On my original Micro iDSD, I feel ECO mode gives a significantly flatter, less dynamic, sound than Normal mode - after equalizing volume of course. This loss in transparency is even more obvious with iem match, so I keep well away from that button. Normal mode was fine for my Sen HD600, but borderline an issue for my more efficient HEK SE because the lower volume setting got close to the dreaded channel imbalance issue. As I don't need lots of features and I don't care much for the xbass and 3D functions, the Diablo seems a good fit. However....
Against that background, my upgrade shortlist is Signature, Diablo, or really splash out for a Hugo 2.
I'm concerned that, with the high powered Diablo, I'll be forced to using ECO mode to get away from the dreaded channel imbalance issue (still after all these years!), but then forever fret that ECO doesn't sound as good as Normal mode (Turbo is way OTT for my current headphones).
So, any advice for what to go for? And would Hugo 2 give much more, considering it's about double the price of the Diablo?
My SQ preference is for high transparency, with a tonal balance
ever so slightly the warm side of neutral.
I don't actually
need to upgrade because the original Micro iDSD is sufficient for my transportable needs. But I'm thinking about it because... it's what audiophiles do
I’d probably question what are your audio files and sources.. little things like an iPurifier can help weight up the costs..
Given you could spot the difference between ECO and ‘Other’ modes, I say you are definitely a case of ‘noticing the differences..
What astounds me about the Diablo is the texture of each note and the incredible imaging, and the full weighted sound, even under load.
As an example, when I bought a Nuforce Icon HDP, it did piano notes with exceptional weight and tone, up until a ‘point’; when playing back some Joe Bonamassa (who maintains a pro stage of well curated artists), the Piano opening a track had full weight to all the keys, and in the mid point of the track, when the stage was ‘lit up’ (four other musos playing) when the piano returned the weight of the keys was lost.. My understanding is a power supply upgrade for those DAC/amps is worthwhile,.. and there were limits that it offered.
Would I tell that DAC apart from many others when playing Jack Johnson? No way!
But something with power, yes!
Right now I am listening to some Wind Sonatas (Mozart)@ 88khz 24bit, and vs Fleetwood Mac and Dreamtheatre playing previously the volume is ‘way down’.. it is a highly dynamic recording, and I know that the Diablo will render it smoothly, but so too would it nail some Supertramp, or something like Gomez doing ‘Devil May Ride’.
In fact what drew me to hook it up to the Den setup (speakers) was some Muse, and to say that the piano and vocals were exceptional whilst a “rock song” rattled on, was phenominal.
The Diablo is just so true to what I want a DAC to do.. I have a problem with any front end/source equipment colouring music: I have learned to seperate my recordings.
I can honestly say I haven’t (intentionally) listened to 20 ‘compressed’ (lossy) tracks in the last twenty years, outside of a brief period (4 years) of having an Apple music subscription due to my kid being head of a choir and taking their role ‘very seriously’ and wanting to always have access to any music they had to practice. In that time I discovered Post Modern Jukebox, and enjoyed filling out my Florence and the Machine collection with rarities and ‘b-sides’. I cancelled that subscription, and ‘in hindsight’ the money would have bought every album I listened to, every album with ONE SONG ON IT, that my child listened to, and got us both live tickets to Post Modern Jukebox and Florence when they toured...
If I had a decent DAC, and ‘was happy with it’- I’d keep it.
If you are searching, then its probably because of a reason. I rotated twenty sets of headphones before I changed DACs, and that was using 20 year old DACs...
Find the sound you are after, and then change it with hobby money.. headphones will get you the lionshare of the way, and the Diablo is a terrific amp (ie any headphones will playback at their best/or close to ‘their best’; true -some really need valves or ‘certain pairings’ ie some Beyerdynamic Tesla openbacks needed the Hugo to tame them (peaky/shrill treble), and the Audeze Sine planars were and ‘end game’ setup on the Hugo.. (great pairing)..
That being said..
I prefer the Diablo over the Hugo as an amp.. for the Hugo to equal the amp section of the Diablo I have to feed in into a huge desktop headphone amp.. the Diablo certainly not.
I have 32ohm 96dB sensitive ‘cans and find that I was surprised how easy it is to use them in NORMAL and even TURBO modes. I really didn’t think THAT would be the case, and in fairness - a feature of my cans, “s-logic”, means that typically music can be ‘3dB louder and still be as easy to listen to’ - I think because the offset drivers resolve onto the whole ear, and not ‘shoot directly down the ear canal’. 3dB is a doubling of sound volume, although hearing being logarythmic in nature we perceive 10dB as a doubling of sound.
My parts are not ‘your parts’, but true story, I didn’t think TURBO was even going to be on the menu, and the fact that it is, makes me really feel the driving power from the Diablo, which is ridiculously pure and without distortion, just doesn’t give up.. and the control is so measured, with the weight properly given to all instruments, coherently, makes the imaging and soundstage just killer.
Vs a Hugo, its a no brainer; the money saved is ‘a lot of music’. (whether online HDTracks, or a music subscription to a Higher quality file, or whatever is your cuppa tea - I have 4000+ CDs; thats ‘my poison’.
I like second hand CDs nowadays, and enjoy getting 10-15 full albums per month rather than a month of music subscription; within half a year a person has a sizable collection, and after four years would hardly miss the range provided by a large catalogue.. in that respect it is a bit like an xbox gamepass -hundreds of games, that all rotate), or PSPlus that adds a handful of titles each month.. (I have hundreds of games on PSPlus and they don’t go away unless I let my subscription go away, but if I turn it on again, I have them ALL back.. and for online multiplayer we have to have the subscriptions, so the patience of ‘slowly building a collection’ doesn’t bother me, either with my console or for my music.
Back on topic; the Hugo is well regarded (I know you are looking at a Hugo 2). The Hugo might not need adapters and might allow you using existing high quality cables, and would drive sensitive IEMs without an IEMatch, true..
I find that the way that the Chord products do their ‘trick’ is in many ways detrimental to the recording. ‘A difference isn’t ALWAYS a good thing’; Chords certainly sound different, and in the way that a valve changes the sound, so does a Chord DAC (not the same change, just noting that some products CHANGE the sound, and feeds back to what I was saying about some amplifiers matching well with certain headphones; eg how many people swear by valves and their Sennheisers HD650s etc..
What the Diablo does is vastly preferred to me, over the Hugo. From a sound quality point of view.
The Hugo does offer UAC1 and UAC 2 inputs (2 USB inputs side by side for the different modes), which makes gaming console hookup ‘really easy’.
Again, the Diablo is my sound preference over the Hugo and that is if they were equal money.. If the Hugo were an eighth or even a quarter less in cost, I’d have to weigh it up. Many swear that a Mojo is close to a Hugo (I wouldn’t agree with this perhaps), but a second hand Mojo is an easy test of whether Chord method of musicality serves your interest.
The Chords are clever in that the way they resolve music: basically removes pre ringing, and is considered ‘very musical’ (pre ringing of a source, ie hearing aspects of a note before it is played, isn’t ‘natural’).
My understanding is the GTO filter might kinda do the same, and when we think of the serious power that the 2000MIPS XMOS chip in the Diablo will be capable of, the MQA technology (Meridian, fathers of music playback when we look up MOST ladders of hifi origins nowadays) knew what they were doing. Whilst I am against MQA for what it means to the industry (creates ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ needlessly, and it should ahve been HDCD tech (everybody benefits, no losers), but Microsoft bought that up twenty plus years ago and buried it!), the GTO filter is iFi working the math that makes MQA worthwhile and allows it to upgrade any source..
I like what we can expect from the Diablo/16 core XMOS iFi parts, being that iFi are a great company who give firmware upgrades to older tech. (many wouldn’t, to force a new sale),..
Diablo firmwares might just be the cream on the cake that makes a Diablo SLAY a range of other serious high end DACs. I’d actually BET ON IT!
Filters benefit form neutral equipment (as does Dolby headphones etc).. the closer to reference/flatline, the better any given trick can reliably work...
The GTO filter applied to the Diablo might be something I’d actually play with.. (I am typically a ‘bit perfect/NON oversampling person!)
Whilst I like what the Hugo did, vs my older DACs and most stuff below its’ price point; when compared to the Diablo, it shows itself as a part that colours the playback.. sorry; colour=alters
Music played back through the Hugo ISN’T the way it was recorded... and gets back to the start of this longwinded ‘rant’; it depends on your sources and preferences!; if you listen to poor music sources and internet radio,. well the Hugo will make it all sound phenomenal.. and even bluetooth through it is exceptional..
If you have a large collection of high quality and want to hear it as it sounds, the Diablo, for peanut price point vs anything that might top it.. is a great amp and excellent DAC, and the money saved, between this and a Hugo, would buy you a lot of ‘headphone upgrade’ or music catalogue.
again, given you hear the differences between ECO and NORMAL/TURBO, you have the fast hearing ears that might appreciate a different DAC, and the unknowns with the DIABLO is just ‘how much better will iFi firmwares make it. Their track record is pretty incredible with regards to this, and they definitely license and engineer some ‘top tier’ stuff. That AMR backside (frontside) does the iFi parts “literal wonders“.
IEMatch exists for a reason, and whilst a few adaptors and/or products might be needed to make the Diablo the perfect part.. you have to weigh up your three price points...
How often do you upgrade? If every two years or so, a Diablo now, and the same money saved will allow a Diablo +++ (three iterations on of ‘top end’ iFi) and still leave you with an ‘older DAC to sell’. Kinda makes the Hugo seem like a stretch to me..
The only saliable thing in my whole rant is: your budget- what is it all worth TO YOU!? (please make sure you have headphones you like the sound of.. OR if your present headphones have bloated bass/or non ‘phat’ bass guitars, tuning with the Diablo amp will probably be a sound upgrade that makes value for money sense...
Hey PM me if you want to further this.. It isn’t fair to throw these sensible audio philosofoolies around willy nilly..
Needless to say I am not in the camp of ‘most cheap DACs sound the same’ (I found the FIIO K5 pretty unlistenable, and even, arguably, a Cambridge Audio DAC MAGIC PLUS; both nice, but my system needed something a little more ‘me’ to sound its best!) I haven’t heard a bad playback over any genre since getting the Diablo, but gee, don’t put Dido on after a Tarantino soundtrack or Cat Stevens etc (it is a literal wall of sound by comparison- the fact that it resolves that honestly is wikkid, ‘in my eyes’)
Peace
