Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[GreenBow]

It's sometimes difficult to get an impression of what the M-Scaler change is.

Sometimes people say that there is not much change. Some say there is, and could not live without M-Scaler. … Most reviews say the change is large. I never forget the HiFi+ review of M-scaler with TT2. The reviewer said the M-Scaler left him slack-jawed. It was like listening to either a completely different DAC, or some other aspect I don't recall.

 

[AndrewOld]

It's sometimes difficult to get an impression of what the M-Scaler change is.

Sometimes people say that there is not much change. Some say there is, and could not live without M-Scaler. … Most reviews say the change is large. I never forget the HiFi+ review of M-scaler with TT2. The reviewer said the M-Scaler left him slack-jawed. It was like listening to either a completely different DAC, or some other aspect I don't recall.

It’s difficult. I thought it made a huge difference to music in the ways that were most important. Solidity, tangibility, credibility, richness, involvement, depth, tonality, resolution, power. But then along came the RF voodoo merchants and their shills and they told me I was wrong, I was just hearing the effect of RF noise on the ground plane and intermodulation distortion and all sorts of things they could spell but not measure. And that what I really needed was many hundreds pounds worth of cables and then power supplies and then servers. So maybe I was wrong. Get hold of one and decide for yourself. There is still an outside possibility that it might be quite good on its own,

 

[Deolum]

M Scaler. It makes a profound difference. And a different kind of difference. Fancy over-engineered streamer with asymmetrical anti-vibration feet (lol!) will deliver the same bits as your Mac mini and both the TT2 and M Scaler are well designed so insensitive to the source. Only an M Scaler M scales.

Making fun of streamers because of bits is bits and meanwhile promoting a M Scaler which makes scientifically no difference is kinda odd.

 

[GreenBow]

It’s difficult. I thought it made a huge difference to music in the ways that were most important. Solidity, tangibility, credibility, richness, involvement, depth, tonality, resolution, power. But then along came the RF voodoo merchants and their shills and they told me I was wrong, I was just hearing the effect of RF noise on the ground plane and intermodulation distortion and all sorts of things they could spell but not measure. And that what I really needed was many hundreds pounds worth of cables and then power supplies and then servers. So maybe I was wrong. Get hold of one and decide for yourself. There is still an outside possibility that it might be quite good on its own,

Yeah I owe it to myself to try demo one. Hopefully at home so I know it will work where I want it. … That's a good post of yours though.

The list of: solidity, tangibility, credibility, richness, involvement, depth, tonality, resolution, power. That would be lost if you were getting RFI, which I think is real. However the RFI issue is different for different people. Otherwise many who e.g. bought the WAVE cables would hear nothing, but they love them.

Another issue I have, and it will appear weird, is shutting down the TT2 taps. It seems like such a waste, to invalidate use of half my TT2. Might be better waiting for the DX amplifier, as I think it would plug into an M-Scaler. However I feel like I have paid for a TT2 so I want to use it.

It's a daft issue to have too, about the TT2 taps, as often I would have M-Scaler on bypass. Like when gaming or video, even though M-Scaler has a video mode.

If I did try the M-Scaler and heard it bright due to RFI. Then I would be lost also at the prospect of having to sort out solutions. There is the chance that the M-Scaler would sound bright to me at first anyway. That's because all Chord DAC upgrades have done at first. It took at least a week for me to settle down with each, starting with moving to Mojo, Hugo 2 and TT2. Then after the first week where most adjustment happened, it still took another three weeks to be totally settled.

Me buying an M-Scaler is maybe likely to be 'just buy it'. Then be forthright and sort out any RFI if my system gets that, later.

 

[Progisus]

Sold mscaler bought Antipodes EX as a streamer. Core on another computer. Far, far bigger upgrade.

 

[me2621a]

Thanks guys for the replies, happy not to go add ferrites to my BNC cables, at almost $2000 for the pair modifying my Wireworld starlight platinum BNC cables was making me puke haha.

I think the good news for me is I have not been able to identify the emi noise from my M Scalar, Dave + M Scalar in my system is better the solo Dave in my setup, and I don’t find the highs edgy (though I use tube amplifiers for 99% of my listening).

Likely if I listened to a M Scalar on battery or the perfect wave BNC cables that may change but for now I am going to say ignorance is bliss haha.

 

[AndrewOld]

Yeah I owe it to myself to try demo one. Hopefully at home so I know it will work where I want it. … That's a good post of yours though.

The list of: solidity, tangibility, credibility, richness, involvement, depth, tonality, resolution, power. That would be lost if you were getting RFI, which I think is real. However the RFI issue is different for different people. Otherwise many who e.g. bought the WAVE cables would hear nothing, but they love them.

Another issue I have, and it will appear weird, is shutting down the TT2 taps. It seems like such a waste, to invalidate use of half my TT2. Might be better waiting for the DX amplifier, as I think it would plug into an M-Scaler. However I feel like I have paid for a TT2 so I want to use it.

It's a daft issue to have too, about the TT2 taps, as often I would have M-Scaler on bypass. Like when gaming or video, even though M-Scaler has a video mode.

If I did try the M-Scaler and heard it bright due to RFI. Then I would be lost also at the prospect of having to sort out solutions. There is the chance that the M-Scaler would sound bright to me at first anyway. That's because all Chord DAC upgrades have done at first. It took at least a week for me to settle down with each, starting with moving to Mojo, Hugo 2 and TT2. Then after the first week where most adjustment happened, it still took another three weeks to be totally settled.

Me buying an M-Scaler is maybe likely to be 'just buy it'. Then be forthright and sort out any RFI if my system gets that, later.

That’s a very good point about an M Scaler making a non-trivial lump of your TT2 redundant. I am in the same boat with my DAVE. It seems reasonable to conceive of a DAC without the redundant upsampling and redundant inputs you get when you add an M Scaler. I‘m sure a lot more people than me would be delighted with a DAVE level DAC in M Scaler casework without any upsampling, inputs, display or fancy casework. Not to mention with the RF issues, whatever they are, sorted. But I’m not sure it will happen. Who knows. All the best with your search. And you are dead right to give yourself time to adjust to a change.

 

[S-O8]

Just listening to a loaned Mscaler with my TT2. I love the TT2 and am struggling to hear a difference ... or am I ?

This thread has so many pages to try and read ... all of the reviews seem to love the combination I have and the Mscaler.

To me it sounds brighter and more 'live' as a result. I seem to be noticing a tighter bass and generally noticing more individual instruments - is this the kind of thing others have heard?

Music is coming from Tidal and my MB Air through a USB to the Mscaler.

Any comment, other than read the 760+ pages of this thread. I am told I will notice it when I remove it from the equation and 'just' listen to the TT2.

 

[GreenBow]

Just listening to a loaned Mscaler with my TT2. I love the TT2 and am struggling to hear a difference ... or am I ?

This thread has so many pages to try and read ... all of the reviews seem to love the combination I have and the Mscaler.

To me it sounds brighter and more 'live' as a result. I seem to be noticing a tighter bass and generally noticing more individual instruments - is this the kind of thing others have heard?

Music is coming from Tidal and my MB Air through a USB to the Mscaler.

Any comment, other than read the 760+ pages of this thread. I am told I will notice it when I remove it from the equation and 'just' listen to the TT2.

It might be as I was describing above. That when changing DACs like going from Mojo to Hugo 2, and Hugo 2 to TT2. There was an element the seemed to be of brightness. (It was the same going from my old PC Meridian Explorer DAC to Mojo also.)

That appearance of brightness settled down though within a week. I suppose what it means is, listen to M-Scaler as much as you can. … At least if early M-Scaler adoption is like Chord DAC upgrade. I think it's likely given what some of what people say the M-Scaler does. Larger soundscape, more detail. That is precisely what going from Mojo to Hugo 2 was like. Better soundstage and way more detail in it.

 

[dac64]

Music is coming from Tidal and my MB Air through a USB to the Mscaler.

I've the HMS with the Qutest on 2ch. Listen to CD and ripped SACD/CD. Its works for me.

 

[Jawed]

A current personal project is to come up with an ultra low budget DIY ferrited BNC recipe that requires no crimping, uses industry spec parts, by leveraging existing commercial cables to get half way there. I will report back when I have something to recommend.

See my signature.

A different use of the clipon ferrites that I have posited a couple of times Is to apply them to power cables to address high frequency loops. Does this also improve things? I have some of the clipons above on order to try on AC power leads. I will also report back on my experiences here as well.

Yes. See my signature.

It is only the case that the clip on ferrites Rob Watts happened to have on the cables he happened to have sounded worse with the M Scaler, whereas the same clip-on ferrite/cable combination had improved things with the Blu2, where there was a much bigger problem with RF. Iirc Rob was puzzled by the poor results with clip-on ferrites and the M Scaler, but never really pursued the issue to find out why. He did speculate that maybe the air-gap had something to do with it, and there might have been a resonance betweem the air gap and the ferrites inside the M Scaler. But this was never nailed down, it just remained speculation. So, it is perfectly possible that another combination of clip-on ferrite and cable with a different, or no, air gap could have done just a good a job as solid core ferrites for a lot less money than some people are paying. imo it is a great pity that the work was never done to nail down why the clip-on ferrites didn’t work with the M Scaler, and then work from that to find a clip-on ferrite/cable solution that was affordable.

In my original experiments with clip on ferrites used on a USB cable I found that with about 10 ferrites there were sound quality problems, even though there were also benefits: bass and midrange were improved and mostly the treble, but there was an etched quality, a sort of acid sound effect, too. This problem disappeared when adding more ferrites. I suspect this is what Rob heard, but he did not investigate further.

Rob did determine that a 2m cable gave a better result than a 1m cable of the same make though. When the M Scaler came out all the talk on this thread was how good it was, what a step change in musical pleasure it gave, but now we have hundreds and hundreds of posts about how it is digitally harsh and you can only cure this with expensive cables or BNC - optical - BNC convertors and imo the reputation of the product and Chord has suffered as a consequence.

Worse, people are buying rip-off "solutions" that demonstrably do not work. If these products worked then it would not be possible to continue to hear the differences cause by changes to servers or the use of battery power for M Scaler.

If you have an M Scaler you can find out for yourself what RFI problems sound like. Simply stand your Qutest, TT2 or DAVE directly on top of HMS. Then compare when you've separated them by a couple of feet (60cm).

How much noise are the battery power supplies generating?

 

[Jawed]

That’s a very good point about an M Scaler making a non-trivial lump of your TT2 redundant. I am in the same boat with my DAVE. It seems reasonable to conceive of a DAC without the redundant upsampling and redundant inputs you get when you add an M Scaler. I‘m sure a lot more people than me would be delighted with a DAVE level DAC in M Scaler casework without any upsampling, inputs, display or fancy casework. Not to mention with the RF issues, whatever they are, sorted. But I’m not sure it will happen.

Maybe Rob's power amplifiers? Those of us who primarily listen with passive speakers will be happy.

 

[feddar]

Just wondering about hearing loss, now that I’m listening to the M scaler and TT2. It is so clear, that my volume level is creeping up. Any idea what a good hearing level would be? I currently listen at -45 low gain with Utopia headphones .

 

[GreenBow]

Just wondering about hearing loss, now that I’m listening to the M scaler and TT2. It is so clear, that my volume level is creeping up. Any idea what a good hearing level would be? I currently listen at -45 low gain with Utopia headphones .

Just turn them down and get used to it again. It's surprising sometimes how much we have turned headphones up.

One way of judging noise I use is by clicking my fingers. If I can't hear that reasonably, the music is too loud.

As a guide they say you should never turn music up to compensate for background noise.

 

[ZappaMan]

Just wondering about hearing loss, now that I’m listening to the M scaler and TT2. It is so clear, that my volume level is creeping up. Any idea what a good hearing level would be? I currently listen at -45 low gain with Utopia headphones .

i think rob mentioned something about -30h or above being safe and reasonable, but most of us i think listen at louder volumes. depends on the headphones. my hd800s was normally -25h, my ether 2 is usually -15h.