Dude. Man.
Why you gotta ask stuff like that
I'll write this out for anyone to hopefully be able to understand that may be reading along.
That's the ultimate objectivity question in this hobby. People's opinion will be at every level imaginable on this. There is no way I could remotely venture to answer the question for you, it's a very expensive "upgrade" that makes a vastly varying scale of opinion on its worth or effectiveness. But I'll tell you what I think about these type of devices in general, and generally what they do, and hopefully that will help you decide if that's important for you.
I've tried a few. Not all of them. It's generally agreed that Audiophileo makes a top product, maybe the best, maybe not, but very good. Very solid, a top performer. And a reasonable price range. Sort of, but totally.
Being able to even hear the difference depends on how much experience you have in audio. You have to know what to listen for. I owned mine for a while before I consciously heard what it was doing. I asked the same question when I was thinking about getting mine. And one guy that'd had his for a while said it was very much needed, and described the sound as fuzzy and lifeless without it. Of course that's way dramatic, but it is a good description, just take the magnitude down ten-fold.
When I first got mine several years ago, I popped it in, and totally wondered what I had just dropped hundreds on. Now, I can't imagine my audio life without it. It's an integral part of my necessary equipment. Without it, I feel like I am shortchanging myself. If I can't have it, I won't even listen. All or nothing. baby, all or nothing.
Of course it sounds just fine without it. Especially with Hugo, you do not need this to get stellar performance with the Hugo. But especially with the Hugo, I love the combo with it. It feels wrong to not serve Hugo up the best I can.
With it, everything feels just a little more on-point and sharp, vivid. We're not talking a sound sig here, we're talking about the quality of the music file. It's like finding the sweet spot on a microscope focus, and it all comes in a little more clearly, and you can hear it a little better. It sounds a bit more natural and lifelike, less processed. It's taking a jumbled up signal, with the timing distortions, loaded up with noise from the USB cable, and mellowing that sucker right out. Sets it straight, gets it organized a little better - minimizing jitter, reducing distortion, and helps your DAC be able to handle the data more efficiently since it's not all a complete mess. Hugo likes the AP2, makes him happier.
I started with AP2 without the PurePower. I thought the PP was an expensive, fancy accessory. It's not. It matters. In fact it really matters. Turns out that interference really is a nasty, nasty thing. That's why all these cable manufacturers are putting all this crazy fancy shielding they invent to keep the cable, which is a giant metal antennae, from picking up as much interference from a hundred things around you. And the people making the best cables have the best shielding. The insides of cables are variations on a theme. Anyone can put a good conductor together, but it's all in the shielding. There are some cable manufacturers trying to push the envelope on conductor technology too, and they are coming up with some cool things, but that's another controversial talk entirely.
ANYWAY, I was saying the PurePower makes it so that all this stuff that the Audiophileo is doing, awesome stuff, is not having to draw all of it's power to do its thing from the USB line it's plugged in to. From that noisy, crazy USB-out on your machine. That thing is jacked up, was never meant for audio, and you want to use that to power all the things it's trying to fix? Crazy I tell you!
The battery is well implemented in spite of taking a load of noise out of the signal because the AP2 can use the power from the PP - THE POWER FROM THE PP - haha, which has way less noise and variation. The PP is a bigger deal that the AP2, or may make a bigger impact on the sound than the AP2 does without it. But obviously, but without it, think of an arbitrary scale 1-10. 1 is the least amount of impact the Audiophileo2 can have, 10 is the most. Without the PP, AP2 alone may take you up to a 4. So 40% of it's capability. Add on PP, add on PP.. hahaha, add the PP and you get a full 10, the PP boosting it up the rest of the 60% remaining capability left.
Make sense? Get it with PP. All or nothing, baby, all or nothing.
