[Forty6]

This 45usd upcoming upgrades module for the mojo does looks very promising . SD expansion , Bluetooth Aptx all in one with this module ?







http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/03/chord-electronics-extend-mojo-at-canjam-socal-2016/

 

[Delayeed]

This 45usd upcoming upgrades module for the mojo does looks very promising . SD expansion , Bluetooth Aptx all in one with this module ?







http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/03/chord-electronics-extend-mojo-at-canjam-socal-2016/

"The 2Qute and Hugo feature 26,000 taps apiece. Ditto 2015’s Mojo." Cool! Wasn't clear about that.

 

[Mython]

This 45usd upcoming upgrades module for the mojo does looks very promising . SD expansion , Bluetooth Aptx all in one with this module ?







http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/03/chord-electronics-extend-mojo-at-canjam-socal-2016/

 
 
No, the current sub-$100 module does not include SD expansion or Bluetooth Aptx. That will be a much more complex module, and will inevitably cost substantially more. ETA is not yet known, as it is currently under intense development.

 

[cazone]

And here comes another new and happy Mojo owner.

Despite its many input options and all different possibilities, I ask myself which would be other head-fiers preferred one?
Are there any stats on this subject?
Like,
1/ Mobile or desktop use or both?
2/ used input(s) ? Optical, USB, coax?
3/ used transport ? DAP, phone, PC, mac ?

For myself, I'm going to use the Mojo with a fiio X3ii and at home with a 2011 MBP trough USB and maybe later optical.

C*

 

[Mython]

 

 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

This 45usd upcoming upgrades module for the mojo does looks very promising . SD expansion , Bluetooth Aptx all in one with this module ?

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/03/chord-electronics-extend-mojo-at-canjam-socal-2016/

 
"The 2Qute and Hugo feature 26,000 taps apiece. Ditto 2015’s Mojo." Cool! Wasn't clear about that.

 
 
From post #3 \ Detailed & in-depth Information on Mojo, by Rob Watts (Mojos designer) \ Informative posts by Rob Watts \ Is Mojo FPGA code the same as Hugo?:
 

 

26,000 taps is the closest to a definitive statement as I've read ... the same as I've seen specified for Hugo.

I'm sure it's called out earlier in the thread, just going from memory as I'm far too lazy to search for it!

Actually it's about twice as many as Hugo but run at half the speed giving approximately the same number crunching power in terms of DSP ..... We have mentioned this before, but didn't want to put much focus on it as this is a small only part of the over design of Rob's overall topology

 
 

Spoiler: Also see these quotes

  Just to correct things - it is a 15T that is used on the Mojo.
 
That has 16,640 logic cells and 45 dsp cores. 44 cores are used in Mojo.
 
The overriding design decisions were about power consumption, so although more DSP cores are used than Hugo, that's to reduce power, as the DSP cores are run at a much lower clock speed. To give you another example of lower power, with Hugo when I needed a bigger multiplier I used one DSP core with FPGA fabric (logic cells) added to create the larger multiplier. With Mojo, to save power, I used multiple DSP cores and no fabric to create larger multipliers.
 
Only the WTA filter is different, the rest of the audio path has Hugo code.
 
Rob

 

Thanks, Mython. Great interview. I love hearing the additional technical and design details trickle out, like solving a mystery (of how this unit sounds so fantastic). John mentions that Mojo uses 60 DSP cores. Rob has said Dave uses 166. The Mojo's chip has 90 cores, so others could be used for other functions besides the DAC itself. Interesting,y, the Hugo chip has 16 DSP cores. Not saying more has to be better...not saying.

it was always our intention to try to match the performance of Hugo To do this without using as much power as Hugo. Therefore Rob used more DSP cores but run differently to match the performance of Hugo but at far lower power demands. JF

 

 

[Ancipital]

And here comes another new and happy Mojo owner.

Despite its many input options and all different possibilities, I ask myself which would be other head-fiers preferred one?
Are there any stats on this subject?
Like,
1/ Mobile or desktop use or both?
2/ used input(s) ? Optical, USB, coax?
3/ used transport ? DAP, phone, PC, mac ?

For myself, I'm going to use the Mojo with a fiio X3ii and at home with a 2011 MBP trough USB and maybe later optical.

C*

 
Over the summer, I found the Mojo way too unreliable to use as a desktop DAC. If it was charging and playing at once, it'd shut down far too often due to heat. It actually annoyed me enough that I bought a Modi Multibit as my desktop DAC. The Mojo hardly ever gets to be the desktop DAC now, it's mostly on mobile and travel duty. The upside is that I don't need to mess with replugging stuff when I get home any more.

 

[cyclops214]

Great news audio sanctuary sent me a email today telling me my Mojo connection Kit is on its way not sure how long it will take to get from England to California but hopefully sometime next week unfortunately I went on the cheap and I did not pay for tracking kicking myself now for that.

 

[Mython]

  Over the summer, I found the Mojo way too unreliable to use as a desktop DAC. If it was charging and playing at once, it'd shut down far too often due to heat. It actually annoyed me enough that I bought a Modi Multibit as my desktop DAC. The Mojo hardly ever gets to be the desktop DAC now, it's mostly on mobile and travel duty. The upside is that I don't need to mess with replugging stuff when I get home any more.

 
 
Not to downplay the legitimacy of your irritation, but did you try turning Mojo on its edge? This makes a substantial difference to the efficiency of thermal radiation.

 

[Ancipital]

   
 
Not to downplay the legitimacy of your irritation, but did you try turning Mojo on its edge? This makes a substantial difference to the efficiency of thermal radiation.

 
It does, yes.. but we had a bunch of days in the thirties* where taking the Mojo out of its case and balancing it precariously didn't cut it. That said, I really shouldn't have to balance a device on its edge to stop it from switching itself off- that's rather poor. Hell, it shouldn't be a necessary to take it out of its protective case, either, and cross your fingers that running it from the mains won't make it shut off.
 
It was a blessed relief to get the Modi Multibit, as I was always on edge when listening, expecting the music to cut out, when using the Mojo as my desktop DAC.
 
Between the thermal issues when charging, and the advice to put your phone in flight mode while using it (due to lack of RFI protection from the USB), it's a good job that it's a niche audio nerd product. We're used to things like the Mojo and the GeekOut series which sound fantastic but have annoying usability problems- we prize the sound quality over convenience. If it was a mass-market product, the consumer advocacy organisations would go nuts and the memes would also proliferate.
 
Luckily the sound quality is decent and it drives my smaller headphones (especially IEMs) nicely, otherwise I would have returned it as faulty already. If you can work around all the nonsense, it is great to have such good sound on the move, though.
 
 
*Celsius, obvs. 

 

 

[ubs28]

   
It does, yes.. but we had a bunch of days in the thirties* where taking the Mojo out of its case and balancing it precariously didn't cut it. That said, I really shouldn't have to balance a device on its edge to stop it from switching itself off- that's rather poor. Hell, it shouldn't be a necessary to take it out of its protective case, either, and cross your fingers that running it from the mains won't make it shut off.
 
It was a blessed relief to get the Modi Multibit, as I was always on edge when listening, expecting the music to cut out, when using the Mojo as my desktop DAC.
 
Between the thermal issues when charging, and the advice to put your phone in flight mode while using it (due to lack of RFI protection from the USB), it's a good job that it's a niche audio nerd product. We're used to things like the Mojo and the GeekOut series which sound fantastic but have annoying usability problems- we prize the sound quality over convenience. If it was a mass-market product, the consumer advocacy organisations would go nuts and the memes would also proliferate.
 
Luckily the sound quality is decent and it drives my smaller headphones (especially IEMs) nicely, otherwise I would have returned it as faulty already!
 
 
 
*Celsius, obvs. 

 

I don't think the Mojo was intended as a home DAC but for on the go. Can't really blame Chord for overheating if you keep charging while using it and also inside a case. Chord has other DAC's for that kind of purpose.
 
But Chord has a portable DAC which doesn't have your issues, but it also costs alot more, which is the Chord Hugo. And it's also more bulky.

 

[Ancipital]

 
I don't think the Mojo was intended as a home DAC but for on the go. Can't really blame Chord for overheating if you keep charging while using it and also inside a case. Chord has other DAC's for that kind of purpose.
 

 
Yeah, you weren't really keeping up at the back there, were you? 

 

[miketlse]

My mojo is normally ok, when it is balanced on edge, and the temperature gets in the 30s.
My modem keeps losing the broadband connection on those days, but I can't blame the mojo for that. 

 

[ubs28]

   
Yeah, you weren't really keeping up at the back there, were you? 

If you think Chord designed the Mojo for home use rather than as a portable device on the go, then I don't know what to say. 

 

[Mython]

  .... we had a bunch of days in the thirties* where taking the Mojo out of its case and balancing it precariously didn't cut it. That said, I really shouldn't have to balance a device on its edge to stop it from switching itself off- that's rather poor. Hell, it shouldn't be a necessary to take it out of its protective case, either, and cross your fingers that running it from the mains won't make it shut off.

 
 
 
I understand your irritation, and I'm not dismissing it - but a little perspective on the situation is appropriate.  As any electronics engineer will tell you, signal processing makes power demands, and since Mojo has vastly more processing power than most DACs (portable or desktop), that inevitably has to come at some thermal cost. Why do you think notebooks dissipate so much heat? The trade-offs between processing power and heat-dissipation are a major challenge facing the industry. Mojo is a tiny pocket device performing at a processing standard higher than many fullsize desktop DACs.
 
 

  Mojo actually upsamples and filters everything to 2048 FS (eventually getting to 104 MHz) and it does this in two stages. Firstly upsamples to 16 FS via the WTA filter, then there is a second filter that then takes you to 2048 FS.
 
Its the upsampling to 16FS where the clever stuff happens - that's where the 44 dsp cores are used - and this process is orders of magnitude more advanced than what a PC can do. So what we are talking here is not the need to upsample, but how well that upsampling is done.
 
Rob

 
 

  .... perhaps we could up date the software to take out about 99.95 percent of Mojos signal processing capability to bring it line with other audio industry chip Dacs. This of course would destroy Mojo's abilities in reproducing the natural layering and depth information of the music, but the sound stage would indeed sound wide but it would also sound as flat as a pancake.

 
 

   
Between the thermal issues when charging, and the advice to put your phone in flight mode while using it (due to lack of RFI protection from the USB), it's a good job that it's a niche audio nerd product. We're used to things like the Mojo and the GeekOut series which sound fantastic but have annoying usability problems- we prize the sound quality over convenience. If it was a mass-market product, the consumer advocacy organisations would go nuts and the memes would also proliferate.
 
Luckily the sound quality is decent and it drives my smaller headphones (especially IEMs) nicely, otherwise I would have returned it as faulty already!

 
Not being able to circumvent the laws of physics in 100% of extreme ambient temperatures may constitute a fault, in your eyes, and you are entitled to feel that way, but not everyone feels the same.
 
As for the RF issue, much like thermal dissipation, RF is a major challenge to electronics designers around the globe, again in terms of both portable and desktop devices. Mojo is not alone in not being 100% immune to wildly-varying levels of RF transmission from smartphones, and it does very much depend on how far away local cellular transmitters are from one's location, what carrier frequency(ies) one's network provider operates on, what cable one is using, etc. etc.
 
Again, I'm not irrationally defending Mojo - I'm just saying life isn't perfect, Mojo is substantially pushing the boundaries of music processing capability, and doing so in a tiny pocket format, and every electronic device on planet earth has some compromises and vulnerabilities, so a little perspective is not an unreasonable thing to expect. If one doesn't like the compromises involved with one electronic device, that's their prerogative, as long as one gives a nod of acknowledgment to the technical challenges associated with them, and doesn't compare apples with oranges

 

 

[Ancipital]

 
Again, I'm not irrationally defending Mojo - I'm just saying life isn't perfect, Mojo is substantially pushing the boundaries of music processing capability, and doing so in a tiny pocket format, and every electronic device on planet earth has some compromises and vulnerabilities, so a little perspective is not an unreasonable thing to expect. If one doesn't like the compromises involved with one electronic device, that's their prerogative, as long as one gives a nod of acknowledgment to the technical challenges associated with them, and doesn't compare apples with oranges

 

 
Yes, stuff is hard, nor will you find me pretending otherwise. However, like I say, it's a really good job that neither this nor the GOV2 are mass market devices, or there would be hell to pay for their flaws. We persevere in pursuit of the sound because we must, however it's as well to do so with your eyes open.
 
I'm very in favour of recognising and detailing them honestly though, as the prevalent "everything is awesome" narrative is misleading and unhelpful. People who are having problems should be able to enumerate and discuss them without being buried under a fanboy smokescreen. I think you provided an excellent example- some people may never have thought of balancing the Mojo on its edge to stop it overheating. Being well-informed increases the chances of being able get the most from it.
 
I am aware that the Mojo uses one of the smaller Xilinx FPGAs in a portable device, and while my FPGA-fu is rusty these days, I get it.That's why I bought it