Chord Hugo
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:07 PM Post #9,721 of 15,694
hi all head-fiers, i currently have a cayin n6 dap & i am in search for a very good headphone dac/amp which chord hugo is my number #1 selection and number #2 selection is Aurender Flow Portable Headphone Amp & DAC. will chord hugo be more fitting for this cayin n6 dap paired with fostex th900?
 
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:07 PM Post #9,722 of 15,694
hi all head-fiers, i currently have a cayin n6 dap & i am in search for a very good headphone dac/amp which chord hugo is my number #1 selection and number #2 selection is Aurender Flow Portable Headphone Amp & DAC. will chord hugo be more fitting for this cayin n6 dap paired with fostex th900?
 
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:09 PM Post #9,723 of 15,694
hi all head-fiers, i currently have a cayin n6 dap & i am in search for a very good headphone dac/amp which chord hugo is my number #1 selection and number #2 selection is Aurender Flow Portable Headphone Amp & DAC. will chord hugo be more fitting for this cayin n6 dap paired with fostex th900?
 
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:10 PM Post #9,724 of 15,694
hi all head-fiers, i currently have a cayin n6 dap & i am in search for a very good headphone dac/amp which chord hugo is my number #1 selection and number #2 selection is Aurender Flow Portable Headphone Amp & DAC. will chord hugo be more fitting for this cayin n6 dap paired with fostex th900?
 
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:40 PM Post #9,725 of 15,694
Whazzup with 12 posts?
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 12:57 AM Post #9,726 of 15,694
waiting for my Hugo and Momentum 2 to arrive but Shure SE846 came in today.  Listened to it with iPhone 6 plus for 4 hours straight.  It is so much better than my SE530.
 
I wonder just how much better it is adding the Hugo into the mix.
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 3:41 AM Post #9,727 of 15,694
Whazzup with 12 posts?

 
I gave up counting, but the admins need to take a look at how this happens from time to time. My other boards have a timeout that stops people submitting two posts within the same 60-second window - surely that could be implemented here ? 
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 3:43 AM Post #9,728 of 15,694
I live and work on a small island so do not have hardly any opportunity to try out gear before I buy, a trip to the my nearest hifi store is either an hours flight or a three hour ferry ride and a four hour drive. I currently have a Unitiqute 2 (attached to a Qnap NAS streaming rebook and high res flac files transcoded on the fly into wav) and a pair of Guru QM10's and to me this sounded pretty good. I wanted to add some headphones that would give me a comparable sound to the speakers so after much reading here on the forum I bought a pair of HD800's. This was a big purchase for me especially as I was buying blind, or should that be deaf, but I was hopeful that based on what seemed pretty overwhelming opinion the HD800's would be awesome. The Unitiqute 2 only has a 3.5mm headphone out and this concerned me a little so I made sure that I ordered a decent adapter and waited with anticipation for them to arrive. They arrived and so I plugged them in, put on my favourite 24/192 track and......it just sounded - ordinary. Tracks that through my speakers sounded spacious and alive were now flat. I could not believe that it was the HD800's fault and whilst I understood that as with most gear a period of burn in was required I just did think that this would make that much difference. So, what to do. The problem was obviously the headphone amp section. I first considered the HDVD800 and the Headline with napsc but they seemed to be a lot of money for what they did and there was no real groundswell of opinion in their favour that set them apart as an outstanding piece of gear. The only answer seemed to be the Hugo and so I phoned my dealer and after the usual caveats of "you really should come along and listen" he dispatched a black Hugo with Chord coax lead. Yesterday I spent my first full day listening and wow the life is back and some. The soundstage is huge, the separation between instruments is fantastic and the realism is  just phenomenal. I am now hearing things I had never heard before and last night when I turned the lights out and just sat there listening in the dark it sounded even better. The Hugo is a revelation and for me, a great investment for now and the future. 
Just as an aside I would like to get a portable player and wonder if any Hugo owners can recommend one that would work well, I listen mainly to jazz and blues with some classical. Is it practical to take the Hugo out with a portable device or should I just go for one with a decent dac.
Many thanks.
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 4:24 AM Post #9,729 of 15,694
  I live and work on a small island so do not have hardly any opportunity to try out gear before I buy, a trip to the my nearest hifi store is either an hours flight or a three hour ferry ride and a four hour drive. I currently have a Unitiqute 2 (attached to a Qnap NAS streaming rebook and high res flac files transcoded on the fly into wav) and a pair of Guru QM10's and to me this sounded pretty good. I wanted to add some headphones that would give me a comparable sound to the speakers so after much reading here on the forum I bought a pair of HD800's. This was a big purchase for me especially as I was buying blind, or should that be deaf, but I was hopeful that based on what seemed pretty overwhelming opinion the HD800's would be awesome. The Unitiqute 2 only has a 3.5mm headphone out and this concerned me a little so I made sure that I ordered a decent adapter and waited with anticipation for them to arrive. They arrived and so I plugged them in, put on my favourite 24/192 track and......it just sounded - ordinary. Tracks that through my speakers sounded spacious and alive were now flat. I could not believe that it was the HD800's fault and whilst I understood that as with most gear a period of burn in was required I just did think that this would make that much difference. So, what to do. The problem was obviously the headphone amp section. I first considered the HDVD800 and the Headline with napsc but they seemed to be a lot of money for what they did and there was no real groundswell of opinion in their favour that set them apart as an outstanding piece of gear. The only answer seemed to be the Hugo and so I phoned my dealer and after the usual caveats of "you really should come along and listen" he dispatched a black Hugo with Chord coax lead. Yesterday I spent my first full day listening and wow the life is back and some. The soundstage is huge, the separation between instruments is fantastic and the realism is  just phenomenal. I am now hearing things I had never heard before and last night when I turned the lights out and just sat there listening in the dark it sounded even better. The Hugo is a revelation and for me, a great investment for now and the future. 
Just as an aside I would like to get a portable player and wonder if any Hugo owners can recommend one that would work well, I listen mainly to jazz and blues with some classical. Is it practical to take the Hugo out with a portable device or should I just go for one with a decent dac.
Many thanks.

with what headphones will you use the dap?
 
if with hd800. i would simply not take them outside.
 
what price are you aiming for when asking a good dap to combine with hugo?
 
fiio x5 is what i have, and is awesome. also 350$ is not much...
ibasso dx90 is about the same price, and similar SQ. 
AK players are way more expensive, but are also a good option.
incoming players that seem interesting: queestyle qp1, fiio x7.
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 4:25 AM Post #9,730 of 15,694
   
I gave up counting, but the admins need to take a look at how this happens from time to time. My other boards have a timeout that stops people submitting two posts within the same 60-second window - surely that could be implemented here ? 

that would be great. something like permiting only edition within a 1 or 2 minutes period would surley bring more happiness.
 
or implementing the edit thingy, where if you are the last one who posted, your new post should appear as an edit to your own post. this one whould only hurt for sale forums, because there you need to bump with a new post.
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 4:44 AM Post #9,731 of 15,694

I currently have a Klipsch S4 (sorry I should have mentioned that) and was considering changing these to iem 80 or a used iem800. I have the X5 on my list - do you use it on its own or connected to the Hugo. I have read that the AK players don't work so well with macs and so had not really thought about them plus with having just payed out over £2000 in the last two weeks fund are a little low at the moment so the X5 sounds ideal. Thanks for your help
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:58 AM Post #9,732 of 15,694
 
I currently have a Klipsch S4 (sorry I should have mentioned that) and was considering changing these to iem 80 or a used iem800. I have the X5 on my list - do you use it on its own or connected to the Hugo. I have read that the AK players don't work so well with macs and so had not really thought about them plus with having just payed out over £2000 in the last two weeks fund are a little low at the moment so the X5 sounds ideal. Thanks for your help

i also own x5 ie8, and listened to ie800. ie8 are more veiled, have more bass, are less resolving, but have a wider soundstage. ie800 are more detailed, better treble, more clear, but not enough wide soundstage. i am still going to buy ie800. Fiio x5 is great to use as a source for chord hugo, this is how i tested chord hugo, it works so great, and also x5 has an amazing sound on itself. i liked it better than most things i had tried portable at the store.
 
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:39 PM Post #9,733 of 15,694
Frankly you've already found an amazing combo and almost anything else will be less good. 
The general agreement on this thread is that no DAP is going to sound as good as your Hugo. You can spend a lot of money on an AK240 and get close, or you can spend quite a bit less and cary the Hugo. The AK120 is good enough for non critical quality listening, just stay away from the EQ, which brings the SQ down several hundred dollars worth, even through the digital out. 
Be careful of IE800's - there are a lot of fakes out there. I would be very afraid to buy them used. They're also pretty delicate so you'd really want a full warranty. Read the thread. 
I have the IE80's and they're nothing like the HD800. They're kind of a bass-head design (adjustable). But they're fun to listen to and they'll give you different perspective but don't expect HD800 level SQ. 
The closest IEM i've heard to the HD800 is the UERM. Lots of clarity and excellent soundstage, if that's what you're after. Is there an audiologist on your island? Custom IEM's are not for the impatient. They take a long time to get and often a longer time to get right.
 
 
Quote:
  I live and work on a small island so do not have hardly any opportunity to try out gear before I buy, a trip to the my nearest hifi store is either an hours flight or a three hour ferry ride and a four hour drive. I currently have a Unitiqute 2 (attached to a Qnap NAS streaming rebook and high res flac files transcoded on the fly into wav) and a pair of Guru QM10's and to me this sounded pretty good. I wanted to add some headphones that would give me a comparable sound to the speakers so after much reading here on the forum I bought a pair of HD800's. This was a big purchase for me especially as I was buying blind, or should that be deaf, but I was hopeful that based on what seemed pretty overwhelming opinion the HD800's would be awesome. The Unitiqute 2 only has a 3.5mm headphone out and this concerned me a little so I made sure that I ordered a decent adapter and waited with anticipation for them to arrive. They arrived and so I plugged them in, put on my favourite 24/192 track and......it just sounded - ordinary. Tracks that through my speakers sounded spacious and alive were now flat. I could not believe that it was the HD800's fault and whilst I understood that as with most gear a period of burn in was required I just did think that this would make that much difference. So, what to do. The problem was obviously the headphone amp section. I first considered the HDVD800 and the Headline with napsc but they seemed to be a lot of money for what they did and there was no real groundswell of opinion in their favour that set them apart as an outstanding piece of gear. The only answer seemed to be the Hugo and so I phoned my dealer and after the usual caveats of "you really should come along and listen" he dispatched a black Hugo with Chord coax lead. Yesterday I spent my first full day listening and wow the life is back and some. The soundstage is huge, the separation between instruments is fantastic and the realism is  just phenomenal. I am now hearing things I had never heard before and last night when I turned the lights out and just sat there listening in the dark it sounded even better. The Hugo is a revelation and for me, a great investment for now and the future. 
Just as an aside I would like to get a portable player and wonder if any Hugo owners can recommend one that would work well, I listen mainly to jazz and blues with some classical. Is it practical to take the Hugo out with a portable device or should I just go for one with a decent dac.
Many thanks.

 
Feb 23, 2015 at 9:10 AM Post #9,734 of 15,694
I own a Hugo as a standalone digital preamplifier and DAC since 2 weeks.

When I power on the Hugo, the volume setting is about -24dB. With efficient studio monitors, this level could be too high if me or my childrens forget to lower the volume. Is it possible to modify this behavior ?

Also the default digital input is never the coax input that I use mainly. Is possible that the Hugo saves the last digital input used ?

I am very pleased. Surely the DAC that I prefer for this task on sound quality criterion. For me I prefer it over DM, Benchmark, Lavry, Bel Canto DAC that I own in the past.

Thanks,
 

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