Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[llamaluv]

That's interesting. Audiobacon did a review of BNC cables for the Blu2 & Dave combo, and the Boomslang worked great. Not sure why the M-Scaler would be any different.

Some time ago, a friend brought his Boomslang BNCs over and they failed spectacularly going from my M-Scaler to DAVE, as it had on his own. He actually contacted both the manufacturer and AudioBacon Jay. The manufacturer verified the incompatibility, and IIRC so did Jay (although why that's not noted in the review I couldn't say).

Anyone interested should definitely reach out to Boomslang rather than take my word for it though.

Edit: Looks like the manufacturer says so in so many words on the product page:

I believe it may have something to do with the DAVE not utilizing some extra synchronization information that's sent out thru the M-Scaler. This was an improvement made by Chord after the DAVE and before the TT2. Not sure why this would affect this specific cable more than others, maybe something to do with its novel design? All just speculation on my part, though.

 

[edwardsean]

I was on a MacBook Pro with Audrivana in Direct Mode until earlier this year. I got a DAVE which I'm upscaling and I thought I was done. I hooked it up to my MBP w/ A+ using a curious cable and Uptone IsoRegen. It was pretty good, but it wasn't the end. It was just the start....

In the past three months, I've spent the price of the Dave over again on a network server, USB regenerator, master clock, power supplies, cables, software, etc. The question that arises is: "Well, did you achieve twice the sound quality for spending twice the amount?"

Answer: "No."

I achieved more than that, maybe 3-4 times the SQ.

With all–much due–respect to Rob Watts, I would never, never take a laptop (Win, Mac, Linux) over a dedicated purpose built server/player such as an Innuos. (If that is what he indeed said.)

Darko recently opined that if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't put the money into a better DAC. He would settle for a lesser DAC and pour the money into a front end. That's essentially correct.

There is a member here on Headfi who has a ~$60K server setup going into a Dragonfly, while he is waiting for his Dave to be delivered. He's joking about it–but not completely.

if you can find a server like an Innuos to demo you will be well rewarded for your trouble. For a much cheaper option, the Allo USB Signature w/ Shanit PS w/ Moode is a great economic way to upgrade from a laptop.

I'll stop here, I forgot which thread I'm on, and this is way OT.

 

[SuperBurrito]

Some time ago, a friend brought his Boomslang BNCs over and they failed spectacularly going from my M-Scaler to DAVE, as it had on his own. He actually contacted both the manufacturer and AudioBacon Jay. The manufacturer verified the incompatibility, and IIRC so did Jay (although why that's not noted in the review I couldn't say).

Thanks for the info. It is especially helpful since I am ready to try some aftermarket BNCs (am currently using the stock cables which came in the box). If anyone has favorites, please let me know! Much appreciated.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Guys I've been thinking about battery powering my M Scaler all the time.
I know that Rob is using m scaler with Poweradd Pilot Pro 2 while traveling.
After looking for other options I've found Tanker Litionite - it also supports 12V out and there is version with 50000 mAh capacity.
Anyone has any experience with Tanker batteries ?
Also for how long 2300mAh will power m scaler ? 8 hours ?
I won't lie, charging battery bank each day when I want to listen to music is not the most convenient way.

 

[AndrewOld]

Guys I've been thinking about battery powering my M Scaler all the time.
I know that Rob is using m scaler with Poweradd Pilot Pro 2 while traveling.
After looking for other options I've found Tanker Litionite - it also supports 12V out and there is version with 50000 mAh capacity.
Anyone has any experience with Tanker batteries ?
Also for how long 2300mAh will power m scaler ? 8 hours ?
I won't lie, charging battery bank each day when I want to listen to music is not the most convenient way.

I found with the Poweradd that it is simplest to leave it connected to its charger and to the MScaler all the time. It will be fully charged and your M Scaler will work fine. When you want to break any possible mains loop, all you need to do is pull out the charger lead from the battery.

 

[S-O8]

Thanks for the info. It is especially helpful since I am ready to try some aftermarket BNCs (am currently using the stock cables which came in the box). If anyone has favorites, please let me know! Much appreciated.

I've bought Chord Signature Super Aray ... very pleased with them. They were only a trial but on swapping back to the standard ones I decided quite rapidly to buy them ! Clearer and less 'fog' around the sound is the best I can say.

 

[SuperBurrito]

I've bought Chord Signature Super Aray ... very pleased with them. They were only a trial but on swapping back to the standard ones I decided quite rapidly to buy them ! Clearer and less 'fog' around the sound is the best I can say.

Thanks! Much appreciated. I've gotten my power cables squared away (and it made a meaningful improvement), so the digital interconnects are next up. As they say, everything matters!

If anyone else has recommendations on BNC cables, I'm all ears.

 

[dac64]

Thanks! Much appreciated. I've gotten my power cables squared away (and it made a meaningful improvement), so the digital interconnects are next up. As they say, everything matters!

If anyone else has recommendations on BNC cables, I'm all ears.

bottom of this page https://www.head-fi.org/threads/watts-up.800264/page-127

 

[muski]

Every once in a while I trip over a recording that M Scaler + DAVE render in a way that sounds completely unlike any other DAC. Here's a beautiful one—Thomas Dunford on the 14-string archlute. While the whole album is a treat, the last track—Dunford's lute transcription of Bach's monumental Chaconne—is breathtakingly beautiful.

I'm amazed that M Scaler + DAVE can resolve the attacks with so much musical detail. You can hear the tension in the upper strings and the rawness of the unfretted bass strings. Beyond what I thought possible for digital audio reproduction.

 

[GreenBow]

I was on a MacBook Pro with Audrivana in Direct Mode until earlier this year. I got a DAVE which I'm upscaling and I thought I was done. I hooked it up to my MBP w/ A+ using a curious cable and Uptone IsoRegen. It was pretty good, but it wasn't the end. It was just the start....

In the past three months, I've spent the price of the Dave over again on a network server, USB regenerator, master clock, power supplies, cables, software, etc. The question that arises is: "Well, did you achieve twice the sound quality for spending twice the amount?"

Answer: "No."

I achieved more than that, maybe 3-4 times the SQ.

With all–much due–respect to Rob Watts, I would never, never take a laptop (Win, Mac, Linux) over a dedicated purpose built server/player such as an Innuos. (If that is what he indeed said.)

Darko recently opined that if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't put the money into a better DAC. He would settle for a lesser DAC and pour the money into a front end. That's essentially correct.

There is a member here on Headfi who has a ~$60K server setup going into a Dragonfly, while he is waiting for his Dave to be delivered. He's joking about it–but not completely.

if you can find a server like an Innuos to demo you will be well rewarded for your trouble. For a much cheaper option, the Allo USB Signature w/ Shanit PS w/ Moode is a great economic way to upgrade from a laptop.

I'll stop here, I forgot which thread I'm on, and this is way OT.

I always relied on Rob Watts' clocks. Adding external clocks means that whatever the external clock does, is re-done by the DAC clock.

However I recently saw the What HiFi review of the DCS Bartok.
https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/dcs-bartok

The point that interested me about clocks was this. "The master clock built into the Bartók is really good (obviously, given the price), but in our experience, if you add a top-quality external unit such as the ones that dCS makes, sound quality takes a leap forward. Such clocks cost thousands though, so it’s not a cheap upgrade and certainly not essential to enjoy this product."

It does raise a question about Chord DAC clocks. If really high end clocks cost thousands to make, can file servers with excellent clocks help? Will the signal stay timed right along the digital cable to the DAC? Will the Chord DAC clock not just retime the whole show anyway. (Even if it was the Mojo clock.)

Remember Rob does tell how accurate his clocks are, and what any resultant jitter could be.

Then I wondered if the real benefit of expensive servers was more likely a pristine clean signal.

I don't know.

 

[GreenBow]

Every once in a while I trip over a recording that M Scaler + DAVE render in a way that sounds completely unlike any other DAC. Here's a beautiful one—Thomas Dunford on the 14-string archlute. While the whole album is a treat, the last track—Dunford's lute transcription of Bach's monumental Chaconne—is breathtakingly beautiful.

I'm amazed that M Scaler + DAVE can resolve the attacks with so much musical detail. You can hear the tension in the upper strings and the rawness of the unfretted bass strings. Beyond what I thought possible for digital audio reproduction.

Am listening to BWV 995 right now. Will have to buy it. Thank you for taking the time to tell us about it.

This guitar sounds incredible even over YouTube. The depth to the sound of the guitar notes is staggering. (I don't have M-Scaler. Have TT2.)

 

[Kevxl]

Also for how long 2300mAh will power m scaler ? 8 hours ?
I won't lie, charging battery bank each day when I want to listen to music is not the most convenient way.

I have two 23000mAh Poweradd. One powering the receiving end of the OPTO DX, the other one powering both the Mscaler and the transmitter via a Y-splitter. My listening session usually last 6 hours and the Poweradd for the HMS would have somewhere around 20% left. The one powering the OPTO DX receiver would have more than 80% left.

I would just plug in the battery before I sleep and it will be 100% when I wake up. It charges pretty fast.

Honestly, I thought it would be a lot of hassles before I setup everything. As it turns out, really not that bad. And, I bought the 23000mAh version because I plan to use them on plane with laptops. If you don’t need the travel option then definitely buy the higher capacity ones.

 

[GreenBow]

Every once in a while I trip over a recording that M Scaler + DAVE render in a way that sounds completely unlike any other DAC. Here's a beautiful one—Thomas Dunford on the 14-string archlute. While the whole album is a treat, the last track—Dunford's lute transcription of Bach's monumental Chaconne—is breathtakingly beautiful.

I'm amazed that M Scaler + DAVE can resolve the attacks with so much musical detail. You can hear the tension in the upper strings and the rawness of the unfretted bass strings. Beyond what I thought possible for digital audio reproduction.

By the way. On the subject of recommendations.

A sort of plug. I came across a band in a past edition of HiFi Choice. I decided to check them out because of the stuff that the reviewer said of them in general. Like when he saw them first many years ago. The review was about their latest album.

I have not checked them out properly yet. However I'll post their name and album here, because it came with good article in HiFi Choice.

Band is called Tinariwen and their latest album being reviewed is called, Amadjar.

 

[Malcyg]

I always relied on Rob Watts' clocks. Adding external clocks means that whatever the external clock does, is re-done by the DAC clock.

Then I wondered if the real benefit of expensive servers was more likely a pristine clean signal.

I don't know.

I think that this is the essence of it. There can be a lot of noise in a computer network and the more you can reduce and mitigate this, then the purer and cleaner the signal being fed into the DAC, the better the sound will be. This shouldn’t be a surprise since it has always been this way relating to vinyl and other sources where the importance of the source has long been recognised and there is no reason to assume that digital sources should be any different. I think people can get distracted by the ones and zero’s and ‘bits is bits’ arguments tbh and ignore common sense. People talk as if these issues only relate to Dave or Chord DAC’s, but they relate to any and all DAC’s to varying degrees.

The better your DAC, the more transparent and revealing it is likely to be and so the more this noise pollution can be observed. Same again if you improve your amplifier. It is a disheartening by product of improving your system! When Blu II came out, I was puzzled as to why the internal CD player sounded so much better than a file ripped from the same CD - it sounded smoother, warmer, less fatiguing, less ‘digital’. The answer had to be in the delivery of the data through the system and the noise/contamination generated by routers, servers and anything else in the network. So the quest began to eliminate the difference. Ironically, if I had just had an mScaler, I wouldn’t necessarily have been aware that there was still work to do, but the Blu CD was an essential yardstick against which to judge my progress.

I moved house 18 months ago and the new house had a professionally installed home network with Ethernet points in every room. The electrical wiring was done by the same team. My main system immediately sounded significantly better than it had in the old house just by virtue of the wiring and electrical installation being so much better. So, if money is no object, then moving house has to be the ultimate uprade!

 

[edwardsean]

I think that this is the essence of it. There can be a lot of noise in a computer network and the more you can reduce and mitigate this, then the purer and cleaner the signal being fed into the DAC, the better the sound will be. This shouldn’t be a surprise since it has always been this way relating to vinyl and other sources where the importance of the source has long been recognised and there is no reason to assume that digital sources should be any different. I think people can get distracted by the ones and zero’s and ‘bits is bits’ arguments tbh and ignore common sense. People talk as if these issues only relate to Dave or Chord DAC’s, but they relate to any and all DAC’s to varying degrees.

Interesting, I think the exact opposite. I think people generally understand that noise from the source/network/server/player affect all DACs. I think people talk as if it affects all DACs but Dave, because claims that are made about Dave's uniqueness.

I always relied on Rob Watts' clocks. Adding external clocks means that whatever the external clock does, is re-done by the DAC clock.

However I recently saw the What HiFi review of the DCS Bartok.
https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/dcs-bartok

The point that interested me about clocks was this. "The master clock built into the Bartók is really good (obviously, given the price), but in our experience, if you add a top-quality external unit such as the ones that dCS makes, sound quality takes a leap forward. Such clocks cost thousands though, so it’s not a cheap upgrade and certainly not essential to enjoy this product."

It does raise a question about Chord DAC clocks. If really high end clocks cost thousands to make, can file servers with excellent clocks help? Will the signal stay timed right along the digital cable to the DAC? Will the Chord DAC clock not just retime the whole show anyway. (Even if it was the Mojo clock.)

Remember Rob does tell how accurate his clocks are, and what any resultant jitter could be.

Then I wondered if the real benefit of expensive servers was more likely a pristine clean signal.

I don't know.

We are talking about two different things. I use an Innuos Phoenix which uses an external OCXO as a master to reclock the digital signal received by the USB. This affects the timing of samples in the data packets to the DAC's USB receiver chip. This is entirely different than using a master clock to discipline a DACs internal word clock, which times the samples to the DACs decoder chip. The latter is what is happening when you add, e.g., a Rossini master clock to improve the Bartok.

Rob Watts does not believe the Dave's internal word clock can be improved by adding an external master clock because of his unique pulse array design. I'm sure he is right and, at any rate, there is no way to access the Dave's internal clock. It has no master clock input like the Bartok. However, no matter what claims are made about the USB receiver chip being immune to jitter, the addition of an external clock at this point clearly improves the sound. Whether this is due purely to the improved timing of the reclocking or the superior power supply used in the innuos I don't know. The result indicates that the Dave is not immune to the benefits of a cleaner signal.