So how is the SQ of GO450/1000?
You will be writing your review/impression in relation to other stuffs (Hugo, C5D, E7)?
Between the two, they sound identical to me, which is what Larry intended.
When I write my review of the Geek Out, whenever I get the time to do so and I want to wait until they update the firmware for the Windows drivers, I probably won't go into detail about the Hugo since it's a demo unit with the Noble Audio lineup. Ironically, I personally wouldn't recommend either for sensitive earphones or Noble's CIEMs since both the Hugo and the Geek Out have background hiss that kind of really annoys me when I'm listening to music.
From what I hear with them and the touring HE-560 unit though, the GO does an admirable job in the sound quality department compared to the Hugo. The Hugo on the other hand has pretty much every standard unbalanced input/output connection one would need, and some nice additions with the myriad of LEDs in it (there's probably around two dozen in there for different volume/sampling/crossfeed indicators...).
Regarding the sound quality though, the Hugo still has the edge for sure overall. The imaging and instrument separation are far better with the Hugo, having a very black background between each instrument (if you can call it that). The Hugo also has a smoother and flatter frequency response in my opinion compared to the GO. The GO seems to have a slight upper-midrange/lower-treble harshness and a slight bump in the bass area somewhere. From what I personally have at hand, the ODAC/O2 was my reference DAC/amp combo. The GO has some characteristics that I like more than it, but they have slightly different sounds from one another and I still like the ODAC/O2 with some headphone pairings. The Hugo, to me, has some characteristics of both the ODAC/O2 (bass response, instrument separation, fairly clear frequency response) and GO in terms of sound, but it's more similar to the GO (smoother sound, more rounded soundstage, better imaging, more natural-sounding).
For sensitive earphones and CIEMs, I personally recommend the C5D for everyday music since it has zero background hiss. It doesn't play anything above 24/96 though, so that's a limitation. It is ready to use with Andoid and iOS 7 devices though, out of the box.
