Chord Mojo(1) DAC-amp ☆★►FAQ in 3rd post!◄★☆

[music4mhell]

  Ok Got a question. I have been listening to mojo using j river on my pc (flac files ripped from my huge CD collection). I listen through Nighthawk and a 2.1 channel system (all yamaha gear)...I built my PC using an asrock motherboard with a toslink optical out. The motherboard had realtek acl1150 dac and realtek controller on the optical output too.
 
When I listen to mojo through USB I can hear that there is a fair amount of noise floor modulation (the sound is brighter, more metallic sounding treble, less musical, less engaging). Optical obviously sounds smoother, warmer more engaging and more natural..
 
So that difference can be explained through noise floor modulation via USB due to no galvanic isolation on mojo
 
My understanding from reading Robs posts is that the spdif inputs use a buffer and are retimed in the FPGA so asynchronous USB transmission shouldn't make a difference since all data from all inputs is retimed anyway
 
Soooo what really has me scratching my head is why on earth does all my music sound soooo much better when played straight from CD using my yamaha CDS300 and audioquest forest optical straight in to mojo???? the sound is more musical, more engaging, vocals seam to project into the room more and there seams to be 3 dimensional aspect to each sound.....it's also warmer and more natural. The only time I have heard better sound was when I auditioned DAVE.
 
So if Flac is lossless and mojo is imune to jitter (cos all data is retimed in the FPGA), then why does mojo sound its best out of my CDS300????? I should also mention that I have eq disabled in J river to get bit perfect output and of course I am not up sampling - cos I want mojo to get the original untouched data

Try using a better USB cable with ferite cores at both end

 

[GoodEnoughGear]

  A bit like this?

I'd be a lot more successful with sarcasm if I looked that good .

 

[Bricki]

Yeah I understand that I can improve the sound over USB by using a jitterbug or ferite cores

 
But I am really wondering why there is an audible difference between my sources over optical...seeing as jitter is not a problem becasue all data is retimed after being passed through a small buffer and there is no RF noise cos it's optical and FLAC is lossless
 
So I am really wondering why there is such an audible difference??? Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Bricki]

I remember reading a post by Rob watts about small signal reproduction having a huge impact on depth perception (one area where DAVE is very good) and I can say that there is definitely better depth perception when listening to mojo from my cd player via optical. I am wondering if some of these small signals are lost in the FLAC "lossless"  compression???

 

[Delayeed]

  I remember reading a post by Rob watts about small signal reproduction having a huge impact on depth perception (one area where DAVE is very good) and I can say that there is definitely better depth perception when listening to mojo from my cd player via optical. I am wondering if some of these small signals are lost in the FLAC "lossless"  compression???

why the quotation marks around lossless? lossless is lossless.

 

[Light - Man]

  why the quotation marks around lossless? lossless is lossless.

Not if it loses the small signals, as he refers to.

 

[Bricki]

  why the quotation marks around lossless? lossless is lossless.

I am just trying to find a reason for the difference, so naturally I am looking at the first difference - flac vs cd.....I know there isn't supposed to be a difference....I'm sure the difference isn't FLAC vs CD....I'm just stumped that's all

 

[TheTrace]

Bit perfect is way over rated. But if it makes you believe it sounds better than enjoy.

Yeah that's why I'm asking just to make sure, I'm starting to think it doesn't matter.

 

[SearchOfSub]

Regarding upsampling of audio files - If I were to compare to video.To me watching a film that is originally shot in 720P and have my Oppo-105D upscale the content to 1080P, or add their scaling feature brings me better results. Don't quite understand how upsampling from windows to 384khz using Chord ASIO bypasses the Mojo dac capabilities any different then if I were to use 44.1? From my experience, using a higher sampling rate the only compromise is imaging not being as precise, but at the same time
everything else sound becomes more relaxed and more analogue sounding - especially for someone like me that listen to a lot of tracks that do with vocals and don't care for precise imaging placement, is a clear winner.

 

[Light - Man]

 

I am just trying to find a reason for the difference, so naturally I am looking at the first difference - flac vs cd.....I know there isn't supposed to be a difference....I'm sure the difference isn't FLAC vs CD....I'm just stumped that's all

 
I think it has been mentioned a few times on this thread that optical is more immune to RF noise issues - but then on the other hand, USB may have an advantage because it is  asynchronous and therefore maybe technically more advanced but in the real world it also seems to have its own issues.

......

 

 

[jmills8]

Yeah that's why I'm asking just to make sure, I'm starting to think it doesn't matter.

 

[Light - Man]

Rumour has it that Mython has headed off to his beach house for the weekend, at a secret location in the 3rd post.

 
 
Mython, be careful out there - otherwise learn how to swim!
 

 

[Dexter Morgan]

Regarding the Mojo's need for "bit-perfection" to shine, I've been under the impression that on the stock music app on iPhone doesn't play music bit-perfectly and needs something like Onkyo HF Player in order to achieve that.

Is this true or the only purpose behind this app is to play high res files on iPhone with Mojo? I use AAC for my phone and stream Tidal, plus I don't think any of my music is available in DSD.

To answer your question, the iPhone does output bit-perfect audio when you're using iTunes and Tidal. No fussing required. The Onkyo app gives you the ability to play high-res files.

 

[rkt31]

asio as output can only be accessed via compatible software which allow asio driver as output device. selecting mojo as device in Windows will not imho use asio driver. I compared j river and foobar using chord asio without any processing in software. I found j river to be a bit grainy as compared to foobar. I suspect j river despite so called bit perfect does some processing and outputs max supported bit( may be a simple padding too ) by dac keeping the sample rate intact in bit perfect mode . I used highly regarded hq player to upsample to various rates and feeding to mojo. every time mojo fed with foobar without any processing using asio (bit perfect) sounded smoother and more focused. so far my best transport is windows laptop with foobar +chord asio using audioquest jitterbug ( 3 total , one each in 3 usb port ) a short usb cable ( 6 inch but thick usb A to micro) with few small ferrite cores. these cheap tweaks seem to suck out the last bit of noise and the background is as dark as it can be. my second best transport is fiiox3 ii using coaxial again using few small ferrite cores on the cable. the sound is so clean and natural that it instantly reminds of old analog sound of vinyl or movies when the sound track was recorded on the film in analog form.

 

[bavinck]

It totally is.

Is the mojo a good pairing for the andromeda?