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

[Pokersound]

has somebody riped a cd with tow different programs and notice sound change using the mojo?

 

[Rob Watts]

I don't think anyone will ever answer that question satisfactorily if you know how the technical aspects of the devices work. The transport is passing a purely digital signal onto the Mojo, just what the original file is. Mojo does all the work. That being said, some people swear they hear a difference in sound depending on the transport. You decide what is most likely

The reasons why sources and digital interconnects sound different are well understood - see some of my posts. In a nutshell it is not jitter (all my DACs are source jitter intolerant) but down to RF noise and distorted currents from the source flowing into the DAC's ground plane. The RF noise inter-modulates with the analogue electronics, creating random noise as a by product, which creates noise floor modulation, and that makes it sound brighter or harder. The correlated or distorted currents very subtly add or subtract to small signals, thus changing the fundamental linearity, which in turn mucks up depth perception.
 
But I also agree in that lots of people hear changes that are not there - I for one have never heard any difference with optical cables (assuming all are bit perfect) with my DAC's, but lots of folks claim big differences. Placebo, or listening with your wallet, plays a part here. Then there are cases of people preferring more distortion... Listening tests must be done in a very controlled and careful fashion, particularly if you are trying to design and develop things.
 
Rob

 

[analogmusic]

This might be a silly question, but can I assume the life of the LED lights in the Hugo and Mojo is in excess of 50,000 hours?
 
I am reluctant to switch it on and off during the day, have bought my charger to work with me and will keep it on all day now while listening with headphones.

 

[bavinck]

The reasons why sources and digital interconnects sound different are well understood - see some of my posts. In a nutshell it is not jitter (all my DACs are source jitter intolerant) but down to RF noise and distorted currents from the source flowing into the DAC's ground plane. The RF noise inter-modulates with the analogue electronics, creating random noise as a by product, which creates noise floor modulation, and that makes it sound brighter or harder. The correlated or distorted currents very subtly add or subtract to small signals, thus changing the fundamental linearity, which in turn mucks up depth perception.

But I also agree in that lots of people hear changes that are not there - I for one have never heard any difference with optical cables (assuming all are bit perfect) with my DAC's, but lots of folks claim big differences. Placebo, or listening with your wallet, plays a part here. Then there are cases of people preferring more distortion... Listening tests must be done in a very controlled and careful fashion, particularly if you are trying to design and develop things.

Rob

Thanks, that's really helpful.

 

[georgelai57]

  Placebo, or listening with your wallet, plays a part here. 
 
Rob

'nuff said.

 

[Mimouille]

  ...or listening with your wallet....

Now that is good.

 

[edwintangch]

The reasons why sources and digital interconnects sound different are well understood - see some of my posts. In a nutshell it is not jitter (all my DACs are source jitter intolerant) but down to RF noise and distorted currents from the source flowing into the DAC's ground plane. The RF noise inter-modulates with the analogue electronics, creating random noise as a by product, which creates noise floor modulation, and that makes it sound brighter or harder. The correlated or distorted currents very subtly add or subtract to small signals, thus changing the fundamental linearity, which in turn mucks up depth perception.

But I also agree in that lots of people hear changes that are not there - I for one have never heard any difference with optical cables (assuming all are bit perfect) with my DAC's, but lots of folks claim big differences. Placebo, or listening with your wallet, plays a part here. Then there are cases of people preferring more distortion... Listening tests must be done in a very controlled and careful fashion, particularly if you are trying to design and develop things.

Rob

Shouldn't it still be some conversion done before signals are sent out from the dap?
It seems to me that when dap generate no matter light (optical out put) or electric wave (coaxial/ usb), it needs to convert the digital file from the memory to a kind of physical form that transfer among machines. If different dap convert these signals out differently, then the 1/0 recieved by the dac may also be different.
It may not be the different output method that affects the sq but the dap.

 

[Jethrosang]

  The reasons why sources and digital interconnects sound different are well understood - see some of my posts. In a nutshell it is not jitter (all my DACs are source jitter intolerant) but down to RF noise and distorted currents from the source flowing into the DAC's ground plane. The RF noise inter-modulates with the analogue electronics, creating random noise as a by product, which creates noise floor modulation, and that makes it sound brighter or harder. The correlated or distorted currents very subtly add or subtract to small signals, thus changing the fundamental linearity, which in turn mucks up depth perception.
 
But I also agree in that lots of people hear changes that are not there - I for one have never heard any difference with optical cables (assuming all are bit perfect) with my DAC's, but lots of folks claim big differences. Placebo, or listening with your wallet, plays a part here. Then there are cases of people preferring more distortion... Listening tests must be done in a very controlled and careful fashion, particularly if you are trying to design and develop things.
 
Rob

As the DAC programmable, can the sound be tuned by users in the future?

 

[Rob Watts]

Shouldn't it still be some conversion done before signals are sent out from the dap?
It seems to me that when dap generate no matter light (optical out put) or electric wave (coaxial/ usb), it needs to convert the digital file from the memory to a kind of physical form that transfer among machines. If different dap convert these signals out differently, then the 1/0 recieved by the dac may also be different.
It may not be the different output method that affects the sq but the dap.

My reply assumed that the data was bit perfect, if the DAP changes the data then of course all bets are off.
 
Rob

 

[yoyorast10]

So I got an optical cable and it fixed the skipping problem with WASAPI. Thanks to @Ra97oR for posting it here.
 
It'll still skip songs with a different sampling rate, but still a massive improvement.

 

[Ike1985]

Can the upsampling on android be turned off with say Onkyo HF? I'm considering an S7.

 

[Hawaiibadboy]

Can the upsampling on android be turned off with say Onkyo HF? I'm considering an S7.

 UAPP is/was designed to go around the A.L.S.A and audiofinger.
 
Doing an internal bypass is pretty much what the FiiO X7 is doing if you choose music mode.
Using an external device you can bypass as the X7 does but it is external.
 
ONKYO is great but many users are tweaking the **** out of their music before it hits their external DAC which is adding noise.

 

[Mojo ideas]

I hear lot's of RFI with 2 bars LTE.

If I'm using my AK100+Mojo set-up near iPhone, I still hear RFI.

When a phone has only one or two bars up it ramps up its RF transmitter to compensate the levels of RF can be really extreme! A bit like an EMP bomb These ultra high levels of radio interference that can be over a wide range of frequencies in such close proximity and many different positions is compounded by having some poorly screened cables acting as recieving Arials going right into the Mojos electronics certainly is a difficult issue to fully resolve. This is also because different IEMs and headphones have such varying effects. This is though we have taken great care with our design. Some people have reported good results by adding small clip on split ferrite beads to the cables.

 

[Ike1985]

 
 UAPP is/was designed to go around the A.L.S.A and audiofinger.
 
Doing an internal bypass is pretty much what the FiiO X7 is doing if you choose music mode.
Using an external device you can bypass as the X7 does but it is external.
 
ONKYO is great but many users are tweaking the **** out of their music before it hits their external DAC which is adding noise.

 
Onkyo HF is available on Android! Maybe I'll be able to get the cover art to work, it never worked on iTunes.  I wonder though, if I'm using it for android and using a Mac laptop will I just have to drag and drop into a folder on the phone via finder?  I also have windows 7 running in parallels if necessary but that would be a pain in the ass to transfer music to the virtual machine first and then the phone every time.  Right now I'm using iTunes w/onkyo HF on my iphone 5.
 
It looks like there are 4 apps for android that do bit perfect output to USB DAC's: Onkyo HF, Hilby, USB Player Pro and Neutron.  Any consensus which is best? My experience with Onkyo HF was great from a sound quality perspective and not good from a usability perspective as it didn't display my art at all.

 

[Antihippy]

I really dislike the Onkyo HF player just from UI alone.
 
Poweramp is still the best player usability wise.
 
Playing around with UAPP now.