[Rob Watts]

   
The #1 DAC Chip manufacturer by far and growing their market share.
 
"A DAC is a computer. So is an iPhone. So was the Motorola flip phone. Can we say the iPhone is several orders of magnitudes superior to a 15 year old Motorola RAZOR?
We can. In a similar fashion as a computer, the Hugo is far more sophisticated and capable than any off the shelf chip DAC regardless the price."
 
AGB100 makes the statement that the Hugo is light years more complex than ESS chips.  I think he doesn't know what he is talking about.  There is no way the Hugo is a lot more complex than the top end ESS chips.  My guess is that it is less complex.  Luckily it is a hard fact that can be proven.  So I welcome AGB100 to quote the actual number of gates/transistors whatever that proves his point.
 
To use a beer comparison, ESS is like Budweiser and Hugo is like a craft beer.  While I prefer the craft beer, Budweiser is designed to appeal to most people.  But don't fool yourself that the craft beer is harder to make than Budweiser.  Budweiser and its ilk are extremely difficult to make and light years harder than any craft beer to make.  Anheiser-Busch could make good craft beer if they liked, but a craft beer company would be hard pressed to create Budweiser.
 
Have you guys ever looked at the talent that started ESS and the talent there today?  As impressive as the Hugo's chief designer's resume is, he isn't in the same realm as the ESS founders and ESS today has a huge team of sound engineers etc.  ESS was involved with/pioneered much of the foundation of today's dacs.  All the audiophile companies play on the fringes of what people like ESS create when it comes to DAC chips.  Hence most of the audiophile companies just "enhance" the DAC chips via better implementation and not making competitive one.  Like the Budweiser/craft beer example, ESS could easily do what the core Hugo chip does, but not the other way around.  While I might like craft beers more than Budweiser, I don't fool myself into thinking that the ESS chips are easier to make or less complex than the Hugo (think 100X man hours).

I resisted replying to your previous post, but again you are posting inaccuracies and false statements, and I can't let this go on unchallenged, particularly as some errors relate to me personally.
 
Firstly, you have actually no idea what my resume is, as it is something I don't publicise.
 
I design for Chord for fun and personal satisfaction. Why? For several reasons - primarily I am looking to radically improve musicality - in short I want to use the product I am designing, secondly it is only about performance (measured and subjective) not cost, and finally there is no way Chord (or any other high end audio company) could afford my design fees. My "day" job is to create IP, and supply design consultancy to large silicon companies for audio. That is where the mega bucks are. Now the company I deal with is completely full of extremely talented engineers, mathematicians and scientists. So ask yourself this - why would they contract me, buy my patented IP, and all at very considerable cost, when they have many hundreds of highly talented and qualified people?
 
Your implication that Hugo has only 2 or 3 times the taps, or is less complex than conventional DAC's is clearly absurd. Conventional silicon ASIC DAC's generally have a single 12MHz DSP core to do the interpolation filter function, and it has been this way for 30 years. Hugo has 16 cores running at 208 MHz - that's like comparing an Intel i7 against an 8086. So why don't conventional silicon DAC's have more taps? It comes down to 2 things; awareness (they think it does not matter) and cost. Cost is the paramount driver in ASIC DAC's, to re-coup the substantial investment cost it must sell in very large volumes - that means not for the high-end (audiophool is the usual term) market. FPGA's now provides orders of magnitude of more functional complexity than ASIC DAC's - but they are an order of magnitude more expensive, and they need considerable investment in design work and expertise.
 
The second major disadvantage of ASIC silicon DAC's are the inherent problems that silicon has - noise and innate non-linearity. Resistors are non-linear, capacitors are also non-linear, substrate and electromagnetic noise is a major problem. Now discrete DAC's (the FPGA is only the digital part, the DAC element is done with discrete components) do not suffer from these problems, but getting a discrete DAC to work with excellent performance is not easy. It has taken me 30 years to perfect my discrete DAC's, and I am still making improvements.
 
To illustrate the benefits of a discrete DAC take a look at this plot from Hugo:
 

 
Sorry, if you can't see it too well. This is an FFT of Hugo's OP at -40dBFS. There is a constant noise floor at -155dB, with absolutely no distortion or noise floor modulation. It is like this from -20dB (where the AP ADC creates distortion) to -140dB. Here is a plot at -140dB:
 

 
Again, the -140dB is exactly at -140dB, there is no distortion (harmonic or an-harmonic) or noise floor modulation, and the fundamental linearity (a property that has a bearing on the perception of sound stage depth) is (from the measurement limitations) perfect.
 
Now you absolutely will not get this level of performance from any ASIC DAC, as noise from the digital core via the substrate will add distortion and noise, plus the DAC inherently will have low level distortion problems due to passive and other non-linearity's.
 
What does this lack of distortion give you? Well, its got an ideal analogue distortion characteristic - no distortion at all at small signal levels, and only a tiny amount of 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion at 3V RMS. 
 
The facts are facts - Hugo has the most advanced (in terms of complexity) production interpolation filter available. It also has zero measurable distortion and noise floor modulation for small signals. These two facts alone make Hugo remarkable - at any price point.
 
Now Hugo has had many rave reviews, and some remarkable postings from users, and this has upset a lot of powerful people within the industry. But it's performance is not due to magic, hype or other forms of seduction or mass hysteria - it is entirely down to solid engineering, thirty years of work and a refusal to accept any assumptions unless they have been verified by careful AB listening tests.
 
Rob

 

[sutjahjo]

There's no better portable dac/amp. I just said there are better dacs but they are not portable  and are much more expensive (like the Meridian).  As a high-end dac, Hugo is very good.  As a portable dac, it is amazing and it is certainly the best.

I'm not a native English speaker so my wording may come across as a bit off sometimes.

Noted and understood, no your English is fine.

 

[Crashem]

  I resisted replying to your previous post, but again you are posting inaccuracies and false statements, and I can't let this go on unchallenged, particularly as some errors relate to me personally.
 
Firstly, you have actually no idea what my resume is, as it is something I don't publicise.
...
 
Rob

 
I hope you did not interpret my comments as any negative attacks on the Hugo and especially on you personally.  That was not my intention and I apologize if you felt that way.  If you go back through this thread, you will see I was an early supporter the Hugo and one of the first owners.  This is the problem with these boards as comments get misinterpreted from their original intent.  My only intent was to point out that ESS has immense engineering capability and credentials and not attack/compare it to yours.  In terms of my original point, I was simply saying that the ES9018 and its ilk are incredibly complex as a whole and that I suspected (maybe falsely) that they had more gates than the Hugo, but not substantially less than Hugo.  While I get that the Hugo is significantly ahead on the interpolation filter, I was just trying to point out that the ES9018 as a whole was ridiculously complex as it basically a SoC for digital audio.  As you pointed out (more clearly) and I thought I was trying to say as well, companies like ESS priorities/needs (I used Budweiser as an example for a reason) are different (costs, etc.).  But I was making the additional point of trying to characterize ESS' creations as a lot less complex than the Hugo was false (please let me know if I am wrong about this).  My comments about ESS being able to do larger number of taps in their interpolation filter, if they wanted, was just pointing out that ASICs still can do more density than FPGAs (of which I have some experience dealing with), and that creating/manufacturing ASICs is still in the realm of companies the size of ESS.
 
There is no way I can argue on the specifics of your creation vs another, and I am not trying to.  I hope you don't interpret my saying that there are ESS based DACs that some would argue are better than the Hugo as an attack on the Hugo.  I hope saying other dacs are good also doesn't mean that I am saying the Hugo is bad. 
 
A vanilla implementation of an off the shelf DAC chip is about cost effectiveness.  But audiophile implementations are about ignoring the cost effectiveness to one level or another.  Some use ESS chips as the heart of their DACs and believe their implementation of the ESS chips gets you to audio nirvana.  You argue that your implementation of a Delta Sigma DAC with emphasis on interpolation filter and discrete parts is the path.  MSB would argue that ladders DACs and ridiculously accurate clocks will get you to audio nirvana.  Ted Smith argues his DSD focused implementation is the right path.  the The list goes on and on.  In my opinion, there are many paths to audio nirvana.
 
The last few DACs I have acquired have been the Hugo, Lampizator, and DirectStream.  As you can see, I believe there is more to gain towards the path to audio nirvana by ignoring off the shelf dac implementations.  When I try to point out to some of the (in my opinion) fanboys that the Hugo isn't the final step to audio nirvana and that it can get better, I may come off as more critical, than my intent, to balance out my perceived inbalance in commentary.  The fact is I am confident that the Hugo isn't the apex of DAC development, for the very fact that I have confidence in you that without limitations around power and space, you would create a better DAC without necessarily having to wait for new more capable FPGA chips to increase things like the number of taps in your interpolation filter.

 

[obsidyen]

I have to agree. So where does thus leave sabre ?
Al

 
In the rubbish bin?

 

[AGB100]

  I personally prefer headphones if I am in a quiet setting(but, currently I don't have a dead quite room dedicated for listening), but it would have to be my HE-6 though a big o amp that can drive it well.  I will be trying out the HD800 soon so hold your butts!  
 
In regards to iems, I prefer it for the isolation it provides, and the isolation is very important to keep the ambiant noise down.  The iems space is vast,When you hear some CIEMs, clarity and details with the lowest levels of ambiant noise with it's passive isolation, it's quite remarkable.
 
I disagree, if you have the right CIEMs, you can judge resolution and details.  I have one right now and can detect characteristics of the DAC chips.  I personally don't think with cans I can decern it.  Think about how sensitive the iems are vs cans.  I would suspect sensitivity would help at measuring audible performance.

 
The details are there with the best IEMs, however they are not there in the correct proportion spatially, dimensionally, texturally and tonally. The details are also "in your face," a phenomenon the best headphones avoid entirely. That is the reason recording engineers and post production facilities use high grade headphones - because it closer matches what they hear in the studio live. Isolation is important in aircraft and the machine shop. No home should be too noisy for a good headphone. In any case, IEM or headphone, music listening and evaluation of equipment cannot be intelligently accomplished in a noisy environment.
 
In my experience no IEM can come close to a good orthodynamic presenting music in an organic, natural way. To make the judgement I do, almost every week I am present at live musical events where world class musicians perform. If one is intimately familiar with the sound of live music, the tonality and "size" of acoustic instruments and voices performed in a real space, one simply understands whereof I speak, if not intellectually, than instinctively.
 
I'll go a bit further under the understanding that some may resent my strong position on these and other matters.
 
I'll say you have not heard the HUGO at its best with IEMs.
 
Disagreement is fine, but as one famous Founder of America, John Adams said: "Facts are stubborn things."
 
Again, for the road, one has little choice with respect to comfort, weight, size. For a desktop one has a choice.
 
The HUGO, as luck will have it for us on this post, meets both criteria.
 
Given that some of us have less money than others (Warren Buffett once pointed at me to make the point) we cannot purchase all the IEMs and cans we'd like, so we have to settle for what meets our needs in this place in time on this planet.

 

[estreeter]

   
In the rubbish bin?

 
You really need to get over this obsession - its a piece of silicon. You dont like the SABRE-equipped DACs you've heard - fine - there is absolutely no need to bash the brand every time your synapses tell you that banging a keyboard seems like a good idea. 

 

[obsidyen]

   
You really need to get over this obsession - its a piece of silicon. You dont like the SABRE-equipped DACs you've heard - fine - there is absolutely no need to bash the brand every time your synapses tell you that banging a keyboard seems like a good idea. 

It's not obsession, I don't care but unless you didn't notice, people have been discussing about Hugo vs Sabre in the last few pages. Please ignore my posts if you don't like them.

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Sir Rob, which are your favourite headphones to use with Hugo?

 

[AGB100]

   
I dont know that that's accurate - self-effacing humor notwithstanding - but you remind me of a guy on Audiokarma. He's equally passionate about this hobby but woe betide anyone who doesnt believe that Audio Note electronics married to (expensive) fullrange speakers isnt the end-game combination. I'm all for people with strong convictions but it can wear you down, particularly when he is a member of several audio forums and he keeps beating the same drum on each of them. He's also a reviewer, but I havent read a single review that doesnt read like an advertorial for AN even when the subject of the review is a competing product - at least you acknowledge that someone else is making electronics

Someone else is making electronics? Who?
 
Seriously, I love the hobby, and as a pro I take great pains to remain objective in the general sense. As I said, most electronics start our as a black box, breadboarded circuits, computer modeling and a scientific calculator providing answers to relatively simple formulas. Resistors, capacitors, transformers, and amplifying devices make up most of the rest. There is very little mystery and the chef in the kitchen needs to use the right ingredients in the right proportions and simmer for the right amount of time. I do have strong opinions because I have some experience with these matters (I would prefer not tootin' my horn because it too, has worn off).
 
I am not familiar with the AN reviewer because no one other than Chord builds electronics, so why would I bother reading about something that doesn't exist?
 
Also, if the inference is so, I am hardly married to the HUGO, actually never met in person its designer or the firm's owners. In contrast I have met and am friends with others in the industry, specifically of the HUGO's competitors - one of whom uses a similar technology, another makes one of the best portable DACs extant.
 
Now why will I not comment on my friend's product that competes head-on with the Hugo?
 
Because I'd rather not review a product from a friend if I can avoid the job, where my objectivity will not only be questioned by readers, but my credibility would suffer in my own eyes had I done so.
 
Sometimes one cannot avoid commenting on a friend's product, and then we are obligated to disclose that friendship and worse, need to be harder on the shortcomings of the product.
 
I'd rather comment on products where I am free to say what I want to say without regard to hurting any feelings, or a business, merely because of a pre-existing friendship.
 
In other words, opinion I write I hope comes from hard-headed objectivity based on the performance and design of the product.
 
I recognize that those of us who have written professionally or edited technical papers for manufacturers cannot possibly be free of some bias. We can try, and that's about it.
 
To many the mechanical aspects of the Hugo is designed just right, and with a few niggling exceptions, I would have agreed with that assessment.
 
Just right means better than the competition which may not have been designed "just right."
 
Sometimes the competition has features we wish the Hugo had.
 
We all know the Hugo is the best sounding - by far - among portable DACs available at a commensurately high price.
 
At four times the price of its nearest competitor downstream.
 
What may revolve around the remaining argument is: is the Hugo competitive with some of the most highly-regarded component DACs on the market?
 
I say evidently, not only competitive, but for many listeners, audibly superior to.
 
But it is not perfect; it is perfectible. At least mechanically. And audibly its successors will get even better than the Hugo is today.
 
I LIKE the idea of an adult-sized USB port wherein an adult-sized USB cable from one's computer can be plugged in without adapters that may or may not ruin the sound of the expensive USB wire we had just paid for.
 
I like the idea of a more robust on-off switch.
 
I'd like the idea of port covers to keep dust out....so I made do with some RCA jack covers from China, a half-assed solution.
 
The use of aluminum in the casing is relatively normal practice industrywide, whether by extrusion or milled. Aluminum has a lot going for it: light weight, relative strength, in black anodize small scratches are easy to cover up with Aluma-Black, a liquid touch up used on the aluminum parts of firearms. So cosmetically it can hold up. As a metal it dissipates heat well.
 
However for portable use there are better materials as I had suggested earlier, for example the glass-impregnated composite G-10 used for circuit boards, pistol and knife handles and even for very expensive iPhone cases. The material can be milled easily, will hold screws well, and is almost scratch-proof and indestructible. Except for its heat dissipating ability, it is significantly superior for use as a portable DAC case than aluminum. The holes for the HUGO's Spartan window and volume control can be cut and beveled into the top in a single operation by CNC; a top and bottom plate can easily be secured into a milled G-10 frame surrounding the Hugo's sides - and G-10 comes in varieties such that it can look hot. See here:
 
http://novasz.imould.com/photo/2011-11-22/image11.jpg
 
http://www.g10grips.com/media/general/products/g10_sig_group.jpg
 
http://tinyurl.com/o25bcaz
 
http://faq.customtacticals.com/images/materials/cf_ex_03.jpg
 
http://tinyurl.com/qd2dahy
 
AND a $300 G-10 iPhone case - yes, befitting a premium product.
I wish they made one for the HTC1-M8, a far superior product though!  http://tinyurl.com/nedjbcx

 

 

[ALRAINBOW]

How many other fpga dacs are out there now ? Also how long has any FPGA DAC been around ?
I do know of a couple of others

 

[Sound Eq]

quick question do u experience that the hugo heats up after use 

 

[obsidyen]

  Sir Rob, which are your favourite headphones to use with Hugo?

Good question. I'll sell my HD650s and buy headphones that would pair better with Hugo (I like Momentum more than HD650s with Hugo, the bass is simply amazing). Maybe Beyerdynamic T1/T5p/T90?

 

[obsidyen]

  quick question do u experience that the hugo heats up after use 

I felt it was kind of warm after a long period of use but certainly not hot.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Yes it does. This is normal I am sure. There is a lot going on inside
There. I think it sounds better when it gets warm
I think it is a great portable device and a really good desk top
I have not connected it to speakers as yet
But I am sure it will sound very good. Let's not make claims
Of comparisons to other devices here. It's a overall great product but it's not cheap
I do look froward to a desk top model.
Chord has a nice music server I heard. Does anybody know what is inside
Is it robs design as in FPGA.
AL

 

[ALRAINBOW]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325&tag=headfiorg-20&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Faw%2Fd%2FB000000XJN%3Fpc_redir%3D1404019118%26robot_redir%3D1

The above disk is a must have to show just how good the Hugo is. It clearly displays the extreme clarity of details.
Most other dacs do not have. I am not saying it does not sound good on other dacs it does . But only the top few show the air around the the recording as the Hugo does. For anyone who had the Hugo and the disk I can
Pint to details of sound that will prove the point. Many years ago when I bought my first set of infinitity speakers the IRS 1B This disk is what made the deal of I just had to have it. Later came the infinity IRS V. but the point is the disk is just fantastic and I think some great music too. Try it and post it has all we need to put the Hugo where it belongs .
Al