[weisse muller]

I think it is wrong to say that Hugo has been tuned or tweaked in any way it's just been developed to decode any music stream in the best way possible. So that it gives an honest and accurate rendition of the original recording.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

I think all dacs have a house sound as such tuned. Why do people take offense to anything that suggest the Hugo is not perfect. All dacs have there house sound with that said what's better is debatable like good wine. The ones who judge good wine will,say the better wines are just that better. It's the same with music I could post what I think is better and get told I am wrong . So I open forums there us no critical form of judgment . We all,read post,s of some here who lay there claims , but in the end it's my brain that makes the choice. Lately I have put the time into making several audio caps PC,s. Each is running winnserver 2012 and highend audio optimizer. It has made a big improvment to my brain with the Hugo it clears things up at a startiling level. I feel we need a thread dedecated to it as it drove me crazy for many hours to get all to work. Now before I get attacked you do not need a mega bucks CPU setup to attain this improvement .
So ask and I can help.
Al

 

[wisnon]

maybe you should get rid of it, if that's the way you feel m8.i think alot of people try 2 rubbish the Hugo because they've spent alot of money on so called higher dacs and they don't like the fact that the Hugo sounds just as good, maybe even better in some cases for a lot less money.

Have you had a session with the Hugo and other Dacs and listened to them in the same setting at the same time? I dont own a Hugo, but i do own a Qute and several other Dacs...none of which I have heard directly against the Hugo. The Hugo is very good and represents excellent value for money, but seriously too many here overdo it. Methinks many here have never heard any of the uber-Dacs.
 
I also think many here will be amazed when the QBD-Hugo (with more taps and better power supply, as stated by Rob in that recent interview) is released and you see the full potential of this digital tech realized (for PCM). For DSD, Hugo is not a contender in my opinion and I have no reason to think it ever will be. Same for the Direct Stream.

 

[Trappy]

For DSD, Hugo is not a contender in my opinion and I have no reason to think it ever will be. Same for the Direct Stream.

That's the one area that I'd say the Benchmark outperformed the Hugo. Strange, considering John Siau's self-avowed DSD resistance.

 

[dguitarnut]

Whoever said pwd mk2 sounds better than hugo is either a shill from psa or in serious ear hearing condition. I have the pwd mk2 side by side with hugo and hugo is in a different league..

Keep telling ppl benchmark,wadia,nad, ps mk2 etc are in one league..

Hugo is in league of PS Audio DS, Exosound e28, Auralic vegas etc..

Its pretty ridicoulous when guiternuts say psa mk2 is better than hugo when i have both in front of me and when i hear that i just facepalm..

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

The Hugo I admit is the top dog if you want something portable. No question about it IMO.
Purrin puts it way below most of the Dacs you mentioned and he does serious listening to them before categorizing them. 
I would say depending on which amp and Hp you are using you would probably prefer this or that Dac.
 I went thru several system metamorphosis and finally arrived at what I have now.
The PWD2 is the most analog musical with not overly shrill detailed DAC that I have hooked up to my M9. For me that is.
The PWD2 I purchased was several hundred dollars less than the Hugo but that did not enter into the equation. 
If I had needed a semi portable to portable set up I would have gotten the Hugo.
I can't wait to see and hear the desktop version they are working on!  
Please I have endured enough flogging for my opinions which like yours its all it is, an opinion.

 

[OK-Guy]

John Franks has sent me a piece he has wrote on 'Distruptive Technology' which I will be posting later today.... John cares very much about the Hi-Fi Industry and realises that the launch of the Hugo has been met with a lot of controversy especially on high-end forums.
 
It is my intention to start a new thread in 'Sound Science' dealing with disruptive technology opening the debate with John's 'piece' so as not to disrupt this  thread... there's a irony in there somewhere.

 

[ted_b]

I think all dacs have a house sound as such tuned. Why do people take offense to anything that suggest the Hugo is not perfect. All dacs have there house sound with that said what's better is debatable like good wine. The ones who judge good wine will,say the better wines are just that better. It's the same with music I could post what I think is better and get told I am wrong . So I open forums there us no critical form of judgment . We all,read post,s of some here who lay there claims , but in the end it's my brain that makes the choice. Lately I have put the time into making several audio caps PC,s. Each is running winnserver 2012 and highend audio optimizer. It has made a big improvment to my brain with the Hugo it clears things up at a startiling level. I feel we need a thread dedecated to it as it drove me crazy for many hours to get all to work. Now before I get attacked you do not need a mega bucks CPU setup to attain this improvement .
So ask and I can help.
Al

Nice post, Al.  Agree with you, too.    Great dacs are like great wine (or great ice cream, or great cars).  They differentiate themselves from the crowd, give you a sense of what state of the art is all about, and are as varied in their sound/taste as their developer/designer approaches are.  And that variety often creates different favorites among folks (synergy).  There is no best ONE, necessarily, just a group using best practices.   It's a special day when you then find one in that group being such a value buy, and for Hugo that is where I see it.  By the way, this is IMHO.
 
Glad you got the Hugo USB driver figured out.  If it's not too much trouble, what was the breakthrough that solved it?  Redo the driver in a mobo USB?  Jplay?  I am soo glad you are experiencing WS2012 and AO.  Amazing, huh?

 

[wisnon]

LoL
 
I see you are trying not to offend your Honor, Ted, "in my opinion". LoL

 

[TokenGesture]

I agree with the analogy to wine - but then I am a subjectivist.  Mouth-feel, ear-feel, thats what its all about for me, and a window onto the music.
 
Listening to some solo piano for the first time through Hugo (Dances by Benjamin Grosvenor) , and that over-used adjective "musical" is the only word that does justice to the experience.  A great sense of "line", of a performance rather than a dazzling sequence of notes.
 
But "musicality" is something you can't really measure - you either hear it, or you don't.  With Hugo, I do.

 

[SilverEars]

I think it is wrong to say that Hugo has been tuned or tweaked in any way it's just been developed to decode any music stream in the best way possible. So that it gives an honest and accurate rendition of the original recording.

To me this is how the Hugo sounds.  It's quite different from an accurate transparent setup.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

First off there are a few people ted and currawong to mention a few
That prove the point we can have different views but should allow this not to effect the good we all try to do here
I have grown to trust and get help from them and others and offer the same In return.

Lastly ted so far no core mode for me and my Hugo. It's there and it connects as the indicates a a bit depth but no sound and an error
All I have left is j play to install or Foobar
This will be tonight's episode.

But the Hugo does sound much better even not in core mode but with win 2012 and the optimizer.
The caps is something I wish I did a long time ago. And thanks for the posts on your website ted.
A great wealth of info about audio. Mostly above my head in the past but learning to snorkel has helped greatly
So as I have no formal understanding in this I do have many hours of hands on.
Thanks all for the help.
Al

 

[lovethatsound]

Have you had a session with the Hugo and other Dacs and listened to them in the same setting at the same time? I dont own a Hugo, but i do own a Qute and several other Dacs...none of which I have heard directly against the Hugo. The Hugo is very good and represents excellent value for money, but seriously too many here overdo it. Methinks many here have never heard any of the uber-Dacs.

I also think many here will be amazed when the QBD-Hugo (with more taps and better power supply, as stated by Rob in that recent interview) is released and you see the full potential of this digital tech realized (for PCM). For DSD, Hugo is not a contender in my opinion and I have no reason to think it ever will be. Same for the Direct Stream.

The answer 2 that is easy,yes I have.It seems 2 me that some of you guys who have paid alot more for your dacs, seem 2 be listening more 2 Hugo than your 3 to 5k dacs, says it all really lol

 

[estreeter]

Dears,

I am following this thread for a long time, trying to get opinions to, probably, subsidize a decision to acquire the Chord Hugo.

Although I am very much engaged in portable audio, my main interest would be Hugo performance, basically as a DAC, in my main system.

Does someone has heard Hugo as a DAC against the Wadia 121 ? Or similar ( price ) as Benchmark, Wired4sound or Mytek ?

My system is a laptop with JRiver, Wadia 121 being feed either by usb from laptop or coax trough Squeezebox touch, BAT VK42, Gamut D200i, Magneplan 3.7, Woo Audio WA6, X5.o

I am sure that if the Hugo really brings an relevant improvement at home, its sound as portable will be of fantastic. By the way, today my headphones are TH 900, HD 800, JH 113 pro and JH Roxanne.

Thanks

 
I've heard the Weiss DAC202 and I'm afraid it does smoke the Hugo iMO - more relaxed delivery with detail retrieval and presentation that is completely off the charts. Sadly, so is the sticker price.
 
The challenge is simple - find another DAC/pre/headamp with the Hugo's transportable form factor - including battery power - for ~2.5K that is appreciably better than the Hugo at everything it does. Personally, my bank balance shudders at the thought of what it would cost to be able to make detailed comparisons over a sufficiently long period of time to be able to categorically say 'Product X does everything better than the Hugo' - Purrin has some very strong opinions based on it's performance as a DAC but I'd like to hear from someone with both the Hugo and one of the RWA DAC/amp combos. The base Bellina HPA comes in at around 2500 USD - 
 
http://redwineaudio.com/components/bellina-hpa
 
That is the form factor I would have preferred for the Hugo, but I'm confident that Chord will want a lot more than 2.5K for their desktop FPGA implementation. I'm equally confident that the Bellina HPA doesnt find it's way into too many satchels. No shortage of mains-powered DACs out there, and no shortage of battery-powered (trans)portable DAC/amps - what there does seem to be a shortage of is battery-powered DAC/amps that are even mentioned in the same sentence with their mains-powered cousins. I'm in the middle of preparing a comparative review between two such products that I consider very good at their respective price points, but they simply arent in the same class as the Hugo. 

 

[wisnon]

But the Hugo does sound much better even not in core mode but with win 2012 and the optimizer.
The caps is something I wish I did a long time ago. And thanks for the posts on your website ted.
A great wealth of info about audio. Mostly above my head in the past but learning to snorkel has helped greatly
So as I have no formal understanding in this I do have many hours of hands on.
Thanks all for the help.
Al

Which website is that? URL?

 

[ALRAINBOW]

You post on it. Computoeraudiophile
Hahahaha