Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[Meridian7]

Im getting 192 now with mr douk. Longer usb cable less pressure on chain. Marvin Gaye 192 roon qobuz sounding excellent no more distortion. Lets see what if it stays. Douk does do 192 optical and sounds like a unit costing hundreds. Excellent. I was focusing on the optical connection to the mscaler and after nearly giving up a small adjustment on the douk optical connection sorted it it seems so far so good.

A longer usb cable solved the optical performance, incredible but whatever works.

I confirm mscaler benefits from Mr Douk, it nicely rids of usb clutter. It's a true gem, and I've read tech-geeks swearing DDC's aint all that, ROFL.

I'm glad to read Douk does 192 opto by several people, my optic cables must have been sub-grade, perhaps I will buy that boroselicate cable after all, but the connector wiggle stays a darn issue, oh well.

 

[Progisus]

A longer usb cable solved the optical performance, incredible but whatever works.

I confirm mscaler benefits from Mr Douk, it nicely rids of usb clutter. It's a true gem, and I've read tech-geeks swearing DDC's aint all that, ROFL.

I'm glad to read Douk does 192 opto by several people, my optic cables must have been sub-grade, perhaps I will buy that boroselicate cable after all, but the connector wiggle stays a darn issue, oh well.

Try the one supplied with mscaler or tt2. Rock solid for me.

 

[Meridian7]

Try the one supplied with mscaler or tt2. Rock solid for me.

Got MS and TT2 second hand without cables, but you guys have me motivated to get it to work

 

[musickid]

44-96 is rock solid on douk. But 192 is intermittent. Sometimes faint crackling. Usb out of my 2019 4k imac is solid across the board so after all that ive chosen direct usb. Mscaler is galvanically isolated usb and qobuz roon 192 is too valuable to jeapordize. Ill look into it later. Enjoying my new kef ls50 metas direct out of tt2 too much now. Another day another dollar.

 

[Evangelist]

I have added the Mscaler to my TT2 - with Ferrum OOR and Hypsos as an amp . I noticed a drop in gain with the Mscaler in my system , to the point that with my ZMF Verité closed is making me think if I should now starting using hi gain on the OOR… like now with Mscaler a need 2 to 3 o’clock on the nob of the OOR in Mid Gain to have good level for listening . Where before the added Mscaler, always use 12 o’clock with the ZMF VC.
Is this correct or is something wrong … ? Thanks in advance for the help !

 

[Jawed]

So only partly true in my experience, but many toslink dacs don't read optical input higher than 96 anyway, like the Chord Mojo2.

In this post I document connection problems with TOSLINK caused by the alignment of the transmitter:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-1417#post-17038772

I have added the Mscaler to my TT2 - with Ferrum OOR and Hypsos as an amp . I noticed a drop in gain with the Mscaler in my system , to the point that with my ZMF Verité closed is making me think if I should now starting using hi gain on the OOR… like now with Mscaler a need 2 to 3 o’clock on the nob of the OOR in Mid Gain to have good level for listening . Where before the added Mscaler, always use 12 o’clock with the ZMF VC.
Is this correct or is something wrong … ? Thanks in advance for the help !

This reduction in loudness is expected.

 

[Evangelist]

This reduction in loudness is expected.

Thanks! Don’t like to use high gain on the VC , but maybe is the way with the Mscaler and the VC .

 

[Meridian7]

Jawed, thanks for illustrating toslink hardware vulnerabilities. A good hardware design would prevent bad co-axing from the start. They should redesign the hardware imho.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

I have added the Mscaler to my TT2 - with Ferrum OOR and Hypsos as an amp . I noticed a drop in gain with the Mscaler in my system , to the point that with my ZMF Verité closed is making me think if I should now starting using hi gain on the OOR… like now with Mscaler a need 2 to 3 o’clock on the nob of the OOR in Mid Gain to have good level for listening . Where before the added Mscaler, always use 12 o’clock with the ZMF VC.
Is this correct or is something wrong … ? Thanks in advance for the help !

The M Scaler drops the volume by 3db in order to compensate for the upscaling, the upscaling/oversampling takes the signal past 0DBFS by 3db which would clip, it has to lower by 3db go back to 0DBFS.

 

[Evangelist]

The M Scaler drops the volume by 3db in order to compensate for the upscaling, the upscaling/oversampling takes the signal past 0DBFS by 3db which would clip, it has to lower by 3db go back to 0DBFS.

Thanks for the info. Did not realize this.

Have to test more. To see if I will use mid gain at 3 o’clock or high gain at 12 o’clock.. I always prefer mid gain on the Ferrum oor .

 

[Progisus]

With the advice of @Rob Watts I have changed the input to the mscaler from bnc to optical. BNC was using usb to src-dx and dual coax while optical is a short usb cable to Douk U2 and supplied optical cable to opt 2 input. (I like blue colour rather than green of opt 1). I believe I have a pretty noise free system with optical ethernet and dual Storm bnc’s. As the Duok was only $60CAD it was worth the try. As changing back and forth quickly is difficult all I can say is they are at least equal with maybe a slightly darker background with optical. I used dual bnc input to allow playback of 16fs PGGB files as optical only goes to 192K. I have a separate streamer (Antipodes EX) that allows this by usb to the TT2 so I am going to use optical for now.

Well after extensive listening I noticed some fatigue on the optical. What I perceived as more detail may have been distortion introduced by the ddc. I have switched back to usb for now. Probably try the src-dx again after some listening.

 

[musickid]

Any advantages coax out of douk vs usb? Coax vs usb generally what's the overall understanding here?

 

[dac64]

Well after extensive listening I noticed some fatigue on the optical. What I perceived as more detail may have been distortion introduced by the ddc. I have switched back to usb for now. Probably try the src-dx again after some listening.

Check both I/O BNCs for leaking using a test pen.

Sounds will be better if direct the leaking to the ground

 

[dac64]

Any advantages coax out of douk vs usb? Coax vs usb generally what's the overall understanding here?

Both doesn't break the loop therefore don't bother the douk

 

[Meridian7]

Both doesn't break the loop therefore don't bother the douk

Hi, you're absolutely right about potential ground loop. But that's not the reason I use the douk with RCA, sound quality is. Audio quality of usb output and of usb cable is taken care of by the douk. There are other ways to cleanup usb, but the douk is price/performance wise hardly beatable.

Musickid: usb enables higher bitrates to a DAC whereas douk rca is limited to 192. Not an issue when using streaming services though.