Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[Triode User]

Serious question.
Does the mscaler improve massively over Tidal as well? Or it must be high res stuff?

No need for it to be hi res. Red book (ie Tidal or Qobuz) is amazing with mscaler.

 

[musickid]

especially over 44.1khz flac files.

 

[ecwl]

I just use Tidal with my Mac set to output a 96 as opposed to 44 1 signal so am not the best person to comment other than to say everything from the TT2 sounds a lot better than the Sony...

I’m quite confused by this comment...
If your TT2 is connected to the Mac via USB, and you’re listening to music on Tidal using the Tidal app, it doesn’t matter what your Audio MIDI setup is provided that you choose in the Tidal app for the Sound Output to go to TT2. The Tidal app would automatically switch between 44.1kHz vs 96kHz or 88kHz depending on your music source and you should see the color of your TT2 change.

If you’re connecting in a different manner and is persistently forcing Tidal to play at 96kHz, then obviously, you’re not going to hear much improvement with M-Scaler. For 44kHz music, you’re letting your Mac to do ASRC and inferior upsampling to 96kHz which dramatically destroys the transient accuracy instead of letting TT2 (and M-Scaler) to directly up sample to 705.4kHz with their respective 98304 and 1 million taps. For 96kHz music, you’ll be getting it from MQA which is an encoding with very poor transient accuracy because you’re not actually listening to the original 96kHz lossless track so once again, of course, the difference between TT2 (& M-scaler) when you’re playing poor source materials is going to be smaller.

 

[S-O8]

I’m quite confused by this comment...
If your TT2 is connected to the Mac via USB, and you’re listening to music on Tidal using the Tidal app, it doesn’t matter what your Audio MIDI setup is provided that you choose in the Tidal app for the Sound Output to go to TT2. The Tidal app would automatically switch between 44.1kHz vs 96kHz or 88kHz depending on your music source and you should see the color of your TT2 change.

If you’re connecting in a different manner and is persistently forcing Tidal to play at 96kHz, then obviously, you’re not going to hear much improvement with M-Scaler. For 44kHz music, you’re letting your Mac to do ASRC and inferior upsampling to 96kHz which dramatically destroys the transient accuracy instead of letting TT2 (and M-Scaler) to directly up sample to 705.4kHz with their respective 98304 and 1 million taps. For 96kHz music, you’ll be getting it from MQA which is an encoding with very poor transient accuracy because you’re not actually listening to the original 96kHz lossless track so once again, of course, the difference between TT2 (& M-scaler) when you’re playing poor source materials is going to be smaller.

I have Tidal set to recognise the TT2 / Mscaler so guess it sorts it for me.

 

[naynay]

It is unfortunate that the M Scaler needing upgraded cables to sound their best. With that said I opted to copy Rob's choice, WAVE to be "safe."

Cry once, buy once applied for me.

I used the WAVE cables' wooden box as storage for my spare/stock cables as it was just the right size.

Or just make your own and put the 1K you save to some future Chord gear when released.

 

[iamoneagain]

You could also buy a Poweradd Pro 5 Battery about little over $100. Rob said with battery the cables don’t make any difference.

 

[HumanMedia]

Yes, but I'm lazy as I try and listen to Master Audio songs and forget to change. There is no auto setting on the Mac sadly.

Doing this should always be avoided. Your player software should have a way of bypassing the OS Sound Manager and it’s homogenisation of the signal. You won’t need to manually change anything once it’s configured properly, should be called Exclusive mode or something similar. Others here using the computer as a player should be able to let you know how to set this up???

 

[iamoneagain]

Doing this should always be avoided. Your player software should have a way of bypassing the OS Sound Manager and it’s homogenisation of the signal. You won’t need to manually change anything once it’s configured properly, should be called Exclusive mode or something similar. Others here using the computer as a player should be able to let you know how to set this up???

Yeah exclusive mode in roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Audirvana, HQPlayer, all have auto switching. iTunes and last I’ve heard Amazon music HD doesn’t auto switch. Even though Amazon has exclusive mode, it doesn’t switch the rate.

If you play back at wrong rate, the Mac is doing its own upsampling/downsampling which will effect the original file and the mscaler’s ability to properly restore the analog signal.

 

[InstantSilence]

Yeah exclusive mode in roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Audirvana, HQPlayer, all have auto switching. iTunes and last I’ve heard Amazon music HD doesn’t auto switch. Even though Amazon has exclusive mode, it doesn’t switch the rate.

If you play back at wrong rate, the Mac is doing its own upsampling/downsampling which will effect the original file and the mscaler’s ability to properly restore the analog signal.

What are your roon and hqplayer settings?

 

[iamoneagain]

W

What are your roon and hqplayer settings?

Well I don’t recommend HQPlayer with Chord products and roon is just the default settings you get when you plug in the mscaler and roon identifies it. I actually hook up with optical now, but manual follow the same setup. But make sure exclusive mode is toggled and volume control is fixed.

 

[InstantSilence]

W


Well I don’t recommend HQPlayer with Chord products and roon is just the default settings you get when you plug in the mscaler and roon identifies it. I actually hook up with optical now, but manual follow the same setup. But make sure exclusive mode is toggled and volume control is fixed.

I've been having good experiences with hqplayer and tt2. Why don't you recommend hqplayer with chord?

 

[iamoneagain]

I've been having good experiences with hqplayer and tt2. Why don't you recommend hqplayer with chord?

Well at least with the Dave, I felt internal filter sounded better than the recommended HQPlayer settings as far as tone and texture. And with comparison with mscaler, the mscaler just sounds right. And that was with testing with all stock cables. HQPlayer player seems little too bright and lost texture. I didn’t play around with all the settings, just the few that currently recommended for Chord. You can look up my old posts for more on what settings and comparisons.

But HQPlayer is free to try, so of course anyone can listen for 30 min at a time and get a good idea how it compares for themselves. I liked it before when just using ifi micro iDSD amp but prefer Chord’s WTA1 filter over anything I’ve tried.

 

[alexl993]

I’m quite confused by this comment...
If your TT2 is connected to the Mac via USB, and you’re listening to music on Tidal using the Tidal app, it doesn’t matter what your Audio MIDI setup is provided that you choose in the Tidal app for the Sound Output to go to TT2. The Tidal app would automatically switch between 44.1kHz vs 96kHz or 88kHz depending on your music source and you should see the color of your TT2 change.

If you’re connecting in a different manner and is persistently forcing Tidal to play at 96kHz, then obviously, you’re not going to hear much improvement with M-Scaler. For 44kHz music, you’re letting your Mac to do ASRC and inferior upsampling to 96kHz which dramatically destroys the transient accuracy instead of letting TT2 (and M-Scaler) to directly up sample to 705.4kHz with their respective 98304 and 1 million taps. For 96kHz music, you’ll be getting it from MQA which is an encoding with very poor transient accuracy because you’re not actually listening to the original 96kHz lossless track so once again, of course, the difference between TT2 (& M-scaler) when you’re playing poor source materials is going to be smaller.

Exactly my thought, which is why I asked for clarification.

 

[S-O8]

Exactly my thought, which is why I asked for clarification.

Just to check this - the Tidal app on my computer is set to recognise and have 'control' of the TT2 in the streaming settings thus I assume it is effectively bypassing anything set on the Mac ?

 

[Triode User]

Just to check this - the Tidal app on my computer is set to recognise and have 'control' of the TT2 in the streaming settings thus I assume it is effectively bypassing anything set on the Mac ?

I can't remember if the Tidal app does control the mac output or whether the 'Audio MIDI Setup' utility retains control of the output. Mostly it is the latter.

It should be easy to check out by looking at the colour of the input ball on the Mscaler with various files from Tidal and see if it varies depending on whether the Tidal file is 44.1 or some other higher frequency..