[kurochin]

  This reminds me of a well respected reviewer who once told me he preferred the sound of his Hi-Fi to real live music. Now if you are one of those individuals, who prefer the sound of distortion, steer clear of Hugo.

 
Oh c'mon, Mr. Watts. Live music has it's own fair share of distortion, like body odour and dandruff from the people standing/sitting next to you. I'd take a hermetically sealed room with ATCs or PMCs anyday. =P

 

[rgs9200m]

FWIW, I've owned these digital sources:
 
Meridian 508.24 (1998), Sony 777(2000), Accuphase DP75V (2002),  EMM DCC2/CDSD (2004), Playback Designs MPS5(2009), EMM CDSA (2010), Burmester 001(2011), Sony XA5400 with and without the full Modright upgrade(2010), EMM XDS1(current), Dragonfly, Meridian Direct.
 
The Hugo is more natural and listenable and enjoyable to me than all of these except for my EMM XDS1 which is more resolving and musical at the same time.
This applies to redbook CD and DSD.

 

[wisnon]

To my ears, neither the DirectStream nor the Hugo did well with DSD. It was clear as night is to day.
 
I would not be so fast to knock analog. Though I am firmly in the digital camp, I have heard album played on a megabuck system (close to $300K for the amps, speakers and reconstructed TT) that had far greater dynamics and nuances (for example a vintage Supertramp album)that had NO snap, crackle, pop and I was assured that the same album was played hundreds of times before.
 
Just as RossB in Oz prefers the QBD-HD to the Hugo now (link posted a few pages back to the stereo.net thread), I am sure the QBD-Hugo is the Chord reference Dac we all all waiting to hear, as there this will have little if any compromise. When that arrives, I am sure the Hugo will be seen to be what it is... a great portable.

 

[rgs9200m]

I'd be curious if Mr. Watts could compare the Hugo's DAC processing to Ed Meitner's (EMM Labs) implementation, as the Hugo and the EMM are my personal hall-of-fame digital processing sonic favorites. Thanks in advance.

 

[Crashem]

I'd be curious if Mr. Watts could compare the Hugo's DAC processing to Ed Meitner's (EMM Labs) implementation, as the Hugo and the EMM are my personal hall-of-fame digital processing sonic favorites. Thanks in advance.

That's a little unfair. Like asking someone to compare their kids to another's. I will say from my perspective they are using different approaches to the problem. Ess and chord have more in common than how emm and chord approaches it.

 

[paul66]

So today I had the honor connecting my AK120 TI to the Hugo and I was totally surpriced how it changed the way my AK120 sounds. The music was more alive with very good instrument separation. Tomorrow I will listen to the AK240 and compare it with my AK120.
 
After that I have the choice of buying a AK240 or stick with my AK120 with the addition of a Hugo.
Now I tend to go AK120 > Hugo, but we will see if that changes tomorrow

 

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Well I hope that in your tests that the DAC to sound most like analog, that Hugo came last.

Analog (that is analog reel to reel recording) sounds soft, with muddled overblown bass, poor instrument separation, with audible noise and distortion. Now it is more pleasant than conventional digital, but it is still far removed from the real reference - not analog sound, not digital sound, but the sound one hears from live un-amplified acoustic instruments. I get the distinct impression that some designers are trying to re-create analog, not the sound of live music. Now if that is what you want, then that's fine by me. But don't tell me which is more accurate or realistic. Indeed, one of the DAC's you so enthuse over has been measured with very poor performance, exactly like a reel to reel.

This reminds me of a well respected reviewer who once told me he preferred the sound of his Hi-Fi to real live music. Now if you are one of those individuals, who prefer the sound of distortion, steer clear of Hugo.

As to DSD - if this is the future, then we are in for trouble. DSD is severely limited in its technical performance, the noise shaping has poor performance. I have been listening to noise shapers recently, and started with a noise shaper that had a thousand times more resolution than DSD. I could increase the resolution - a million times more resolution gave much better sound. I kept increasing the resolving power of the noise shaper until I could hear no further improvements, and this happened at ten trillion times more resolution than DSD. Perhaps the changes in sound were nothing to do with the resolving power, but to me DSD is severely limited. If you don't believe me, check out 2L site where you can hear the degradation that DSD creates from the original DXD recording. To me, its a big loss in transparency, and in particular sound stage depth. This is precisely the same behavior I heard when changing the noise shaper resolution.

Rob    

First off I agree that no reporipduction sounds like live un amplified music. I have posted this on various sites and get bashed for it.
I found this out as my 7 year old is taking piano lessons as I was there and heard the sound and it did not sound as my best recordings did weather they were PCM or dsd . But dsd does sound closer but more on this in a few. Now the point of real is a bit moot when most of our music is in studio,s and amplified and mixed so where does the degradation start . I know it ends at the transducers. But anything digital is mostly shaped by the dac so in reproduction it must be the top culprit.
Regarding the dac I feel is better , it's just my view and our views are different . but the dac I like is more like analog and I do not like live as much as studio. Analog has it's own sound as well as limitations but most dacs make PCM sound horrible in comparison as your dac helps this greatly and so does the one I like as well.
The why I like it more is simple really it gives me more low end details , more real qualities and lastly a lot more analog sound and yes thus I really like . Now where both dacs excell a little over good analog is the tightness and staging yes this is true and maybe in dynamics too. But this is not as important as listening fatigue that lesser dacs give you . Also your dac is tuned a little high if you like this then it goes against the live quote ,now it could be it's a little upper mid forward or the presentation is just to close but either way it's a flaw to me . Lastly before the dsd part is the noise floor yes it's a little better with optical but still a bit noisey on the quite passages and guess where the noise populates a hint is it almost hisses. And this did not happen with the other dac we are taking about. Now nothing is perfect and at this price and it's small foot print and portability is magnificent product . You sound like a very honest person with beliefs and a for better understanding they I do as to the hiw or why it all sounds as it does. But I have the means to buy the ultra stuff and as such I hear hiw fantastic it can be. And this is where our roads part

Now dsd the how it works or what's best in reproducing it as in low pass filter or whatever does not mean much to me personnelly. What does matter is the ability to attach me to the music I am listening to . this happens even with a sidewalk player . The brain seems to be the most decerning of all , and measurements as much as they mean plenty to some do not to me. I hear with my brain so if it says it's real that's good enough for me.
I do find it interesting that two different dacs sound the same in dsd and both have some kind of mass up sampling scheme to make it all sound real how can it be real if it is so manipulated as it is in both. But agin my brain is telling me it's not. Now owning and having heard a few ultra highend dacs it's easy to get attached to music but this does not occur with the two we are posting about. Now the msb is doing god knows what but sounds emotional and the lampi B7 is the same . Now if you were to measure them I am sure the msb being the technical marvel it is would measure off the charts and the lampi most likely far less than a Hugo maby. But when my brain does the measuring the Hugo plays sound and the other two play emitionally engaging music to die for. I had a friend over this week he is a musician and on the two better three better dacs he could tell what sax and even how the drums and peddles were used. Not so with the accurate Hugo I wonder why. Now given openly the top two gave hime the emotional attachment i speak of this outs me back to just what trickery is FPGA doing to our music to play it so un engaging but so clear .

Hope it reads well. No attitude intended and I really do love the Hugo for what it is .

 

[Sonic77]

To my ears, neither the DirectStream nor the Hugo did well with DSD. It was clear as night is to day.

I would not be so fast to knock analog. Though I am firmly in the digital camp, I have heard album played on a megabuck system (close to $300K for the amps, speakers and reconstructed TT) that had far greater dynamics and nuances (for example a vintage Supertramp album)that had NO snap, crackle, pop and I was assured that the same album was played hundreds of times before.

Just as RossB in Oz prefers the QBD-HD to the Hugo now (link posted a few pages back to the stereo.net thread), I am sure the QBD-Hugo is the Chord reference Dac we all all waiting to hear, as there this will have little if any compromise. When that arrives, I am sure the Hugo will be seen to be what it is... a great portable.

How much? 300k? I'll stick wit the Hugo. An outstanding dac at any price.

 

[Eide]

I'm a bit suprised that there's so little talk about the crossfeed filters in the Hugo. I was first introduced to listening with crossfeed in Fideila (mac osx). But I think the crossfeed is actually better in the Hugo. With Fidelia the crossfeed makes the bass impact weaker. Crossfeed in the Hugo doesn't affect bass impact at all.

I prefer the lowest setting of crossfeed (red light). It's subtle, but the effect is still very noticable. It makes listening over longer periods less fatiguing, and quite often it sounds better. But that depends alot on the recordings. I listen to alot of jazz and classical, and often the instruments are placed extremely far to the sides. Crossfeed "fixes" this. I just like how easy it is to just press a button to get the effect.

 

[estreeter]

I'd like to begin by thanking wisnon, rgs9200m and Rob for their thoughts since my last post - I know DSD is particularly controversial among many engineers and designers but I take wisnon's point that there is a business imperative at work here too. Very few people get paid for telling potential customers that they are all fools and the Emperor really isnt wearing any clothes. Which brings me to Al .....
 
Al - I understand that you are passionate about this hobby and you've spent an inordinate amount of time and money on gear - far more than I could ever countenance, and presumably in the eternal search for the 'truth' in recorded music. That said, is it really necessary to write off those who post a different POV as having a 'fools attitude' ? wisnon has given me one reason for Charlie Hansen's opposition to the move from PCM to DSD, but if you have the time to go back and read the thread at CA - and I know it's a monster - you'll soon realise that it goes beyond his business concerns. I could spend the rest of this thread linking you to the Ayre website and the opinions of folk like Jason Stoddard from Schiit, but let's just assume that DSD128 is as good as it's ever going to get in our lifetimes and run with that.
 
1. I assume you have T1 ethernet with unlimited downloads and it's a trivial exercise to download a ~2GB DSD album - please dont assume that we are all so fortunate.
 
2. Until I start seeing the artists I like on DSD download sites, I will have absolutely no motivation to seek a faster internet link than I currently have, My understanding is that DSD presents a host of challenges in the recording studio - again, further discussion would only derail this thread but I'm confident that Springsteen's label wont be insisting on a DSD release anytime soon. Unknown artists releasing acoustic tunes for a niche market might do it for you, but I want more. 
 
If I accepted that Redbook will never give me what I want from my music, I'd sell the Hugo and buy a turntable - simple as that. The less-than-simple part would be finding used vinyl after all these years that didnt snap, crackle and pop - it's interesting how quickly zealots like Fremer seem to have forgotten what it felt like to find a scratch on your precious vinyl, not to mention having your dimwitted brother leave an album in his car to melt into some sort of deformed licorice pizza. The best I can realistically hope for is 24/96 releases of some of my favorite albums, but given the chicanery evident in the hi-rez industry I'm not holding my breath on that score. When they stop upsampling CD masters I might take another look at their catalogs - till then I'm stuck with Redbook and iTunes downloads : complete anathema to serious audiophiles like yourself but I didnt come to this hobby with that mindset, I came here to find a headphone that would make my music sound 'better' from an iPod - some might argue that I was better off in my blissful ignorance. If ignorance breeds fools, then so be it - I just want the Hugo to work with the music I have, regardless of the bit-depth or sample rate, and as of July 2014 it absolutely does that, I'll leave the discussion of it's perceived shortcomings to those with the golden ears needed to discern such minutiae. 

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Nice post but it misses my overall point the product does not perform as stated in dsd. And it's done because it's what the designer wanted. Do you know how many times we have bought the music we own about 6 times. And if you are worried about download speeds that's just silly. Weather dsd is better by anyone's standards here or anywhere is moot to me. By him not responding it's obvious he has more to say but will not. I am willing to bet the desktop plays dsd better or why would anyone buy one.
The fact that mytek dac from three years ago sounds better in dsd than the hugo is just embarrassing at the least and thus does not bother you because you have bad internet are you kidding . So why did you buy a Hugo there must have been some form of improvment you were hoping for. As for me if I own high end stuff I expect it to perform as such it's just more marketing bull and it's not just the dac makers it's the record companies too. For them to make money they need a new product well dsd is that new product so I see a flaw in the Hanson model as well. Acoustic sounds is making money on dsd downloads so hiw is not good. Cause someone says it's not and he had to reinvest Ina product that was long surpassed and then says why and it's not his fault it's the industry. And I read the article and did post there. I think you need to know our position in this yes ours you and me. We are the consumer and we should get what we pay for and mostly do not get what we want. As much as like the DS and Hugo they are both disappointing in dsd and this is not an accident could it be they have vested interest in PCM. And if PCM is so damn good how come no PCM dac on the planet makes it sound anywhere as good as dsd does
And yet we read from a designer hiw we are just fooled as they make money and we pay the pied piper yet again for a product that does not perform as advertised . But have no fear there will be wonderful reviews of how it glows in the dark and brings back childhood memories of hearing that music for the first time and the rest of the bull to follow .
Lastly did you know he honestly feels dsd is just not worth making. Did you know he was asked to make it dsd as the first dac the q whatever had no dsd .
But yet it was fantastic in the reviews another must have dac. If a product is to play PCM and dsd it shroud play then equally and in thus simple fact both dacs fail but yet
No one here says antything about it except me the town cryier lmao. If it were not portible I would sell it.
Al

 

[OK-Guy]

I do find it interesting that two different dacs sound the same in dsd and both have some kind of mass up sampling scheme to make it all sound real how can it be real if it is so manipulated as it is in both. But agin my brain is telling me it's not. Now owning and having heard a few ultra highend dacs it's easy to get attached to music but this does not occur with the two we are posting about. Now the msb is doing god knows what but sounds emotional and the lampi B7 is the same . Now if you were to measure them I am sure the msb being the technical marvel it is would measure off the charts and the lampi most likely far less than a Hugo maby. But when my brain does the measuring the Hugo plays sound and the other two play emitionally engaging music to die for. I had a friend over this week he is a musician and on the two better three better dacs he could tell what sax and even how the drums and peddles were used. Not so with the accurate Hugo I wonder why. Now given openly the top two gave hime the emotional attachment i speak of this outs me back to just what trickery is FPGA doing to our music to play it so un engaging but so clear .

Hope it reads well. No attitude intended and I really do love the Hugo for what it is .

 
Al... if you find the Hugo so unemotional & un-engaging why not just sell it and be done with it?
 
I tend to enjoy your posting but you're in danger as coming across as the 'school yard bully', you are constantly quoting DAC's costing 5-10 times as much so you can get to bash a humble little portable device that many see as a game-changer (including me, my apologies if you don't agree, thought I add a little protective caveat)... at the end of the day this is Head-Fi and not super-fi for the mega-loaded who want to spunk their dosh on the latest bling... the Hugo is an investment for many on this forum, in my thinking there isn't a portable device around to touch it. Personally I think Rob, John, Matt and all involved with Team Chord should be heralded with the finest French-horns for bringing in a new dawn in portable-fi, lets just hope it ain't a one off.

 

[estreeter]

   
Al... if you find the Hugo so unemotional & un-engaging why not just sell it and be done with it?
 
I tend to enjoy your posting but you're in danger as coming across as the 'school yard bully', you are constantly quoting DAC's costing 5-10 times as much so you can get to bash a humble little portable device that many see as a game-changer (including me, my apologies if you don't agree, thought I add a little protective caveat)... at the end of the day this is Head-Fi and not super-fi for the mega-loaded who want to spunk their dosh on the latest bling... the Hugo is an investment for many on this forum, in my thinking there isn't a portable device around to touch it. Personally I think Rob, John, Matt and all involved with Team Chord should be heralded with the finest French-horns for bringing in a new dawn in portable-fi, lets just hope it ain't a one off.

 
Couldn't agree more - well said.
 
 Al seems to be looking for the uber-DAC while the rest of us are thrilled silly to get this sort of performance for reasonable money, No small irony that some of the Hugo's harshest critics cant understand why anyone would spend this kind of money on a 'portable DAC', despite the fact that many of them have never even heard it - and we have Al at the other end of the spectrum bitching about the fact that it doesnt cater to his particular niche despite being thousands of dollars cheaper than most of the products currently filling that niche. Portable or no, I cant see why someone who is so clearly invested in desktop gear would hang onto a DAC that clearly isnt doing it for him. 

 

[obsidyen]

Well I hope that in your tests that the DAC to sound most like analog, that Hugo came last.

Analog (that is analog reel to reel recording) sounds soft, with muddled overblown bass, poor instrument separation, with audible noise and distortion. Now it is more pleasant than conventional digital, but it is still far removed from the real reference - not analog sound, not digital sound, but the sound one hears from live un-amplified acoustic instruments. I get the distinct impression that some designers are trying to re-create analog, not the sound of live music. Now if that is what you want, then that's fine by me. But don't tell me which is more accurate or realistic. Indeed, one of the DAC's you so enthuse over has been measured with very poor performance, exactly like a reel to reel.

This reminds me of a well respected reviewer who once told me he preferred the sound of his Hi-Fi to real live music. Now if you are one of those individuals, who prefer the sound of distortion, steer clear of Hugo.

As to DSD - if this is the future, then we are in for trouble. DSD is severely limited in its technical performance, the noise shaping has poor performance. I have been listening to noise shapers recently, and started with a noise shaper that had a thousand times more resolution than DSD. I could increase the resolution - a million times more resolution gave much better sound. I kept increasing the resolving power of the noise shaper until I could hear no further improvements, and this happened at ten trillion times more resolution than DSD. Perhaps the changes in sound were nothing to do with the resolving power, but to me DSD is severely limited. If you don't believe me, check out 2L site where you can hear the degradation that DSD creates from the original DXD recording. To me, its a big loss in transparency, and in particular sound stage depth. This is precisely the same behavior I heard when changing the noise shaper resolution.

Rob    

Such wise words.

 

[obsidyen]

If you don't like it, you can sell it. Simple.