Hugo TT 2 by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[Rhamnetin]

Can we get back to the main topic and discuss more about the Hugo TT 2, especially for the rest of us considering purchasing it?
We all want to learn more.
So is there a possible way to connect it directly to a car battery for the power source?

If there's a will there's a way!

I'm not even going to worry about any of these things when I get mine. Going to just plug it in and enjoy the music.

 

[paul2qute]

Can we get back to the main topic and discuss more about the Hugo TT 2, especially for the rest of us considering purchasing it?
We all want to learn more.
So is there a possible way to connect it directly to a car battery for the power source?

I've seen it I've listened to it and I've spoke to the man that designed it.Buy it or log off

 

[Rob Watts]

Oh right so you had a good chat with him then?I would of had a good chat with him too but the traffic was murder.Andrew are you going to nintronics for his presentation, just so you know it's Dec the 24 th nightmare of a date to go

November the 24 is in my calendar! Will be cooking the turkey on Dec 24....

 

[Rob Watts]

You think @Rob Watts could show up at a smaller dealer in Atlanta on November 15th?

I have a actually done more dealer events in USA than the UK! Sure would like to go to Atlanta, but I will be on my way to Tokyo then...

 

[dawktah2]

I have a actually done more dealer events in USA than the UK! Sure would like to go to Atlanta, but I will be on my way to Tokyo then...

Thanks so much, I will be attending Can Jam London next year. Jet lagged but there on Saturday! I hopefully will have auditioned and purchased TT 2 by then. Looking to give mScaler a listen. To be respectful how much time do you get?

 

[GreenBow]

I was thinking of maybe using the RCA outputs of the TT 2. However I think I had my figures wrong.

Apparently (at 8ohm I think) the RCA delivers about 7W. The balanced delivers 18W. Or at least in this video Rob says on SE it's 7W, and I am assuming that is RCA.


It could means I will have to rethink and use balanced if I bought the TT 2. I don't think 7W SE would be enough to drive my speakers. In fact overall I am not sure my speakers would be suited, because they are not sensitive. In the video Rob talks about using 90dB speakers.

However my current speakers are 86dB. I have looked over buying new speakers from 85 dB through to 89 dB. Right now though I can not possibly predict what I would do. (As much as I would like to rush out and buy some new speakers today.) It's about getting the right speakers for what I need that rules my decision. I use them on my desktop mostly, so speaker choice is extremely limited. Finding excellent quality speakers in a smallish package with enough bass is hard work. I can't be sure my speakers or any future speakers will remain on desktop though.

The down-side for me, is that I am not running 90dB speakers. The upside is that I need very little volume. Even when my speakers are running music, and I am not at my desk, it's not loud. ... Still not sure though if 18W (8 ohms) is going to be enough, on e.g. 85dB speakers.

I originally thought the TT2 did 22W on balanced, and 18W on RCA. However I remembered this wrong. Rob posted in post 340 about output power.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hug...-official-thread.879425/page-23#post-14251335

If I bought the TT 2 to use without an amplifier I am quite sure I would have to use balanced. I saw the post recently where someone linked some balanced to speaker female sockets, adaptors. They are going to affect sound quality though a little.

Having said that, I think Rob powers his B&W from the headphone port.

 

[Staxton]

For using the full balanced 18W/8 then these should do:
https://www.flashbacksales.co.uk/ac...4mm-in-line-sockets-cable-set-372.html#SID=81

Does anyone know where to buy these or similar cables in the U.S. for use with the TT2 and speakers?

Thanks!

 

[paul2qute]

Can't wait to get my hugo TT 2,because I've paid up it's just a waiting game, has been since it was revealed, I know the next couple of weeks are gonna drag

 

[JamieMcC]

Hopefully we will see further feed back from those lucky enough to be receiving their units really interested to get some reports of running speakers directly from the outputs.

 

[jarnopp]

Does anyone know where to buy these or similar cables in the U.S. for use with the TT2 and speakers?

Thanks!

I couldn’t find them or anything like it. But their site says they ship to the US and they should arrive before the TT2!

 

[RustyGates]

The WTA 1 is 98,304 taps. 16 FS means it is 16 times the Frequency of Sampling. Convention normally means 1 FS is 44.1 or 48 kHz; so 16 FS is then 16 times faster or 705.6 or 768 kHz. Its a bit confusing, as FS can also mean Full Scale i.e. dBFS, which is the max digital OP in dB...

The WTA 2 filter (16FS to 256 FS) is identical to Hugo 2 and Dave.

The sound of TT2 is certainly more than the sum of its parts; it sounds warmer and fuller than Hugo 2, even when you are listening with easy to drive headphones. The improved noise shaper I can use also gives better detail resolution and transparency.



Is that crackles you can hear with 192? I get that with my Win 10 tablet and JRiver. The only solution I found that seems to work 9it will probably stop working again after the next update) is to set the processor to 100% speed operation as the minimum. This is with a powerful i7. I find it amusing that software guys say it's easy to do 1M taps filtering, which of course requires a huge amount of processing, but I find PC's struggle with dumb simple tasks like just sending bit perfect 192 or re-packaging DoP DSD...

Hi @Rob Watts

I've been doing a bit of reading into your WTA filter and have a few questions if you don't mind answering..

1. What is the significance of the WTA 1 filter stage vs WTA 2 and WTA 3, i.e. why is it most of the computational heavy lifting carried out through the WTA 1 stage? (probably can be answered by detailing the function of each stage).

2. Why do you have an M-Scaler with 1M+ taps solely to replace the WTA 1 stage in your other DACs? What about stage 2 and 3?

3. How many taps, or what are the specifications of the WTA 2 and 3 filters in the TT2?

4. How do the WTA 2 and WTA 3 stages differ between TT2 vs DAVE and Hugo 2?

 

[Rob Watts]

It's a little complicated. A WTA 1 filter sounds better if it sees as much data as possible as this sets how close the filter gets to FS/2, and so closer to ideal; but on the other hand, the output resolution time is also important subjectivily; so a balancing act is done between these two factors, and I have selected 768 khz based upon listening tests. WTA 2 then improves the time resolution to 256FS or 88 nS. All the current DAC's except mojo uses the identical WTA2 filter. WTA 3 does not exist as a WTA filter, but a three stage IIR filter; this is the same mathematically as a analogue low pass filter. This then filters to 9.6 nS, ready for the pulse array noise shapers....

 

[musickid]

WTA1 is 16x upsampling from 44.1. WTA2 takes this further to 256x and 2048x upsampling and beyond to eliminate noise floor artefacts and massive improvements in detail resolution etc. The noise shaper works at an even higher scale of upsampling. Chord dacs employ WTA1 the warm filters and WTA2 the incisive white/green filters which carry through much greater timing accuracy. The user rotates through these as to their hearing preferences. So with the mscaler it employs WTA1 16FS with 1M taps replacing the first stage in chord dacs and the already present taps and then this is further processed as described above. AFAIK the interpolation filter is employed in stage 1 and the term taps comes from many years ago wherein the coefficients and algorithms needed to fill in the missing gaps on the sampled waveform had to be manually extracted and these were known as taps. This area is very vague as i have just read about it.

The HF roll off filters compensate for the unwanted noise floor generated by the ADC so i just keep it on green to benefit from the timing resolution i.e. incisive but also benefit from a smoother sound for the reasons just stated. Until now this is the level of my understanding after reading and careful contemplation but i think this is quite good for an average headfi'er. Just forgot to mention the filters do not affect the operation of the WTA1 as WTA1 is up to 16xFS whereas WTA2 is 16xFS up to 256x and beyond. AFAIK the filters don't kick in until the start of 16xFS so have no effect on the "work" carried out by the mscaler. Final points: I remember Rob once saying the tap numbers that are widely known are actually an over simplification with the real numbers being much higher. My understanding is that the pulse array dacs are not to be confused with the operations carried out by the FPGA which is totally in the digital domain. My understanding is that the pulse array's take in all of the final digital interpolated results and convert to analogue. The definitive explanation is given below here in an interview with Rob. I look forward to any corrections in my knowledge. mk.

http://www.the-ear.net/how-to/rob-watts-chord-mojo-tech

 

[Staxton]

I couldn’t find them or anything like it. But their site says they ship to the US and they should arrive before the TT2!

Thanks for trying! I had the same luck; I was just hoping someone may have come across them. I'm sure I'll get them from the UK before I get the TT2.

 

[Whazzzup]

Corrections? What’s the question again?