Aesthetics are crucially important, but there is another much more important reason - if it was the size of Hugo 2 (and it couldn't as the connectors would not fit) the case temperature would be 90 deg C - which the FPGA would cope with, but not anybody touching it! There are always good engineering reasons for why things are the way they are... Another thing I curse the size of the Hugo M scaler is when I am flying - but for short flights I put it in my man bag, together with the battery bank, and after a couple of hours it gets warm but never hot - and the reason for this is heat dissipation using anodized aluminium is too parts - radiative (infra red) and convection (air movement cooling). I have actually measured which is the most important aspect - and it turns out that radiative cooling is as effective as convection cooling, each contributes about 50% to the total for the Hugo M scaler (how do I know this? raw un-anodised aluminium has virtually no radiative cooling, so I measured it with raw aluminium, and the thermal resistance was doubled). Which is why when you seal it in a bag, it still dissipates enough from the infra red losses, so it does not get unacceptably hot. Both losses are surface area dependendent, which give you a minimum size...
I agree absolutely with your comments about "throw any recording at it and get amazing sound". Indeed I was musing on this very point on the flight home from Munich - I can't think of any RBCD that doesn't somehow work musically, in spite of poorer recordings. Is it because sound quality is now elevated to such a level that pretty much all recordings are now listenable? Or is it that digital sampling without 16 bit accuracy for the recovery of transients, is fundamentally flawed? I suspect the latter - simply because when I hear analogue master tapes, in a lot of ways it sounds poor (listen to Beatles master tapes!) but musically it works. The M scaler allows one to recover the sound of the master tape, and more importantly allows the emotional or musical connection to the original recording.
I used to worry when purchasing music - that it would be unplayably bad - that fear has completely gone now, at least from the genres I buy music from. And I can't express how much joy this gives me!
Hello Rob,well I both strongly agree and partly disagree with what you say here.
But before I return to being " Controversial Christer" again, let me say both to YOU and others here that after a bit more than six months with my M Scaler I consider it together with my Linn Sondek LP12 and its Supex MC pickup which I bought in the mid 70s ,the most important and enjoyable HIFI products I have ever bought!
There are other important links in my chain as well of course. But these two LP12 and HMS stand out as the most significant for my enjoyment of recorded music.
My LP12 made the best of analogue my reference for many years. But I have to admit that M Scaler has rocked that boat considerably.
Since I returned from my winter in Asia three weeks ago I have played fewer LPs than ever before.
The best ones still sound very good.
But I am so amazed at how good the rbcd layer of quite a few of my reference SACDs sound that I just keep digging through those and the around 100 "new" old classical rbcds I brought back from a good friend before landing at my place.
Together with the 50 or so rbcds I found in a wardrobe in my flat in town last year I now have roughly 150 plain rbcds and another 200 or so SACDs to keep me busy.
When SACD arrived on the scene in the late 90s one slogan was "The air is back again".
But to my surprise with M Scaler it is also very much there, provided the recording allows it with rbcd.
And often even better defined than via my SACD players.
Today I played a couple of BIS recordings I was present at some of the sessions of. And even via SACD I have been a bit disappointed with that sorrowful last chord of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony not decaying into silence as I so clearly remember it doing in the hall,but haven't heard it do as long and clear in my system back home before.
But today it was there in all its tragic glory with several seconds of slow natural decay into complete silence.
And I could play it very loud indeed via speakers without congestion at climaxes
And from rbcd of all formats!
I also played BIS' SACD of Beethoven's 9th and again the rbcd layer sounded better than the SACD layer.
But here I have be a bit CC again, because in the middle of the slow movement the battery of my linear PSU for my Qutest ran dry and I was forced to pause the player until I had fitted the supplied wall power unit into Qutest and could carry on listening.
But unfortunately some of the magic was gone. The strings were not as silky smooth and the general sound and soundstage and effortless portrayal I had enjoyed was not quite there any longer. And there was also a wee bit more noise audible even via speakers.
I have to be absolutely honest and imho the battery powered linear unit is simply better than the supplied one.
Not only via headphones but even more so, via my big electrostatic speakers.
Via battery power I was completely transfixed and caught up in Beethoven's heavenly music and it sounded at least as good as my hi res versions of that symphony.
But without it there was a bit of hardening and digital edge back again.
A tad smoother on battery?
Oh yes, more than a tad to me.
To get back on topic of the size of your Wonderbox HMS, mine has only ever been a bit hot with above 30C temperatures without AC on in the tropics. Today after having been switched on all day for at least 8 hours it is not even more than nice and warm to touch.
In other words from a temperature and connections point of view I don't really see any reason why an M Scaler would need to be any bigger than a Qutest?
As far as "throw any recording" and so on....
I have to disagree, if anything HMS reveals bad recordings more ruthlessly than ever imho.
Luckily I have very few really bad recordings but those that are bad really suck even via HMS!
Good music magazines tend to be rather correct about SQ of recordings most of the time.
In that respect Gramophone can still be trusted.
In some bad cases with digital recordings I am pretty sure the reason is that some early classical rbcds were recorded on only 14 bit ADCs and I can quite easily hear that those sound less refined and not at all as enjoyable as later and better recordings.
When I first played some of BIS's early SONY PCM F1 14 bit recordings via HMS I was quite disappointed. They still sounded quite bad to me.
Yes for those with a memory of early days of digital,that slamming garage door at the HIFI show in London was impressive, but music is much more complex than a slamming door.
Even the DGG mid 60s Karajan/BPO LP of the same symphony sounded smoother and more resolved than the 14 bit recording where strings sounded flat and harsh.
I even had to check if my HMS was really upscaling properly and check with pass through to hear that Sibelius's 7th from the same hall and orchestra as the Tchaikovsky but now via PCMF1 sounded even worse that way.
I definitely think 16 bits are essential.
But I am really amazed at exactly HOW good 16 bits can sound via HMS.
HMS has changed the way I look for music to listen to, and will keep me quite busy ripping many discs before winter arrives again. And I and all those smart birds migrate to warmer climates over the winter again.
As far as analogue mastertapes are concerned I would say that they can actually with the really good ones, sound very good and realistic indeed.
Cheers CC
