JKDJedi
Headphoneus Supremus
Your right, I need to tone down a bit, just all so frustrating and Todd has reached out to me and we're gonna figure this out, thanks for your input.
Last edited:
Round 2 Mojo/Poly Loaner program
- Thread starter Todd
- Start date
Thank you very much to Todd at TTVJ for the opportunity to try this device. I came very close to buying this combo about a year ago but hesitated due to the reputation that the Poly had.
First of all, the Mojo is a fantastic device that is still VERY relevant even after all these years. The sound is very detailed yet warm. I have yet to find a headphone or IEM that doesn’t pair well with it. The Poly on the other hand is close to greatness but is severely held back by software that needs a lot of polishing. At best, it is frustrating to use and at worst doesn’t work at all.
The Poly comes in a very simple case just like the Mojo. It also comes with some good instructions which you will need. I download the app that goes with the Poly and. I tried to connect the Poly and it help disconnecting from the app on my iPhone. I realized that the battery on the Poly was very low. I connected the power to the Mojo/Poly and left it charging for a few hours. I came back to it and the Poly still had a low battery. At this point I swallowed my male pride and consulted the directions. It said to charge the Poly by itself if you encounter this issue. That worked! I updated to the latest firmware and I was up and running.
I inserted an SD card into the Poly so it could start to index my music. I noticed that the Poly showed up right away as an Airplay device. I fired up Tidal and starting listing to music. The initial frustration paid off. I was listing to my music and enjoying that awesome Mojo sound.
At this point I wanted to play some music off an SD card. This feature was the one that was the most important to me and how I like listening to music. It has been about an hour since I installed the SD card. When i tried to access the music on the SD card I was told that there was an issue with the format on the card or the card was still indexing. I was never able to get the SD card to read. I even read the directions and formatted the card as instructed to exFat and I tried loading one album (Flac) and it still never worked.
Towards the end of my time the with the Mojo/Poly the Airplay kept disconnecting. I closed everything down on my iPhone and restarted. Nothing I tried fixed it.
I packed up the Poly and realized why it was dead when I received it. I could not get it to shut off as I packed it up.
I was also never able to get the wifi hotspot to function. I was brought to a login page and couldn’t get past filling in information. It’s a little hard to explain.
I have tried many Chord products and have been blown away. The Hugo 2 is amazing and worth the cost of admission. It’s the first time that I have been able to conclusively notice a difference with a DAC. At its current price, I cannot recommend the Poly. You’ll be way into four figures when you buy the Mojo, Poly and case (must to protect the connectors between the Poly and Mojo).
I tried very hard to like the combo but the software needs more polishing. It might be trying to do too much. The Mojo/Poly is not a standalone device. For less money you can get a VERY competent DAP such as the DX220. Also, the combo is not light. I weight it and with a case it was 322g. The DX220 with a case was 309g.
Are we spoiled in this age of Apple iOS? Maybe… I don’t feel that any device should be this frustrating to use. With better firmware this combo has potential. My recommendation would be to get the Mojo with the accessory pack and stack it with an OTG cable and your phone. That works really well. It also works flawlessly with my computers. These issue could be my mistake and maybe given more time and help I would have figured it out but I ran out of time.
First of all, the Mojo is a fantastic device that is still VERY relevant even after all these years. The sound is very detailed yet warm. I have yet to find a headphone or IEM that doesn’t pair well with it. The Poly on the other hand is close to greatness but is severely held back by software that needs a lot of polishing. At best, it is frustrating to use and at worst doesn’t work at all.
The Poly comes in a very simple case just like the Mojo. It also comes with some good instructions which you will need. I download the app that goes with the Poly and. I tried to connect the Poly and it help disconnecting from the app on my iPhone. I realized that the battery on the Poly was very low. I connected the power to the Mojo/Poly and left it charging for a few hours. I came back to it and the Poly still had a low battery. At this point I swallowed my male pride and consulted the directions. It said to charge the Poly by itself if you encounter this issue. That worked! I updated to the latest firmware and I was up and running.
I inserted an SD card into the Poly so it could start to index my music. I noticed that the Poly showed up right away as an Airplay device. I fired up Tidal and starting listing to music. The initial frustration paid off. I was listing to my music and enjoying that awesome Mojo sound.
At this point I wanted to play some music off an SD card. This feature was the one that was the most important to me and how I like listening to music. It has been about an hour since I installed the SD card. When i tried to access the music on the SD card I was told that there was an issue with the format on the card or the card was still indexing. I was never able to get the SD card to read. I even read the directions and formatted the card as instructed to exFat and I tried loading one album (Flac) and it still never worked.
Towards the end of my time the with the Mojo/Poly the Airplay kept disconnecting. I closed everything down on my iPhone and restarted. Nothing I tried fixed it.
I packed up the Poly and realized why it was dead when I received it. I could not get it to shut off as I packed it up.
I was also never able to get the wifi hotspot to function. I was brought to a login page and couldn’t get past filling in information. It’s a little hard to explain.
I have tried many Chord products and have been blown away. The Hugo 2 is amazing and worth the cost of admission. It’s the first time that I have been able to conclusively notice a difference with a DAC. At its current price, I cannot recommend the Poly. You’ll be way into four figures when you buy the Mojo, Poly and case (must to protect the connectors between the Poly and Mojo).
I tried very hard to like the combo but the software needs more polishing. It might be trying to do too much. The Mojo/Poly is not a standalone device. For less money you can get a VERY competent DAP such as the DX220. Also, the combo is not light. I weight it and with a case it was 322g. The DX220 with a case was 309g.
Are we spoiled in this age of Apple iOS? Maybe… I don’t feel that any device should be this frustrating to use. With better firmware this combo has potential. My recommendation would be to get the Mojo with the accessory pack and stack it with an OTG cable and your phone. That works really well. It also works flawlessly with my computers. These issue could be my mistake and maybe given more time and help I would have figured it out but I ran out of time.
jcslone
New Head-Fier
This review is terribly tardy, and I apologize to Todd and everyone else in advance for this…
Up until recently I had the Fostex Purplehearts in my inventory, and the Mojo is the only amp I’ve used thus far that drives them to their potential. The soundstage massively increased in all 3 dimensions, the low end had a texture and detail I hadn’t heard before, except on very expensive setups, and the midrange was simply perfect. Sadly, the Mojo is an ever so slightly sibilant amp for me (sibilance is something I’m very sensitive to begin with, so there’s a lot of hardware and headphones I don’t like because of that). The sibilance wasn’t horrendous, and it wasn’t forward, but there was enough of it to irritate my ears and somewhat limit my listening session length.
The BQEYZ Spring 1 paired fantastically well with the Mojo and sung like the spring chicken of a flagship IEM that it is. One of the things I love the most about the Spring 1 is that it is balanced in frequency response and the tonality is somewhat similar to my Focal bookshelf speakers; very natural and lively in character. The Mojo ran the Spring 1 quite nicely, with a smoothness in the presentation that reminded me of the utterly horrendous Dragonfly Cobalt (that was the one redeeming feature of the Cobalt, it was smooth and refined sounding).
Battery life was pretty dang good with the Poly, which is how I ran the Mojo for the majority of my time. I did run it off of USB from my PC, but honestly, unless you’re going to split hairs and you have a can that you know really well and is really revealing, you won’t be able to tell the difference between USB and wireless input.
The Poly was obviously built as an afterthought, and you simply have to have the case or else you will end up breaking the tabs that connect the two devices. Pairing on iOS was simple and sweet, and I was listening within minutes of opening the box up and going through the quick start guide.
A gripe I have with Chord is that the Mojo came with hardly anything in the way of accessories. A durable travel case should be standard on mobile products in this price range ($500+) and it’s absurd that you have to buy the Mojo+Poly case on top of the hardware itself. Sure, the case is really good quality and I commend Chord for that, but for Pete’s sake, if your streamer costs as much as my bloody truck payment, then you’d better damn well include the case for that price. Feature wise, the Poly is about 4 times overpriced. It really isn’t that hard to engineer and produce a good quality wireless streamer with SD card support. On that note, I did not test to SD card feature since I only use streaming services.
Would I buy the Mojo? Used only, and only for a max of $300. It’s long in the tooth now and Chord needs to either update the Mojo or lower the price to reflect the fact that it’s technically “obsolete.” The Poly like I said is grossly overpriced and should only be bought second-hand. Period. I do want to audition the Mojo again at some point for a longer period of time so I can run it with more cans and IEMs, but for now, I’m really happy I got to play with it and I’d give it a solid 3.8/5 stars.
Up until recently I had the Fostex Purplehearts in my inventory, and the Mojo is the only amp I’ve used thus far that drives them to their potential. The soundstage massively increased in all 3 dimensions, the low end had a texture and detail I hadn’t heard before, except on very expensive setups, and the midrange was simply perfect. Sadly, the Mojo is an ever so slightly sibilant amp for me (sibilance is something I’m very sensitive to begin with, so there’s a lot of hardware and headphones I don’t like because of that). The sibilance wasn’t horrendous, and it wasn’t forward, but there was enough of it to irritate my ears and somewhat limit my listening session length.
The BQEYZ Spring 1 paired fantastically well with the Mojo and sung like the spring chicken of a flagship IEM that it is. One of the things I love the most about the Spring 1 is that it is balanced in frequency response and the tonality is somewhat similar to my Focal bookshelf speakers; very natural and lively in character. The Mojo ran the Spring 1 quite nicely, with a smoothness in the presentation that reminded me of the utterly horrendous Dragonfly Cobalt (that was the one redeeming feature of the Cobalt, it was smooth and refined sounding).
Battery life was pretty dang good with the Poly, which is how I ran the Mojo for the majority of my time. I did run it off of USB from my PC, but honestly, unless you’re going to split hairs and you have a can that you know really well and is really revealing, you won’t be able to tell the difference between USB and wireless input.
The Poly was obviously built as an afterthought, and you simply have to have the case or else you will end up breaking the tabs that connect the two devices. Pairing on iOS was simple and sweet, and I was listening within minutes of opening the box up and going through the quick start guide.
A gripe I have with Chord is that the Mojo came with hardly anything in the way of accessories. A durable travel case should be standard on mobile products in this price range ($500+) and it’s absurd that you have to buy the Mojo+Poly case on top of the hardware itself. Sure, the case is really good quality and I commend Chord for that, but for Pete’s sake, if your streamer costs as much as my bloody truck payment, then you’d better damn well include the case for that price. Feature wise, the Poly is about 4 times overpriced. It really isn’t that hard to engineer and produce a good quality wireless streamer with SD card support. On that note, I did not test to SD card feature since I only use streaming services.
Would I buy the Mojo? Used only, and only for a max of $300. It’s long in the tooth now and Chord needs to either update the Mojo or lower the price to reflect the fact that it’s technically “obsolete.” The Poly like I said is grossly overpriced and should only be bought second-hand. Period. I do want to audition the Mojo again at some point for a longer period of time so I can run it with more cans and IEMs, but for now, I’m really happy I got to play with it and I’d give it a solid 3.8/5 stars.
Todd
Headphone Vinyl Meister
Member of the Trade: TTVJ Audio
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Thank you to everyone who participated in this loaner tour. If anyone along the way has the cables for the Mojo or Poly as well as the reset pin, please mail them back to me. I do not have the original cables and over the time of the tour we sent out 4 of the reset pins. Once I have the cables (if I don't hear back from anyone, I will order more from Chord), I will be putting this combo on my website for sale in the Used/Sale category. They will be sold as a pair with the leather travel case. If you are interested in it now, give me a call and we can work out a deal on the loaner units. 406-285-3910
I appreciate the reviews. The Poly can indeed be a struggle to operate in all of the ways it is supposed to but when it works (it seems to work for us here all the time...) it sounds and performs great.
Todd
I appreciate the reviews. The Poly can indeed be a struggle to operate in all of the ways it is supposed to but when it works (it seems to work for us here all the time...) it sounds and performs great.
Todd
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