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

[elvispreasley]

Well... It's a little better with iGalvanic now

The source and the soft, what you are using as your digital transport - making a HUGE difference. Much greater then any cables and galvanic isolation, what you're trying to use - to improve the SQ.
Just an example. About a week ago I visited local Audio shop and decide to listen Meze Empyrean there, from their reference setup (Yulong DA1 and some expensive Cayin tube amplifier). The source was Macbook Air with Tidal, connected to DAC by USB cable. Immediately after I started to listen whole setup, I got a feeling that something is wrong there, cause the sound quality was far-far away from impressive...I decide to check the DAC settings in Tidal and found that exclusive mode was switched off. After I switched it on - the difference came immediately! Night and day difference!
So 300$ galvanic isolation + 500$ RAAL silver cable - are good things for sure, but without good transport it's just like feeding the Bugatti from the golden bucket with petrol, which random guy brought you in exchange of hamburger.

p.s: Also, I'm suggesting you to switch USB cables in your connection (small one - from source to iGalvanic and RAAL - from iGalvanic to Mojo)

 

[elvispreasley]

Speaking about the transport and the soft.
For the one, who are using Hiby R3 - as a transport for their Mojo and mainly listening Tidal or Qobuz - try to switch on DLNA mode in R3 and send all of the digital content through UPnP, using Bubble UPnP application. First of all it's MUCH MORE CONVENIENT - to control the playback with this app, rather then to do it with built in R3 Tidal client. Second, I personaly found very pleasant improvement in SQ, as it gets that nice "analogue touch" with great smoothness and liquidity.

 

[kr0gg]

The source and the soft, what you are using as your digital transport - making a HUGE difference. Much greater then any cables and galvanic isolation, what you're trying to use - to improve the SQ.
Just an example. About a week ago I visited local Audio shop and decide to listen Meze Empyrean there, from their reference setup (Yulong DA1 and some expensive Cayin tube amplifier). The source was Macbook Air with Tidal, connected to DAC by USB cable. Immediately after I started to listen whole setup, I got a feeling that something is wrong there, cause the sound quality was far-far away from impressive...I decide to check the DAC settings in Tidal and found that exclusive mode was switched off. After I switched it on - the difference came immediately! Night and day difference!
So 300$ galvanic isolation + 500$ RAAL silver cable - are good things for sure, but without good transport it's just like feeding the Bugatti from the golden bucket with petrol, which random guy brought you in exchange of hamburger.

Yeeep. I was using jplay with audiophile optimizer on a win server in a dual pc setup when I could use my desktop setup. I need something smaller now. There's a chance I will get a sotm SMS 200 in a month. Though, you know, I start thinking that vsonic gr07 actually simply suck, but I have nothing else at the moment. Speaking about software - I use a simple audiophile player. It's free and sounds decent.
http://albumplayer.ru/english.html

 

[elvispreasley]

Yeeep. I was using jplay with audiophile optimizer on a win server in a dual pc setup when I could use my desktop setup. I need something smaller now. There's a chance I will get a sotm SMS 200 in a month. Though, you know, I start thinking that vsonic gr07 actually simply suck, but I have nothing else at the moment. Speaking about software - I use a simple audiophile player. It's free and sounds decent.
http://albumplayer.ru/english.html

Well, first of all GR07 is definitely the bottle neck of your current setup - there is no doubts about it. However, even with such a simple earphones, you HAVE to hear noticeable difference, comparing the Mojo with a built in sound card of your laptop, so my vote here goes for bad digital transport aka source.
SOTM is definetely a good way to go further.
I'm not sure what is "dual PC setup", but Windows also not the best OS for Audio server. All of the best projects in this field are Linux based. My personal recommendation goes for Euphony. It blows my mind in terms of improvement of SQ, what may be caused by software optimization! I used to use simple Mac mini 2010 with SSD and RAM upgrade + installed Euphony OS. This feels like an endgame audio server for me (well, I might actually change the power supply on to linear one at some point and that's it)).
I never tried albumplayer personaly, but heard great feedbacks about it. It looks like the best audio player for Windows OS for sure.
So, check out the SOTM and update your impressions. I feel like it will add some juicy juice to your current setup, making you able to enjoy the sound your Mojo finally

 

[kr0gg]

Well, first of all GR07 is definitely the bottle neck of your current setup - there is no doubts about it. However, even with such a simple earphones, you HAVE to hear noticeable difference, comparing the Mojo with a built in sound card of your laptop, so my vote here goes for bad digital transport aka source.
SOTM is definetely a good way to go further.
I'm not sure what is "dual PC setup", but Windows also not the best OS for Audio server. All of the best projects in this field are Linux based. My personal recommendation goes for Euphony. It blows my mind in terms of improvement of SQ, what may be caused by software optimization! I used to use simple Mac mini 2010 with SSD and RAM upgrade + installed Euphony OS. This feels like an endgame audio server for me (well, I might actually change the power supply on to linear one at some point and that's it)).
I never tried albumplayer personaly, but heard great feedbacks about it. It looks like the best audio player for Windows OS for sure.
So, check out the SOTM and update your impressions. I feel like it will add some juicy juice to your current setup, making you able to enjoy the sound your Mojo finally

Dual pc setup is a transport pc with an usb adnaco s3b out, running windows server in core mode with audiophile optimizer tweaks, also limiting its processes to just a few. And another, control pc, to run the player which streams through jplay engine to the transport pc. As far as I know, it's pretty debatable if Linux can compete with windows server. From what I've read, it isn't (wasn't) very suitable for high precision real-time tasks by design

 

[elvispreasley]

Dual pc setup is a transport pc with an usb adnaco s3b out, running windows server in core mode with audiophile optimizer tweaks, also limiting its processes to just a few. And another, control pc, to run the player which streams through jplay engine to the transport pc. As far as I know, it's pretty debatable if Linux can compete with windows server. From what I've read, it isn't (wasn't) very suitable for high precision real-time tasks by design

Ok, that's sounds like quite advanced and proper stuff, which should works great for the purpose it was build.
So it's basically properly made server PC, which transfer the content to the transport PC through the optical fiber, right? Then you sending the signal to Mojo through iGalvanic.
Well, just my 2 cents here: this build is just to advance for old good Mojo - you better try something like at least Qutest to hear the great difference. Also GR07 just doesn't fit to the whole level of your setup, IMHO.
However it's still a mystery for me - how Mojo can't show you the audible difference, compare to the internal soundcard of your PC... Another thought that came to my head is that you have quite complected chain of soft and hardware, so there is always a place for something in this chain set up not as it should, causing massive degradations in sound, which are washing the Mojo advantages away.

 

[kr0gg]

Ok, that's sounds like quite advanced and proper stuff, which should works great for the purpose it was build.
So it's basically properly made server PC, which transfer the content to the transport PC through the optical fiber, right? Then you sending the signal to Mojo through iGalvanic.
Well, just my 2 cents, M

Nah. My full desktop setup is on the other end of the city where I live, so I'm basically building a more compact and transportable second stack. I took the igalvanic because I remember what effect adnaco had. And it does the same thing, but in a much more convinient design. My adnaco died together with Berkeley usb anyway

 

[elvispreasley]

Nah. My full desktop setup is on the other end of the city where I live, so I'm basically building a more compact and transportable second stack. I took the igalvanic because I remember what effect adnaco had. And it does the same thing, but in a much more convinient design. My adnaco died together with Berkeley usb anyway

Ah, alright. So how does your current setup looking now?

 

[kr0gg]

Ah, alright. So how does your current setup looking now?

Like the pic I posted. A huge fat usb snake, two small boxes and a pair of outdated iems. I'm expecting Shuouer Z12 and Ety er4sr, adapters for full-sized headphones to arrive, will use them for a while and then will decide what to do. To keep the Mojo or not to keep. I also bought a wrong usb cable the ebay seller had it listed like aq cinammon micro usb, but pictures showed mini usb.. I didn't give them enough attention. And I have no idea what to do with it now. What audiophile devices use mini usb?

 

[elvispreasley]

Like the pic I posted. A huge fat usb snake, two small boxes and a pair of outdated iems. I'm expecting Shuouer Z12 and Ety er4sr, adapters for full-sized headphones to arrive, will use them for a while and then will decide what to do. To keep the Mojo or not to keep.

What's the source/transport and what's the audio soft?

 

[Chris Kaoss]

Like the pic I posted. A huge fat usb snake, two small boxes and a pair of outdated iems. I'm expecting Shuouer Z12 and Ety er4sr, adapters for full-sized headphones to arrive, will use them for a while and then will decide what to do. To keep the Mojo or not to keep. I also bought a wrong usb cable the ebay seller had it listed like aq cinammon micro usb, but pictures showed mini usb.. I didn't give them enough attention. And I have no idea what to do with it now. What audiophile devices use mini usb?

Most of the higher/ bigger dacs do use mini USB.
So does my Audio-GD R28.

 

[kr0gg]

Most of the higher/ bigger dacs do use mini USB.
So does my Audio-GD R28.

Uhm.. It looks like a usb-b. And I have a spare audiophile cable with a connector which is mostly used by photocameras ) maybe it can give a better bokeh, I don't know

 

[Chris Kaoss]

Uhm.. It looks like a usb-b. And I have a spare audiophile cable with a connector which is mostly used by photocameras ) maybe it can give a better bokeh, I don't know

Ah, my bad, mixed up USB-B with USB mini.
Mea culpa.

Haha.
Audiophile cable for improved image transfer.
Please stop it.

 

[kr0gg]

OK. So I've spent an hour with Mojo, Auralic Taurus and both of my full-sized headphones. Now I understand what the hype is about. Mojo pairs awesomely with w3000anv. Very organic vocals, a lot of emotions, mid-bass has a very interesting effect like you're being served in a restaurant and guys put bass-dishes on your table. Enjoy this, sir, enjoy that, sir. Gets muddy when there are many bass-sources, but A-T aren't very capable in that aspect too, anyway.
Balanced hd800 sound very dull. Like a huge roll-off on high frequencies. Reminded me my old radio.
Overall, I think that there are high chances that I will go for Hugo and higher later.
Can't say anything superlative, but Mojo is a portable small DAC and I already feel that if these guys took care for it to sound emotional and with a distinctive character, then Chord devices might be something I'll have to explore in the future. Mojo is enjoyable, made me smile a few times, made me nod my head.

 

[Chris Kaoss]

Glad you've experienced the "secret sauce" (at an incremental state) of the Mojo.
Have fun and enjoy your ride.

And yes, mid-bass presentation is indeed very addictive.