Hugo TT 2 by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[Afsa]

Hi guys

I’ve been using my tt2 for About a week now. And i am very happy with the Sound quality. My Empyreans have never sounded better.
The headphone Output of the TT2 makes my Feliks Euforia more or less useless. Looks like i will be selling that.
But i have a slight software problem. Youtube seems to dislike the Chord Drivers. Every time i want to start watching a Video i get an error message
and i have to refresh my browser to start Playback.
After that it works fine.
Has anyone else had this Problem?

 

[greyforest]

yes, but for me gaming is reserved by Audeze Mobius connected via USB for that surround sound. makes more sense than using M-Scaler-TT2 for gamin IMHO. more immersion!

You can always use dedicated gaming sound card to mix the virtual surroundings and send it to tt2 with optical connections. I have audeze mobius And now its’s been with my friends for months. The result of immersion is different level. Of course because you can use much better headphone and tt2’s fpga just process hrtf mixing much much better.

From what i read the next gen consoles (both xbox and PlayStation ) will have special sound processing hardware unit, may be gaming sound card will make it’s long waited return.

 

[ZappaMan]

Hi guys

I’ve been using my tt2 for About a week now. And i am very happy with the Sound quality. My Empyreans have never sounded better.
The headphone Output of the TT2 makes my Feliks Euforia more or less useless. Looks like i will be selling that.
But i have a slight software problem. Youtube seems to dislike the Chord Drivers. Every time i want to start watching a Video i get an error message
and i have to refresh my browser to start Playback.
After that it works fine.
Has anyone else had this Problem?

Is there another audio appplication taking exclusive control of the device ?

 

[rkt31]

You can operate through some power banks.

 

[Afsa]

Is there another audio appplication taking exclusive control of the device ?

i checked and im not running any other applications at the same time. So that shouldn't be the case.

 

[GreenBow]

yes, but for me gaming is reserved by Audeze Mobius connected via USB for that surround sound. makes more sense than using M-Scaler-TT2 for gamin IMHO. more immersion!

I don't feel the need for surround, since the sound-stage is so 3D and I am sat close to it or in it. Obvioulsy what is in front is still in front. When stuff lands on the floor off to one side of the image though, with a 3D sound impression. Great stuff.

I imagine surround sound is great. However but the TT2 can't run that, so a surround kit would probably use an inferior DAC. Plus I always preferred quality stereo to surround, for both gaming and music.

Will give some thought to your post though, and @greyforest post.

 

[greyforest]

I will elaborate a bit on using tt2 for gaming or movies and why a soundcard is useful.

The main difference between using tt2 alone and a soundcard to output virtual surround mix to tt2 is the imaging. If you have a game or movie that have a 5.1 or 7.1 source, virtual surround mix will give a much better spacious clue compare to stereo source, one of the changes I experienced is that a lot of game’s menu selection sound actually is coming from the direction of the screen. Especially with game such as control or division 2 (both have really good sound processing and sample recordings)you can even feel which menu button your cursor is pointed at. With tt2 any hrtf is really good, it completely moves the imaging out of your head.

Soundcard such as creative ae-series or evga’s nuforce series both have capabilities to process virtual surround, which basically is An hardware chip processing and downmix any 5.1 or 7.1 source into stereo through a unique hrtf algorithm or upmix stereo Source into 5.1 than down mix it again back to stereo.
And the key of such processing is algorithms, In another word it is a hrtf dsp , and yes dsp is in many way damaging to the sound quality, to minimize the damage, a lot of dsp use super sampling to iron out some imperfections that is created through the process. And tt2 have the vastly superior super sampling capabilities than any of those sound card or software processing. Of course mscaler would be much better but very expensive for merely just games.

For the best result it is very important to use game or movie that have at least 5.1 sources. Stereo Source sometimes have good results with the process if the sample recordings is good. There is no major latency for adding a sound card in the chain, and it avoids many compatibility issues that may occur with usb output. Another benefit of sound card is it will most likely came with a better auto-dynamics balancing features which helps in competitive multiplayer games, it will gives you an edge over some micro details that would be unnoticed without such function.

Ps. I miss those days when there was a thing called EAX mixing, it calculates and process all the sound reverb and fading through sound card to create very vivid immersive experience with games. Hope the trends of vr would brought back such great technology.

 

[GreenBow]

Hi guys

I’ve been using my tt2 for About a week now. And i am very happy with the Sound quality. My Empyreans have never sounded better.
The headphone Output of the TT2 makes my Feliks Euforia more or less useless. Looks like i will be selling that.
But i have a slight software problem. Youtube seems to dislike the Chord Drivers. Every time i want to start watching a Video i get an error message
and i have to refresh my browser to start Playback.
After that it works fine.
Has anyone else had this Problem?

I find I have to have TT2 running before have the browser running. Otherwise the video will not run, or it will run with errors like crackling.

Same with a PC game or music player software, that TT2 has to be running first.

 

[rkt31]

Got new wharfedale evo 4.2 speakers. These are so extremely refined and clean yet detailed that imho no bookshelf speaker even 5 to 10 times can come close to it, these are so so good. Believe me this is no exaggeration. These are extremely well finished and built with real wood veneer and curved cabinet and amt tweeter. Truly speaking I have not heard such clean treble ever. This is the situation when I have not hooked these up with my ahb2 and TT 2+hms set up. This is when mojo +crappy $75 diy 50w class d amp. Must must audition for every audiophile.

 

[GreenBow]

I will elaborate a bit on using tt2 for gaming or movies and why a soundcard is useful.

The main difference between using tt2 alone and a soundcard to output virtual surround mix to tt2 is the imaging. If you have a game or movie that have a 5.1 or 7.1 source, virtual surround mix will give a much better spacious clue compare to stereo source, one of the changes I experienced is that a lot of game’s menu selection sound actually is coming from the direction of the screen. Especially with game such as control or division 2 (both have really good sound processing and sample recordings)you can even feel which menu button your cursor is pointed at. With tt2 any hrtf is really good, it completely moves the imaging out of your head.

Soundcard such as creative ae-series or evga’s nuforce series both have capabilities to process virtual surround, which basically is An hardware chip processing and downmix any 5.1 or 7.1 source into stereo through a unique hrtf algorithm or upmix stereo Source into 5.1 than down mix it again back to stereo.
And the key of such processing is algorithms, In another word it is a hrtf dsp , and yes dsp is in many way damaging to the sound quality, to minimize the damage, a lot of dsp use super sampling to iron out some imperfections that is created through the process. And tt2 have the vastly superior super sampling capabilities than any of those sound card or software processing. Of course mscaler would be much better but very expensive for merely just games.

For the best result it is very important to use game or movie that have at least 5.1 sources. Stereo Source sometimes have good results with the process if the sample recordings is good. There is no major latency for adding a sound card in the chain, and it avoids many compatibility issues that may occur with usb output. Another benefit of sound card is it will most likely came with a better auto-dynamics balancing features which helps in competitive multiplayer games, it will gives you an edge over some micro details that would be unnoticed without such function.

Ps. I miss those days when there was a thing called EAX mixing, it calculates and process all the sound reverb and fading through sound card to create very vivid immersive experience with games. Hope the trends of vr would brought back such great technology.

Am not sure I would go to the expense and effort to buy another sound card. I spend enough on PC gaming already, and it is not cheap. I imagine the next generation of gaming graphics cards will have a £1500 TOTL model.

My motherboard actually has a surround-sound chip on it anyway. It could be worth looking to see if I can run optical from that, with a surround processed signal. … Honestly though, I always found gaming sound to be a brilliant experience with Chord DACs in play.

I honestly find any Chord DAC to be sufficient for gaming. Never forget the first time I used Mojo for The Witcher 3. My save loaded me up outside in a small market. The clearer sound made it feel more open air compared to the muggier sound of my previous DAC.

Hugo 2 and TT2 also have Cross-Fade, which is I think to remove sound being in the head with headphones. Not sure but it may increase sound-stage size too, but I never tried it.

I think at the end of the day, I would always take quality stereo over any surround kit. I know you get cues from surround kit, however you don't lose much from stereo. Like if you hear a sound and you can't see a cue, you spin round.

 

[MachineGunz]

Hi everyone!

I got my TT2 yesterday!

I connected it to my PC and started experimenting for the first time.

The improvement it brings is insanse!

Much more detail in the general and the bass, Much better separation.



But I did notice it sounds too bright a lot of times and this is something I cannot tolearte, It's unbearable.

I started looking around for a bit but I didn't find any complaints about it with the TT2.

But I did find it in the verge's review of the Hugo 2.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/24/17273218/chord-hugo-2-review-dac-headphone-amplifier

The bad stuff from their review: Shrill highs spoil the enjoyment of music, the treble is that little touch too sharp and punchy.

That's 100% what I am experiencing, Everything is perfect! Just insane detail and separation in everything but the highs are too sharp.

What can I do to fix this?

All of the improvement in detail, bass, separation is rendered useless when I can't enjoy the volume.

 

[rkt31]

Treble is not edgy or more in quantity. It's due to accurate transients and lack of distortion which brings forth the issues which were previously obscured by the poor transient response and distortion. Try using green filter or red filter.

 

[Arniesb]

Treble is not edgy or more in quantity. It's due to accurate transients and lack of distortion which brings forth the issues which were previously obscured by the poor transient response and distortion. Try using green filter or red filter.

Nope its most likely that some component is not up to par. Could be noise or emi in some component.
I never liked the idea of amp and dac being in same box while sharing same power supply. Isnt that is much more noisy approach? Who cares if its more transparent if its more noisy.
Yet to hear to dac/amp combo that sound pleasant using its internal amp.

 

[ZappaMan]

Experiment with a difference source like a phone.

 

[miketlse]

Hi everyone!

I got my TT2 yesterday!

I connected it to my PC and started experimenting for the first time.

The improvement it brings is insanse!

Much more detail in the general and the bass, Much better separation.



But I did notice it sounds too bright a lot of times and this is something I cannot tolearte, It's unbearable.

I started looking around for a bit but I didn't find any complaints about it with the TT2.

But I did find it in the verge's review of the Hugo 2.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/24/17273218/chord-hugo-2-review-dac-headphone-amplifier

The bad stuff from their review: Shrill highs spoil the enjoyment of music, the treble is that little touch too sharp and punchy.

That's 100% what I am experiencing, Everything is perfect! Just insane detail and separation in everything but the highs are too sharp.

What can I do to fix this?

All of the improvement in detail, bass, separation is rendered useless when I can't enjoy the volume.

Provide some more context about the rest of your system.
I know that I found usb inputs to Mojo sounded brighter than optical input. Since then, I have used optical almost exclusively.
Rob Watts has often posted about how RFI or other electrical noise, entering via cables or power supplies can make the music sound unnaturally bright, so there are a few avenues that could be explored, if you are interested.