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

[noobandroid]

  I am super happy with unbalanced output.. onc eyou have balanced out, then you have to have a balanced adapter for all headphones/earbuds

SE fine by me too 

 

[Toolman]

 

  We need a portable DAC with a balanced output...Chord are you listening?  

I am super happy with unbalanced output.. onc eyou have balanced out, then you have to have a balanced adapter for all headphones/earbuds

Yes...but a couple of my amps are optimised for balanced output. Most, if not all of my cables are terminated with balanced connectors so this is the route I want to move forward. Of course, just because there is a balanced output does not mean that you cannot use them SE but it would be beneficial to those who needed them.

Besides there are 2 headphone output in the Mojo as it is...if we could have one that's balanced that would be great

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

We need a portable DAC with a balanced output...Chord are you listening?  :wink_face:

Why? Balanced solves a problem that doesn't exist in the consumer audio market.

 

[Toolman]

 

We need a portable DAC with a balanced output...Chord are you listening?  

Why? Balanced solves a problem that doesn't exist in the consumer audio market.

Then why are they being around in the first place?

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

Then why are they being around in the first place?

It's used in professional environments (for a reason) and companies think (know) they can get more money by convincing consumers they need it.

In other words, it exists for the same reason "brilliant pebbles" do.

If you're running a hundred meters of cable behind and around a power rack, you might have a need for balanced. I assure you though, you're not picking any appreciable noise on the cable between your portable amp and your headphones.

 

[Mojo ideas]

Then why are they being around in the first place?

Most designers don't have access to the technologies we have therefore they must look around for alternative solutions to the substrate noise and low battery voltage,
hence poor output voltage swing problems. As I've said balancing a design is a imperfect fix for a problem that we don't have so we don't need to do it.

 

[UNOE]

It should be easy to get more energy effiency out of the fpga within a few years. However the amp is liley using more power than the FPGA. As far as design it doesn't need to improve much if it's already this good, then better tech will only improve effiency. I don't believe there would be a need to add more processing power at this point so next step is to cut energy consumption.

What amp. :wink_face:

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/02/chord-electronics-mojo-lost-found/

Watts’ reply: “It has an identical architecture to Hugo. Conventional DAC’s have two I-to-V converters, differential-to-single ended converter, followed by a headphone buffer. That’s four active gain stages plus a lot of passive components to do the filtering. All this complexity means poor transparency and a harder sound quality.”

“Mojo on the other hand has a single gain Class A stage with enough current to drive headphones directly. This design is so successful in SQ and measurements I now use it even when you do not need the large 0.5A RMS output currents. So there is no extra stage, you are not double amping.”

Yeah, I don't believe that portion of the design would benefit with lower power consumption as much as a die shrink of fpga itself would at least percentage wise.

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

Yeah, I don't believe that portion of the design would benefit with lower power consumption as much as a die shrink of fpga itself would at least percentage wise.

 
28nm CMOS is a good balance between power and cost.

 

[SearchOfSub]

Most designers don't have access to the technologies we have therefore they must look around for alternative solutions to the substrate noise and low battery voltage,
hence poor output voltage swing problems. As I've said balancing a design is a imperfect fix for a problem that we don't have so we don't need to do it.

Very true.

 

[UNOE]

Yeah, I don't believe that portion of the design would benefit with lower power consumption as much as a die shrink of fpga itself would at least percentage wise.

28nm CMOS is a good balance between power and cost.

The original question in context was what could be improved 10 years from now as far as tech. Die shrink in 5 years would be likely. But my point was not much would improve on the overall output but power consumption should be little lower at some point but not much lower.
I'm guessing only about 30% power savings after few years with a major die shrink, once it's cost effective of course.

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

The original question in context was what could be improved 10 years from now as far as tech. Die shrink in 5 years would be likely. But my point was not much would improve on the overall output but power consumption should be little lower at some point but not much lower.
I'm guessing only about 30% power savings after few years with a major die shrink, once it's cost effective of course.

Smaller processes are already available. Samsung has just ramped to production level for a 10nm based SoC. More relevantly, Xilinx has offerings using a 16nm process and Altera has products using a 14nm process.

What is your power estimate based on?

 

[Mython]

  Anyone else notice how much the Mojo seems to love 16bit/44.1khz (redbook standard CD) ?  I feel like some of my 16bit flac files sound more realistic than even some of my DSD.  

 
 
=784602&advanced=1]Yep.

 

[UNOE]

The original question in context was what could be improved 10 years from now as far as tech. Die shrink in 5 years would be likely. But my point was not much would improve on the overall output but power consumption should be little lower at some point but not much lower.
I'm guessing only about 30% power savings after few years with a major die shrink, once it's cost effective of course.

Smaller processes are already available. Samsung has just ramped to production level for a 10nm based SoC. More relevantly, Xilinx has offerings using a 16nm process and Altera has products using a 14nm process.

What is your power estimate based on?

I think everyone is aware those processes are available. But when it's cost effective for smaller company to use those processes is later. That's same point you made earlier. 28nm is best now for company at this size but not forever. Die shrinks usually yield about 30% power savings this is just a general guess based on very little knowledge of mojo design.
Again the context of the response was will 10 years from now a better mojo be out. I don't believe it will get much better output. At lease hearable difference. Because mojo test near perfect now so what is there to improve? Power consumption can be improved over time with same design though. But probably not by a whole lot. The point was the guy should buy mojo now not wait 5 to 10 years for something better.

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

I think everyone is aware those processes are available. But when it's cost effective for smaller company to use those processes is later. That's same point you made earlier. 28nm is best now for company at this size but not forever. Die shrinks usually yield about 30% power savings this is just a general guess based on very little knowledge of mojo design.
Again the context of the response was will 10 years from now a better mojo be out. I don't believe it will get much better output. At lease hearable difference. Because mojo test near perfect now so what is there to improve? Power consumption can be improved over time with same design though. But probably not by a whole lot. The point was the guy should buy mojo now not wait 5 to 10 years for something better.

 
Die shrinks of what proportion? Is this a swag (based on what?) or just pure speculation? I ask because I've read that smaller transistors use less power, but I don't know enough about it to know why or how to estimate the power savings.... Just trying to learn something new. The only reason I made my previous comment is because I've sat through enough vendor product roadmap meetings to have the generic plot of cost/performance burned into the back of my eyelids. 

 

[esm87]

Bit of a noob question but I cyrrently use Tidal for my FLAC file music. How would I obtain music and put it on my phone as FLAC format?

It would be great to have dedicated memory cards for certain genres that I could play through uapp or some other without having to be on TIDAL but still get the maximum mojo benefit

Cheers