Fwiw when I was in the Chord room, I had the chance to chat with both John and Rob. I put the question straight to John. How much better in sound quality alone does the TT has over Hugo. John said that depends. I said everything being equal, sound track, source, headphone calble etc. John said with more demanding phones, TT will do even more better because of the power,but if everything being equal, he said it is about 10 percent better.
With Rob, I asked him the question if he thinks the Hugo can be further improved presently. He said it cannot unless there is new improvement on the hardware technology. He was referring to the Spartan chip's limitation of 26000 taps. Until new hardware comes along to allow him to increase the number of taps, the Hugo is reaching hardware limitation. I was also told that there is no upgrade to the Hugo at present, not even in terms of just upgrading the features.
With regard to price, I was told the price is listed at 3000 pounds that translate into about $4700.00 US dollars if that helps. So it is not quite 5K.
One little tidbit I also asked if there is any difference between the black and silver finish. I was told there is absolutely no difference between the finish.