like plugging in an iPhone. It charges for a bit first. This is just more drastic. 
 
This also gives insight to: at what percentage of battery life does the Hugo shut off to force recharge? I guessed anywhere from 5-40%. So if you think about the recharging rate being linear, which it isn't, and it takes 5 hours to fully recharge, and an hour to be functional again, then the Hugo shuts off with about 20% of battery life left. That's the lower limit the designers think the Hugo starts to become compromised. 
 
An interesting test would be to let it charge just until it comes back online, and then run it right away. Does it go right back off soon?

 

[Clemmaster]

Just a reminder. 

The guideline also stay: "the owner of the Chord Hugo and Audio-gd Master-7 is due to post a comparison as soon as reasonably possible"
:-D

 

[ALRAINBOW]

A comparison of the Hugo to the master 7 I would very much want to read as well. As per a headfi friend the hugo is really special.
Al

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Chord won't make a transport only as they say they all sound the same, which I don't subscribe to.

This is not what I understand. I think it was told that they do not see the demand to warrant investing in such product. They have other good things in their pipeline anyway.

There is no overkill in audiophile, its cool to use AK240 as a transpprt.

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Al, did you come back for the Hugo? Cheers!

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Hahaha. Many things but the hugo does have me interested. But I wish it was a complete product as in dap.
Al

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Try the AK240, it doesnt sound as good but it can store a lot of music.
On the bright side with Hugo, you can use whatever UI u want. LoL

 

[elviscaprice]

Try the AK240, it doesnt sound as good but it can store a lot of music.
On the bright side with Hugo, you can use whatever UI u want. LoL

I agree, I'm glad the Hugo doesn't have a transport/UI.  I love freedom of choice.  A truly universal DAC/AMP to fit your personal lifestyle as you see fit.

 

 

[pekingduck]

   
The hugo doesn't have native dsd playback?

DSD is converted to PCM internally. Check out Rob's explanation here