Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[rwelles]

The silver shadows from Nordost are also great, they are now discontinued through.

Thanks for the suggestion! I found a new pair at MusicDirect for a great discount.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

Thanks for the suggestion! I found a new pair at MusicDirect for a great discount.

Enjoy

 

[Reactcore]

After reading a post of someone saying that Adele has some bad sound quality recordings.. i looked up her 1st 2008 album:



Damn this is horribly studio mastered, it sounds flat with screeching digital artifacts hearable.. the music and her voice is nice though ..but this must have been multiple times ADC'ed DAC'ed, mixed and re-ADC'ed..

Mscaler cant make it any better ..in fact more WTA taps make it worse, inputting this in Dave direct clears it up a bit .. not good sounding but tamed down. it just proves to me that a longer tap filter reveals also bad sides of mastering so much so that in some cases its better to not using Mscaler.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

After reading a post of someone saying that Adele has some bad sound quality recordings.. i looked up her 1st 2008 album:



Damn this is horribly studio mastered, it sounds flat with screeching digital artifacts hearable.. the music and her voice is nice though ..but this must have been multiple times ADC'ed DAC'ed, mixed and re-ADC'ed..

Mscaler cant make it any better ..in fact more WTA taps make it worse, inputting this in Dave direct clears it up a bit .. not good sounding but tamed down. it just proves to me that a longer tap filter reveals also bad sides of mastering so much so that in some cases its better to not using Mscaler.

It reveals more how bad it is, like using an HDTV on a badly recorded video, it makes it look worse, but it is because it is revealing what is there. I'd rather use the M Scaler even more, I want to know what's there.

 

[Reactcore]

It reveals more how bad it is, like using an HDTV on a badly recorded video, it makes it look worse, but it is because it is revealing what is there. I'd rather use the M Scaler even more, I want to know what's there.

Its why i have two parallel toslink outputs on my music server.. to easily be able to switch Mscaler harware in and out my chain.

 

[MarkParity]

After reading a post of someone saying that Adele has some bad sound quality recordings.. i looked up her 1st 2008 album:



Damn this is horribly studio mastered, it sounds flat with screeching digital artifacts hearable.. the music and her voice is nice though ..but this must have been multiple times ADC'ed DAC'ed, mixed and re-ADC'ed..

Mscaler cant make it any better ..in fact more WTA taps make it worse, inputting this in Dave direct clears it up a bit .. not good sounding but tamed down. it just proves to me that a longer tap filter reveals also bad sides of mastering so much so that in some cases its better to not using Mscaler.

It’s just mastered too over compressed, no dynamic range. The vinyl version is bascally the same and sounds just as bad. One day we may get a remastered version with this issue fixed but I doubt it.

 

[musickid]

I'm using an ipod touch as a roon endpoint which is powered by a 5v portable energizer power bank. I've had no problems doing this. The ipod touch is connected to the usb in on mscaler with an apple camera adaptor which also powers the ipod touch from the powerbank. Am i right in saying that this set up must be providing the 5v needed to activate the usb in on mscaler otherwise there would be no sound? i'm using a generic usb A to B cable from the apple adaptor out to usb in on mscaler.

 

[rwelles]

I'm using an ipod touch as a roon endpoint which is powered by a 5v portable energizer power bank. I've had no problems doing this. The ipod touch is connected to the usb in on mscaler with an apple camera adaptor which also powers the ipod touch from the powerbank. Am i right in saying that this set up must be providing the 5v needed to activate the usb in on mscaler otherwise there would be no sound? i'm using a generic usb A to B cable from the apple adaptor out to usb in on mscaler.

Yes.

According to p. 32 of the manual, "However, the usual USB +5V rail will need to be present."

 

[rwelles]

Finally pulled the trigger; received my M-scaler this afternoon!! It's fed by a 2Go/2Yu and connected to a TT2, then to my GS-X mini (soon to be replaced with a CFA3) and Susvara.

The first change I noticed is in the treble. Somehow, it's both smoother and more detailed at the same time. Amazing!! I need some more time to suss out the additional changes. Increased sound stage size seems to also be happening.

 

[Meridian7]

@rwelles
The most obvious to me is 'lesser in the head, more around the head, actually not in the head anymore at all.'

 

[musickid]

If i want to a/b optical vs usb input on mscaler am i ok to leave the usb and optical cables both plugged in at the same time? This will make listening to any difference much easier and quicker.

 

[559938]

If i want to a/b optical vs usb input on mscaler am i ok to leave the usb and optical cables both plugged in at the same time? This will make listening to any difference much easier and quicker.

Yes. M scaler auto-selects input. You either keep the source running and manually change inputs, or stop one source and start another

 

[AndrewOld]

If i want to a/b optical vs usb input on mscaler am i ok to leave the usb and optical cables both plugged in at the same time? This will make listening to any difference much easier and quicker.

Not if you are worried that RF (or evil spirits or bad karma) can travel through the USB cable. A fair a/b implies that only one of the two cables should be connected at once. If you leave the USB cable in, then the M Scaler is always connected electrically in some sense to the source - even though the M Scaler is galvanically isolated, that isolation isn’t perfect iirc.

 

[Amberlamps]

If i want to a/b optical vs usb input on mscaler am i ok to leave the usb and optical cables both plugged in at the same time? This will make listening to any difference much easier and quicker.

Like Andrew said, disconnect usb and bnc cables if u really want to A/ B with optical cables.

 

[OneOfTheLastMen]

Question about the HMS "video" option reducing lag. Up to now I have it set to "auto", which seemed to work perfectly, and was wondering how it detects the audio is from video? (in my case optical output from TV)
I read on a post that in the auto mode it switches the video filter on when it detects an incoming 48k signal. A lot of Amazon Unlimited is 24b/48k streams, so will it be switching on the video filter for those as well?
In the meantime I have turned off the auto video filter and just select it when I need it.