[magiccabbage]

Thank you, sir. Hugo + HD800 seems to be a tandem that engenders love or hate. There seems to be no middle ground.

Shall I draw from this a conjectural proposition that people who have respectable home rigs are those that do not, in general, like the HD800 driven by the Chord Hugo?

Oh, I shall hear for myself tomorrow this pairing. I have borrowed my uncle's HD800.

Maybe, my current rig is not as good as some others but I did hear the NAD and though that the Hugo was more revealing. 

 

[sp3llv3xit]

People with the GSX mkIII, the Hugo is a letdown.

That, of course, is to be expected.

Thank you, kind sirs, for your replies.

 

[Sorrodje]

  Maybe, my current rig is not as good as some others but I did hear the NAD and though that the Hugo was more revealing. 

 
@magiccabbage : You compared the NAD M51 and the Hugo ? both as standalone DAC I guess ?

 

[magiccabbage]

   
@magiccabbage : You compared the NAD M51 and the Hugo ? both as standalone DAC I guess ?

Yea I did. I wasn't really impressed by the NAD. I found it hard to tell differences between it budget DAC's whereas with the Hugo the difference was obvious from the get go. 
I had heard before that the NAd needs to be used in balanced mode - I used it single ended with my WA2. Also I didn't have the hugo and NAD side by side. 
 
Besides the Hugo the NAD is the only high end DAC that I have heard though. All of the other DACs besides the NAD cost less than 1500. 

 

[Frank I]

  I had the Chord Hugo/HD800 combo for over a month. I loved it and wrote a review which you can find in my sig. 
The HD800's sounded excellent with the Hugo. The detail was better than anything I had heard before. 
I really liked it. Didnt find the treble a problem apart from a few tracks. 

I agree with Paddy. I use the Hugo frequently as both a stand alone unit with headphones  also with amplifiers and find the best I have dear in a dac with correct non difgital  sound with good detail.The HD 800 is one fo the veyr best combos I have heard  with the Hugo. The amazing thing was we were able to drive three headphones the  lcd x,hd 800 and  Oppo PM-1 at the same time in Rahway when we were doing a meeting and it was at concert hall levels . Amazing feat for any amp. This unit has logged on plenty of hours  for me. or me it travel on road trips with  my headphones and uses two music sources the Macbook and my AK240 and I dot n lose much from my home system. I a, looking forward to hearing the new Chord dacs  at CES.

 

[Sorrodje]

Different ears, different tastes maybe ?
 
Dunno about other headphones ( I will have more information later when we'll test the Chord with some other cans) but for the HD800, the  result is not good at all to my ears. the HD800 sounds like every time I heard it bad amped : unnatural and weird (lack of focus/center, too wide and not enough depth) soundstage and etch in the treble. Its not subtle to my ears .
 
I'll gave more impressions about Hugo as a Standalone DAC later but as a DAC/AMP, and If a friend asked me about hugo/HD800 pairing, I wouldnt advice it for sure.  And for someone who heard the HD800 from a Hugo and didn't like it, I'd wholeheartly advice him to give another Chance to the HD800 from another amp.
IMO, YMMV .. Don't want to offense Hugo owners

 

 

[zilch0md]

Hi Sorrodje,
 

   
I've received a Hugo for testing purpose last saturday. Tried yesterday as a dac/amp. The worst point is the soundstage with an obvious lack of center/focus and a serious lack of depth. Very Left/Right.  Overall a bit lean sound with treble glare too. Bass department seems OK to my ears though.  I wouldn't advice the Hugo as a good dac/amp for HD800.
 
Didn't tried the Hugo as a standalone DAC associated with the LP G103 or my Sonett 2 yet. Will compare it to my Metrum Octave mkI and My Beresford Caïman mkII.

 
I've been waiting for someone like you (someone who I perceive as having a nearly "ideal" chain for the HD800), to post impressions on the Hugo > HD800.  
 
I can now remove the Hugo from my list of high-end candidates for the HD800.  Thank you!
 
Your experience (and contentment) with the Metrum Octave MkI and DNA Sonnet 2 gives you a lot of credibility in my book, when comparing the HD800 with other gear.
 
I honestly believe that many HD800 owners have never heard what it can do. If they are content, I would still argue that they may be content in ignorance of a better experience. Adaptive hedonism has not yet taken them as far as they could go with the HD800.
 
I enjoyed a twenty-minute glimpse into what is possible with the HD800 at a Head-Fi meet, with jazzerdave's Cavalli Liquid Glass setup, and I know that I am currently equipped to achieve only a distant approximation of that experience, but my relatively modest NOS Octave MkII and single-ended, low-feedback, Class A NuForce HA-200 setup is much, much closer to what you and jazzerdave have, than what I hear with any oversampling DAC or mutli-stage, high-feedback, push-pull, solid state amp (like the OPPO HA-1, with its excellent for LCD-2 and PM-1, ESS9018 and 1817mW into 50-Ohm balanced amp.)
 
Mike

 

[Sorrodje]

@zilch0md: You can consider me honored of such a trust but I need to precise I'm not so experienced or so trustable. Only personal Experience matters.

 

[dynarec]

Update on my problem with bass distortion.  It has been fixed!!! Turns out it was a problem with winamp (I had a bass enhancer plugin enabled which was distorting the signal) , I changed and tried some tracks with foobar2000 and no bass distortion!!! Phew, thank god I don't have to go through the rigmarole of a warranty claim now.  Once again, thanks for all your support.  Back to enjoying my HD800s..

 

[RingingEars]

  Update on my problem with bass distortion.  It has been fixed!!! Turns out it was a problem with winamp (I had a bass enhancer plugin enabled which was distorting the signal) , I changed and tried some tracks with foobar2000 and no bass distortion!!! Phew, thank god I don't have to go through the rigmarole of a warranty claim now.  Once again, thanks for all your support.  Back to enjoying my HD800s..

Nice. Glad is was easily sorted. Enjoy 

 

[frankrondaniel]

   
I've received a Hugo for testing purpose last saturday. Tried yesterday as a dac/amp. The worst point is the soundstage with an obvious lack of center/focus and a serious lack of depth. Very Left/Right.  Overally a bit lean sound with treble glare too. Bass department seems OK to my ears though.  I wouldn't advice the Hugo as a good dac/amp for HD800.
 
Didn't tried the Hugo as a standalone DAC associated with the LP G103 or my Sonett 2 yet. Will compare it to my Metrum Octave mkI and My Beresford Caïman mkII.

 
I'm not very good at describing my impression of audio gear, but I think it's safe to say that your impressions of the Hugo/HD800 pairing mirror my experience, both as a stand-alone DAC/AMP and feeding it into my Fosgate Signature Headphone Amp or the Schiit Valhalla2.  This is feeding the Hugo using my USB from my laptop running JRiver, coax out of DX90 and X3 and optical out of AK240.  I understand that I'm definitely in the minority in my experience of the Hugo but after having it for approximately 6 months now I can't say that I'm enjoying it's sound.

 

[ivanlyf]

Hi everyone,

As mentioned previously, I'm a new Sennheiser HD800 owner and am currently driving it with a 2nd hand ifi iCan v2 to drive the headphones (for now) until I save enough to buy the Sennheiser HDVA 600 maybe end of next year.

However, the iCan v2 is having a ground loop issue - at medium/high gain or without music, it's acting as a radio antenna. I can hear my local radio station on the iCan. I'm quite irritated with the distortion and so am toying with the idea of getting a new headphone amp to replace it.

Any suggestions for a temporary <350 dollar headphone amp?

My setup:

Software: J River MC20 -> AIFF @ 16/44 upsampled to 192 via DAC
Power conditioning: Isotek Evo 3 Power Conditioners and cable
DAC and cable: Cardas Clear USB cable, DIY XLR Cables and Mytek Stereo192-DSD DAC
Headphone and Amplification: Sennheiser HD800, iCan v2

My musical preference:

Genre: Classical music and Jazz (80:20 ratio)
Preferred signature: 

#1 Revealing
#2 Flat signature but some emphasis on mids and treble is good
#3 Accurate stereo imaging (not a problem for the HD800)

Thank you!
Ivan

 

[bearFNF]

Schiit Vali...$119

 

[Chodi]

Matrix M Stage is an obvious choice and a surprisingly good match with the HD800. Do check into the M Stage thread and consider changing out the opamps. I actually used this combination at one time and it was very enjoyable.

 

[ivanlyf]

  Matrix M Stage is an obvious choice and a surprisingly good match with the HD800. Do check into the M Stage thread and consider changing out the opamps. I actually used this combination at one time and it was very enjoyable.

 
Yeah, was thinking of an amplifier based on the Lehmann BCL. Since this was the recommended amp before the HDVA-600 came out...
 
How about the Schiit Asgard 2 or just buy a new iCan v2 and hope it doesn't have ground issues heh