[SearchOfSub]

No new products - I or Chord have no plans for portable Hugo Mk 2!

And its no secret that Hugo type SQ but with much more power to drive loudspeakers directly is very much in development...

Rob

This is great news! The Evolution Acoustics MicroTwo's (tower version of MicroOnes) which I'm most likely going to be picking up are coming out 1st quarter of next year as well. Should be a great match again considering how well the Hugo and the MicroOnes have synergy. Gotta start saving up!

 

[M Coupe]

Rob,
 
Where is Chord doing their market research?  The only reason I ask it figure out where the opportunity analysis comes from.  
 
Thanks

 

[M Coupe]

Another Thing- The whole amp section messing up the sound I don't get.  My Rowland mono blocks improve the fantastic sound out of my HUGO.  Furthermore, my Audeze Headphones sound better through my Woo Audo WA6 SE than through my HUGO(HUGO DAC feeding both).  To me the magic is in the DAC and I would love them to develop where they win.  I could care less about a Chord Amp. I do know they make other components well but the HUGO is special.  Brand position is as much about what you choose to be as much as it is about what you choose not to be.  A desktop amp is....
 
Again, I sound repetitive, I love my HUGO.

 

[SearchOfSub]

To me and my ears, it really did flatten out the soundstage, everything also got harsher sounding. Now, I didn't use a preamp in the mix and and went straight from Hugo to the amps. Also, the amps I used weren't 10,000.00 monoblocks like the Jeff Rowlands. I think an average consumer would not spend 10,000.00 on audio equipment let alone even 2399.00 is hard to spend. I am not sure how much the new product under development, the Chords "all-in-one" would cost, but I don't think it's going to cost THAT much more than the Hugo, maybe double at most 4-5 grand (hopefully). I think this would apeal a lot more to the general public than a dac from one company, amp from a diff. company, cable from one company, preamp from another,blah blah blah and so forth. Don't really have to go look anywhere else for synergy, it'll all be right there.

Now, I am not sure if you even tried to use Hugo as all in one, running Hugo to power your speakers. If not, I don't know where you are basing the fact that your Rowlands running as amp for hugo as dac sounds "better". If not, try it and you would be surprised how much an extra component in the chain flattens the 3D stage of what Hugo is capable of.

My speakers are revealing and with amps in the chain, time after time, the sound got harsher and the staging flattened out big time. With just Hugo powering my speakers, It's just 3D. The instruments just float around a lot more in space, width and depth. There is alot of air. Very spacious.
The imaging is still solid and bass is just tiny bit thin, but detail is still there in spades, and I know if the Hugo had fuller bass, the spacious soundstage would have to be compromised. You really can't have it both ways, and I think Hugo struck a good balance, I don't miss the bass at all. It still punches, and has a firm grip with details when called for. All it needs is a higher WPC for us 2 channel guys.

Anyway, I am sure your Rowland Monoblocks sound good with Hugo, but for the general and average consumer, a all in one simple, convinient, plug and play dac/volume control with a remote/amp would apeal a lot more IMO.

 

[Rob Watts]

  Rob,
 
Where is Chord doing their market research?  The only reason I ask it figure out where the opportunity analysis comes from.  
 
Thanks

Well I can't comment on Chord's market research - except John Franks is a very astute guy - but I do projects for Chord because I want the product I am designing, and I don't care whether Chord sell a small quantity or a large one. At the time Hugo was being designed, only 10% of my income came from Chord, the other was from chip design activities. My motivation was simply I wanted one myself.
 
So with Hugo amp, I want Hugo SQ or better for driving passive near field loudspeakers for my office, and something to drive loudspeakers in the family lounge, as the sound from the TV is awful. The technology that's in Hugo amp will migrate to suit my main monitors in the future, but I have made Hugo amp to work in mono block mode in the interim, so it will have decent power too. I don't care whether there is a big market or a small market, it is after all my time and effort I am spending, and if the project works subjectively, that's its own reward to me.
 
Chord and Hugo have often been attacked in that it is all hype and clever marketing. I laugh whenever I see that - we are just a bunch of guys whose only focus is to design and make much better sounding products. There is no opportunity analysis, and if Chord ever became a company that ran on opportunity analysis, then that is the time for me to retire or do something else...
 
I hope that clarifies, Rob 

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Is "Hugo amp" that we are talking about here is the class D speaker amp that is in the work?

 

[Rob Watts]

Yes but its not Class D. Think of it as a Hugo, but much more power.
 
Rob

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Yes but its not Class D. Think of it as a Hugo, but much more power.

Rob

Thanks, Rob. I would like to have one very much. Good luck with the development.

 

[Royalorgans]

IF using the Chord Hugo against the Astell & Kern AK-240 Dac to play classical music that is mastered and remastered from LP's to CD's or just wav files, Do you think the Chord Hugo would indeed sound better thent he AK-240 dac when pairting them with Grado PS-1000, Grado RS-1e, Beyerdynamic T70p, T90, T1's T5p's, Sennheriser  HD-800, Sennheiser Hd-700, Senneheiser HD-598, Sennheiser HD-650 and AKG850. Which headphone would give the greatest detail, Sound stage and mid range clearness

 

[SearchOfSub]

Well I can't comment on Chord's market research - except John Franks is a very astute guy - but I do projects for Chord because I want the product I am designing, and I don't care whether Chord sell a small quantity or a large one. At the time Hugo was being designed, only 10% of my income came from Chord, the other was from chip design activities. My motivation was simply I wanted one myself.

So with Hugo amp, I want Hugo SQ or better for driving passive near field loudspeakers for my office, and something to drive loudspeakers in the family lounge, as the sound from the TV is awful. The technology that's in Hugo amp will migrate to suit my main monitors in the future, but I have made Hugo amp to work in mono block mode in the interim, so it will have decent power too. I don't care whether there is a big market or a small market, it is after all my time and effort I am spending, and if the project works subjectively, that's its own reward to me.

Chord and Hugo have often been attacked in that it is all hype and clever marketing. I laugh whenever I see that - we are just a bunch of guys whose only focus is to design and make much better sounding products. There is no opportunity analysis, and if Chord ever became a company that ran on opportunity analysis, then that is the time for me to retire or do something else...

I hope that clarifies, Rob 

+1.. I can see throughout history from companies the moment they lose passion for what they do and choose to become a sellout, that's when they start putting out meaningless mediocre products and really start to go down.. pretty sad really. I see Apple doing that nowadays.

 

[M Coupe]

It is okay.  I said it once, I said it a million times, I love my HUGO.
 
However to say they are not in the business for profit is really not believable.  Business that endures solve problems people care about..this also allows them to charge a premium.  Innovation without a latent or stated problem is useless.  If they don't approach the market t his way, they won't be around very long.  I know better than to think they don't do an opportunity analysis (even if it is on the back of a napkin at your local pub). I happen to think the Chord brand is smart with product and pricing.  That is what I asked the question.
 
I assumed there was a latent need they uncovered and wanted to understand it and where they identified it.  I guess a small integrated could fit an audience and with Chord behind it, it would be top built and sound good.  
 
I did not mean any offense.  I just like to understand the "Why?"
 
Rob- I appreciate your craft and innovation.  Keep up the outstanding work.

 

[estreeter]

  It is okay.  I said it once, I said it a million times, I love my HUGO.
 
However to say they are not in the business for profit is really not believable.  Business that endures solve problems people care about..this also allows them to charge a premium.  Innovation without a latent or stated problem is useless.  If they don't approach the market t his way, they won't be around very long.  I know better than to think they don't do an opportunity analysis (even if it is on the back of a napkin at your local pub). I happen to think the Chord brand is smart with product and pricing.  That is what I asked the question.
 
I assumed there was a latent need they uncovered and wanted to understand it and where they identified it.  I guess a small integrated could fit an audience and with Chord behind it, it would be top built and sound good.  
 
I did not mean any offense.  I just like to understand the "Why?"
 
Rob- I appreciate your craft and innovation.  Keep up the outstanding work.

 
I have a very different POV. even if I dont disagree with your thrust re profit motive. This hobby/business is littered with the corpses of great little startups where the guy building the gear simply didnt understand that moving from the kitchen table to the internet was going to mean facing certain financial realities - Singlepower is probably the most blatant example during my time on HF. Ask someone who has a working Singlepower amp and they will probably tell you it's one of the best they've heard - ask one of Mikael's later customers and you could easily hear language that would make a sailor blush. They either didnt get an amp at all or - worse - they received a defective and potentially dangerous product. 
 
Getting back to understanding the 'why', personally I dont spend too much time thinking about that. Marantz, Simaudio Moon, Esoteric and others still make SACD players - surely a tiny niche even within the digital audio community - and CD transports costing many thousands of dollars at a time when the media itself is fading from the retail space. Moreover, we still have businesses making a living modifying these relics (I have the flagship Oppo and a $2500 Marantz SACD player - I'm not insulting owners for the sake of it) : clearly, there is still a market out there. For the hard-headed business men on HF, I believe that Marantz' parent company D+M Holdings is effectively backed by Bain Capital, an entity with no particular interest in high-end audio - continuing to produce gear that doesnt sell just wouldnt make any sense regardless of the love and passion injected into the products by the designers and engineers. 
 
In Chord's case, John Franks has clearly decided that allowing Rob to design the best product he can makes financial sense - the rest is down to Chord's production and marketing. This seems very similar to the relationship between Bruno Putzeys and Hypex - how many companies could afford to give an engineer two years to take a concept from an academic paper to production reality ? Hypex clearly knew they had the smartest guy in the room and they were prepared to put their money into his research effort - I havent heard any of the NCore-based amps but thus far they seem to have garnered universal praise. 
 
End of the day, if one needs any proof that the industry does adapt to the needs of their customers, I believe that we dont need to look any further than the USB DAC. When I started in this hobby, there were basically 2 choices - the Benchmark DAC-1 and Grace M902, When I look at the space between ~1500-3000USD now, it's phenomenal - esp when big name companies who previously had very little below 10K have entered the fray. How many of us ever thought we would see a desktop component from Meridian or McIntosh that was even remotely 'affordable' ?
 
I've said it before - we are living in the Golden Age of Audiophilia - be happy. 

 

[SearchOfSub]

Louis Vuitton owns Devialet btw.

 

[M Coupe]

E-Streeter, I think your post was a good one. While I do have some reservations, we both think the HUGO is a triumph. Where is Bobby McFarrin when you need him.
 
Happy Friday all!
 
To honor the late Robin Williams.
 
 

 

[deuter]

Hugo is the best portable DAC , now to see how it stacks against the heavy hitting desktop dacs