[aldinho878]

I currently have a Chord Mojo and am looking for an upgrade Dac/amp. I tend prefer all-in-one dac/amps as that is less "clutter/space" on my desk setup, but I am open to hearing options. I have very little experience in the relatively larger desktop amps and dacs, for example Schiit products. There are so many different Schiit options and I am curious, are they really much better than a Mojo because they're a dedicated "larger" desktop setup? I mainly listen to TOTL iem's like Westone W80, Shure 846, Xelentos, but do want something that can drive headphones like hd6xx etc as well. Listen to Tidal hifi/MQA, so if MQA is a feature that would be great. Since I am mainly looking for an all in one dac/amp, I figured the Hugo/Hugo 2 would be the most logical upgrade? But I wanted to see other options, Woo Audio WA11 Topaz, for example. And again, will a larger dedicated desktop amp and dac give me a noticeably better sound than some of the portable/transportable options?

I am considering trying the ifi micro idsd black label as that will give me a more neutral sound signature, my understanding is that is a "sidegrade" compared to a Mojo, just a different signature warm vs neutral depending on preference.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Schiit and Chord don't support MQA. There are really not many affordable MQA DACs and probably even less MQA dacamps. If you like Chord's house sound it may be unlikely that you'll be happy with Schiit. I haven't heard the Woo or ifi but the ifi has many fans. I am in the camp who prefer seperates, so my comments might not be so helpful.

If the Hugo 2 is in your budget you have more choices. I can recommend the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ for MQA and as a great all-around DAC with great build quality and a very nice interface. However, I don't feel it drives the Sennheiser 600s or 800s I have well enough (and neither does the RME ADI-2 DAC) so I run them out of a V280 or a tube OTL. I don't know what else is in the Hugo 2 price range but if you like your Mojo and can live with software MQA only (Tidal app) then it would seem to be a 1st choice.

The advantage of the RME is it has a dedicated IEM jack and some thought went into doing IEMs correctly. But the RME does not support MQA either.

To me, yes, serious desktop hardware is automatically better than portable hardware in almost every way. But it can depend a lot on your headphones. Many headphones are perfectly happy with the power the Brooklyn DAC+ and RME DACs supply. Others need more power. Depending on what headphones you have you may not need a separate amplifier. The 600/650/6XX definitely scale with better and better amps. If you're happy with the way your 650s sound out of your Mojo, don't listen to them out of a good OTL or SS amp with tons of power.