[ofilippov]

Saludo meu amigo.
Gungnir multibit it’s equal do Yggdrasil in 90% in you use Aes Ebu input!

Thank you! Nice to hear that.

 

[buonassi]

Surprisingly Bimby has more treble definition than Mojo to my ears

Most likely a result of ringing. Post ringing of cymbal transients causes an excitement of those frequencies, which cause them to sound louder and more shimmery. I love the mimby, but since I've been able to test out its filters against "bypassing" its filters through upsampling in izotope software, I noticed this. I've effectively created my own filter for mimby, which reduces ringing as much as possible (which is what Chord DACs do through an FPGA and Xilinx chip). It makes mimby sound a bit more sterile and surgical in the top end, much like Mojo - better articulation in the top two octaves but with less energy. Mojo is the better DAC, hands down IMO, but mimby is absolutely no slouch and offers a very analogue-like sound which I mention in my review of mimby here:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/schiit-audio-modi-multibit-aka-mimby.22405/
review at bottom.

that said, the analogue output stage of mimby is quality too, so you're getting a nice, clean 2 volts into your amp. yes, mojo gives three volts, but you have to use a wacko 3.5mm to RCA rig. then there's the battery concerns when leaving it plugged in all the time. Oh, and it looks a little funky as a desktop unit, a little out of place if you know what I mean.

 

[PointyFox]

FWIW I compared a Modi 2 to a Bimby and found they sounded 100% identical on a HD800S.

 

[theveterans]

Most likely a result of ringing. Post ringing of cymbal transients causes an excitement of those frequencies, which cause them to sound louder and more shimmery.

When I meant about treble definition, meaning it's not louder than Mojo's treble. Rather it's just decays longer but definitely not louder or more artificial sounding.

 

[ScareDe2]

The Chord Mojo is an impressive little device. Straight to the point, I get more openness, more power, more resolution with the Bifrost MB Gen5 and Lyr 2 with lisst tubes. Does it have more to do with superior amplification or better DAC I don't know. But the Chord Mojo is not far behind. It delivers a good performance and seems to be a slight touch more musical. But the treble is a bit recessed though not so far behind the neutrality of the Schiit elements I use.

I have invested, I don't know, more than $2k in the Bifrost + Lyr2, shielded power cord, RCA cable and USB cable, tubes for the Lyr 2 and I have upgraded the input board of the Bifrost to the last generation and I got an Ubtech hum exterminator to get rid of some ground loop problem. All that cost some money. The Chord Mojo can deliver a very decent performance for less and it can drive a summit-fi headphone like the AKG K812 very well. Will I keep it? Probably not. It doesn't destroy a dedicated DAC+AMP but I am very interested to hear the Mojo with a portable before I sale or trade it.

 

[omniweltall]

Surprisingly Bimby has more treble definition than Mojo to my ears

Not surprising at all. I had both the mojo and mimby. Mojo is rolled off at both ends. The only thing i like about it is that it adds warmth to the mid, and its soundstage was quite good.

Mimby is just better in everything else. Easy choice for me.

 

[omniweltall]

Sometimes i wonder...are we listening to the same device. Or is it that people read waay too much on manufacturer's ravings, that it affects their subjective impressions.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Mojo is rolled off at both ends.

...No it's not. Even the cheapest electronics are perfectly neutral and measure as a flat line from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and often well below and above that as well.

Mimby is just better in everything else. Easy choice for me.

I think the Mojo is better than the Modi Multibit in every way, and it has far better measurements that back that up.

In case you didn't know, I owned both twice. (Along with multiple five figures worth of audio equipment.)

 

[theveterans]

Not surprising at all. I had both the mojo and mimby. Mojo is rolled off at both ends. The only thing i like about it is that it adds warmth to the mid, and its soundstage was quite good.

Bifrost MB obliterates Mojo's soundstage depth by a lot to my ears, but the treble intensity is just equal for both Mojo and Bifrost MB to my ears. It's just that the treble in Bimby has more texture in it than Mojo.

Then again, both DACs complement my usage: Mojo for that intimate listening with my IEMs and Bifrost MB to showcase its huge soundstage and excellent instrument placement on my nearfield speakers.

 

[omniweltall]

...No it's not. Even the cheapest electronics are perfectly neutral and measure as a flat line from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and often well below and above that as well.



I think the Mojo is better than the Modi Multibit in every way, and it has far better measurements that back that up.

In case you didn't know, I owned both twice. (Along with multiple five figures worth of audio equipment.)

Congrats to you then. I can't afford 5 figures worth of audio gears. Guys at your level shouldn't be playing at Mimby's level anyway. Get the Pavane/Yggy/Holo/Soekris/Dave instead. Mimby is unbeatable in value proposition, but still a long way from those top-tier dacs.

 

[deserat]

Wow I can feel the love. Only it sounds a little etched, maybe a bit too bright, perhaps a bit rolled off in the civility.

 

[ScareDe2]

After many hours of listening I still maintain that the Mojo is more musical whereas the Bifrost is more analytical and emphasizes some details in the music. I am not sure if it has something to do with the treble being either recessed or less detailed, but the mojo definitely adds some warmth to the music.

 

[Redmetal1897]

After many hours of listening I still maintain that the Mojo is more musical whereas the Bifrost is more analytical and emphasizes some details in the music. I am not sure if it has something to do with the treble being either recessed or less detailed, but the mojo definitely adds some warmth to the music.

Can't comment on Bifrost, but I would say Chord Mojo vs. the Modi 2 uber, I would would concur with your take. The modi brings out detail more clearly (its there in the Mojo but not as obvious), I would also say the soundstage is maybe bigger. The Mojo sounds more smooth, I've found some harsher recordings are easier to listen to.

 

[KaiFi]

This is good news for me as someone who much prefers a warmer sound. I may consider the Chord Mojo once I can afford it. I have the Schiit Modi 2/Magni 3 and I like the sound but sometimes I am wanting it to be a bit warmer. Maybe the Mojo would sound that way? Something to think about.

 

[Music Alchemist]

After many hours of listening I still maintain that the Mojo is more musical whereas the Bifrost is more analytical and emphasizes some details in the music. I am not sure if it has something to do with the treble being either recessed or less detailed, but the mojo definitely adds some warmth to the music.

Can't comment on Bifrost, but I would say Chord Mojo vs. the Modi 2 uber, I would would concur with your take. The modi brings out detail more clearly (its there in the Mojo but not as obvious), I would also say the soundstage is maybe bigger. The Mojo sounds more smooth, I've found some harsher recordings are easier to listen to.

This is good news for me as someone who much prefers a warmer sound. I may consider the Chord Mojo once I can afford it. I have the Schiit Modi 2/Magni 3 and I like the sound but sometimes I am wanting it to be a bit warmer. Maybe the Mojo would sound that way? Something to think about.

The reason the Mojo sounds different is because it measures so much better than most other DACs. (Timing accuracy thousands of times more precise, tap lengths orders of magnitude greater for a more intricate interpolation filter / reconstruction algorithm, noise shaping trillions of times more advanced, zero noise floor modulation, zero source jitter, ultra-low distortion and output impedance, high dynamic range, etc.) The measured frequency response is perfectly neutral. What accounts for a different perceived tonal balance is other factors, but it's actually performing much better in these areas. Most people are used to the relatively poor objective performance of other DACs, and when they hear something better, they may think it's colored, but it's actually the other DACs that are more colored. The added perceived brightness, detail, hardness, etc. that some experience with other DACs is actually, in many cases, noise and distortion mixing in with the original sound. (Even small bursts of it can be very audible.) When you remove this noise and distortion, the sound can become warmer, darker, smoother, and more musical: all closer to the original sound in this case.

My reference is the sound of real instruments, and I do not find the Mojo to be colored in any noticeable way.

(Though there are obviously better DACs out there, particularly from Chord. I had the 2Qute, which is definitely better.)

Check out these quotes from the designer explaining how some of it works. (They are just a few. He's made over a thousand of them.)

Now this is a very important problem, as it makes the DAC sound hard and less smooth and is a major problem with DACs - all other DACs have very large noise floor modulation, Mojo has zero measurable noise floor modulation (I have plots at home proving this). This is a major reason why Mojo sounds so smooth and natural.

To cut a long story short, I proved the problem was down to RF noise. RF noise inter-modulates with the wanted audio signal within the analogue electronics, and if the RF noise is random, then the distortion is random too and you get a increase in noise floor with signal. This increase in noise floor is noise floor modulation, and the brain is very sensitive to it; you can perceive tiny amounts of noise floor modulation as a brightening or hardening of the sound. By tiny I mean the noise floor modulation needs to be well below -200 dB, so the brain is very sensitive to it. With the right test equipment, you (APX5555 is only test equipment that has no innate noise floor modulation) can easily measure the effect.

Now what is very interesting is the noise floor at -175dB - it does not change at all with 2.5v or nothing which indicates a complete absence of measurable noise floor modulation. Noise floor modulation is extremely important subjectively - you perceive the slightest amount as a brightness or hardness to the sound. When it gets bad, you hear glare or grain in the treble. All DAC's (apart from Chord DAC's) suffer from measurable noise floor modulation - typically the noise floor would be -160 dB with no signal, and -140 dB at 2.5v RMS. Some Class D amps are awful with noise floor at -120 dB (one reason why Class D often sounds so bad).
To get this measurement is a massive challenge, as ADC's themselves have large amounts of noise floor modulation, way bigger than my DAC's. The only test instrument that has noise floor modulation that can actually measure Mojo's performance is the APX555. This uses a novel approach to solving the issue - 4 ADC's and an analogue notch filters. The outputs are combined in the digital domain, so this means one ADC is handling the fundamental sine wave, another ADC looks at the noise via the notch filter. So you will only be able to measure Mojo's true performance using the APX555.
Many posters have commented on how smooth and musical sounding Mojo is - and its in part down to the absence of measurable noise floor modulation. Actually getting this performance is very complicated, as within the DAC there are a enormous number of mechanisms to create noise floor modulation. One reason why its taken me 20 years of DAC development to do it!

Noise floor modulation is subjectively very important too as it adds hardness and grain to the sound when measurable; even when reducing it below measurable levels you can still hear it; as reducing it further makes things sound smoother and warmer. Pulse array is the only DAC technology that enables no measurable noise floor modulation - all other forms of DAC's I have seen have major noise floor modulation problems.

Now anybody reading my posts will say that I am a bit of a timing freak, but I am also a noise floor modulation freak too. RF noise, when it is mixed inside the active analogue electronics, creates inter-modulation distortion which results in the noise floor moving up and down with the analogue signal. I have measured this effect, so I know it is real, and reducing RF noise results in measurable reduction in noise floor modulation. Also I have seen on digital simulation extremely small levels of noise floor modulation, which when removed produces a very audible effect. So the ear/brain is somehow extremely sensitive to this problem.
So how does noise floor modulation account for the observed sound quality changes? Firstly, better instrument separation. Now imagine two instruments playing in a system that has noise floor modulation. You will get noise floor modulation that is a sum of both instruments. Now when the brain has to separate the sounds out, it has now 3 signals to worry about - the two instruments, plus the noise floor modulation which is a combination of both instruments. This confuses the brains processing to be able to tell instruments apart, and hence degrades the brain's perception of the instruments as being separate entities, because you have noise singing along as a combination of the two instruments. This confusion also makes it difficult for the brain, which then will give you listening fatigue.
How does it explain timbre variations? Now imagine listening to one instrument - a saxophone - something rich and smooth sounding. Now noise floor modulation is white noise pumping up and down with the signal level - it has the timbre of hiss, that is very bright sounding. Now add some noise floor modulation, and you are mixing into the sound of the sax something that sounds quite bright. The brain can't tell the difference between the sax, and the noise floor modulation which is proportionate to the sax signal level. So it lumps the timbre together, the rich sound of the sax becomes brighter and less like a sax. We actually end up with all instruments sounding bright, so timbre variations are suppressed.
How does it explain it sounding softer? Well, if you have noise floor modulation, you get more noise with the music peaks, and this often occurs at the initial starting transient - so you get a burst of noise on peak transients, which artificially enhances the sound - it's the MSG of sound quality.
Many people have reported Hugo as having wide timbre variations - being able to distinguish different timbres on different instruments and noise floor modulation (or rather lack thereof) is one big reason for this. In the case of Hugo, I have been working hard in the digital and analogue parts on not merely trying to reduce noise floor modulation but to eliminate all sources of it.
My final point is this - be very careful about listening tests, and, in my view, the goal is to enjoy music, not to think the sound quality is impressive. At the end of the day, go for the more musical sound - testing for musicality takes a lot longer, but it is the ultimate goal.

And I get to "enjoy" lots of über DAC's at shows - and for me - and of course this is highly personal - they fail big time as regards musicality. I get more musical satisfaction from little old Mojo than any of these über DAC's do.

Moreover, I am absolutely convinced that Mojo (ignore Dave for the time being) will beat any other DAC at any price point when it comes down to enjoying music. Why am I so convinced? Because there are sound technical and objective reasons why this would be the case. Let us consider the three most important things that is important for a DAC/amplifier:


1. Timing - if you spend any time researching psycho-acoustics you will appreciate that timing is the most important parameter that the brain uses to process the data from the ears. It is used for location, timbre, and being able to perceive the starting and stopping of notes. So when I talk about timing problems, what do I mean? Now I am NOT talking about phase errors, or timing differences with frequency response - these are linear errors, and are inconsequential - the brain is used to dealing with these kinds of problems. What I am talking about is when the timing of transients varies either with amplitude (a transient will have a different time depending on whether it is small amplitude or a large amplitude signal) or when the timing of a transient depends upon when it is sampled by the ADC. So if a transient crosses through zero half way between samples, differing interpolation filters will not recreate the timing of the transient accurately, and this sampling dependent uncertainty is highly audible. So how big is the problem of timing? Looking at all the many listening tests I have done, my contention is that a DAC/amp must be accurate down to tens of nS in that surprisingly small timing errors are very audible.
So what DAC's have minimal timing problems? Let's look at the interpolation filter first, something that is in all DAC's (yes even NOS DAC's have an interpolation filter). Now the job of the interpolation filter is to reconstruct the timing of transients and to remove the HF images of the signal that extends to infinite frequencies that is due to the sampling process. In short, it is part of the process that takes the discontinuous digital data and converts it back into a continuous analogue signal. The better the interpolation filter, the more accurate this is done (closer to the original analogue signal in the ADC before it was sampled). Now the accuracy of the filter in terms of how well transient timing is reconstructed depends upon the filter tap length, and the type of filter. NOS filters are by far the worst, with timing errors of up to a hundred uS. A NOS filter (this is a bad term, all DAC's oversample) is actually a zero order hold interpolation filter, where the oversample rate is determined by the DAC that is used. Because the timing errors are so huge, they sound very soft (when you get timing errors, the brain can't deal with the data, so it can't actually perceive the starting and stopping of notes - and if you can't hear the starting of a note, it sounds soft or out of focus). Now some people like this; but it is clearly artificial and is categorically not transparent. The usual FIR filter is a half band interpolation filter, with a tens of taps. This filter is better than zero order hold (NOS) for timing, but still has massive errors, as there is considerable measurable sampling image errors. These filters return the original sample unchanged, and they are cheap to implement which is why they are used for 99% of the time. Apodizing filters can offer better performance, but they still have substantial timing errors.
So how can you reconstruct the timing of transients perfectly? If you look at sampling theory, it has been proven that a Whittaker-Shannon interpolation filter will return a bandwidth limited sampled signal absolutely perfectly; there will be no timing or amplitude errors at all. But to have an ideal interpolation filter you need a sinc impulse response and many many taps; to absolutely guarantee just 16 bit performance under all circumstances the coefficients need to be smaller than 16 bits - and this happens at about 1 million taps for a 16 FS filter. And every listening test I have ever done gives the same conclusion - more taps, better and more transparent sound quality. Even with Dave at 164,000 taps, we have not reached the subjective limit yet.
So onto the next timing problem - amplitude errors. Now R2R DAC's have slow FET's to switch the resistors in and out, and these themselves cause their own glitch issues. Moreover, they are very slow - you can only go to 16FS max - so that means the timing is limited to only 1.3 uS. DSD dac's have very large amplitude timing errors too - a small signal has a much bigger delay than a large signal. Currently, the only technique that has the smallest amplitude related timing error is pulse array, as it runs 5 bits at 104 MHz - many times faster than any other DAC topology.
So to solve the timing issues you absolutely need extremely fast DAC's, and very large tap lengths. Even Mojo easily beats all other non Chord DAC's in this regard.

2. Small signal resolution. Clearly small signals are vital - if you can't hear the tiny details, then it no longer becomes a believable performance. Small signals also are used for depth perception, something that I am personally very interested in. Go to a cathedral and listen to an organ at 100 m away; it sounds 100 m away - but reproduced audio is severely depth truncated. Now small signal linearity is measured using fundamental linearity tests - you measure the amplitude of a -60db, set that value as a reference, then measure at -120 dB say. It should be exactly -120.000 dB, but a real DAC won't be. Delta sigma or DSD will actually attenuate the level, R2R will have random errors due to resistor tolerance problems. When it comes to depth perception, there is something extremely strange - any small signal amplitude error (no matter how small) affects depth perception. That's why Dave has 350 dB performance noise shaping, as increasing the performance of the noise shaper gave much better depth performance. Now R2R DAC's have easily measurable small signal errors; DSD is only -120dB accurate noise shaping; conventional DAC noise shapers are about -140dB; Mojo is at -200 dB, and Dave takes the record at -350 dB. I have published FFT's showing Dave's noise shaper performance.
Now this issue is more complex than this; you also need simple analogue stages to further improve performance, you additionally you need a distortion performance that gets better as the signal get smaller.

3. Noise floor modulation. This is another can of worms, as DAC's have a multitude of problems from different areas for this. Noise floor modulation is subjectively very important; it is when the noise floor changes with signal level. All conventional DAC's have large amounts of noise floor modulation, and it is my contention that it is very audible - it adds a hardness or grain to the sound. Even the tiniest amount affects smoothness and refinement. With Mojo, we have no measurable noise floor modulation - and similarly Dave but with an even lower noise floor. I have not seen any other DAC come close to this performance.

This gives you a brief flavour of the issues involved in producing a truly transparent DAC; and for me it's only by having a truly transparent DAC that one can get musicality. But of course some people have very different tastes, and respond differently to music. Some people like a particular sound; I have done some listening sessions when I drew the complete opposite opinion to somebody else. Some people like distortion; others like an overly soft warm sound. Whatever floats your boat I guess.