Chord Hugo Re-Examined

[MikeJazz]

I truly don't understand the "lacking in body" comments. Mine is not at all....at all.

That is also not my remembrance of the Chord sound of the Cute HD and soon I will also review the Hugo...

 

I could understand that comment from a user used to a less transparent sound and or that likes dacs who will (I dare to say artificially) thicken the midband...many do, like the Rega...for example...After all sound is a matter of taste...

More weight in the voice, for example will be understood as more "body".

 

The Chord sound does one think that not many do is to keep the body where it is difficult: in the high frequency range, by keeping harmonics rich and the sound extending more that usual...

...Just my 2cents...

[wisnon]

I truly don't understand the "lacking in body" comments. Mine is not at all....at all.

 

3 other Hugo owners told me the same. one is selling and waiting for the HUGO Qute or QBD to come out next year. One is trying tweaks to offset this and the last one has several Dacs and is content to use it as a high end protable Dac. It seems their consensus is that the battery power is holding it back and unlilke a great LPSU cannt deliver the ull body and do justice to the SOTA digital section. The Qute for example allows us to add on a Hynes or Teddy P LPSU and you see the immediate uplift in SQ.

 

Based on this extensive feedback, I would expect that a Hugo QBD/Qute, a STAYPUT if you dont mind would be a revelation and the true killer dac. It would likely have the electricals to match the digital engine. I hope Chord keeps the price digestible. LoL

[ted_b]

3 other Hugo owners told me the same. one is selling and waiting for the HUGO Qute or QBD to come out next year. One is trying tweaks to offset this and the last one has several Dacs and is content to use it as a high end protable Dac. It seems their consensus is that the battery power is holding it back and unlilke a great LPSU cannt deliver the ull body and do justice to the SOTA digital section. The Qute for example allows us to add on a Hynes or Teddy P LPSU and you see the immediate uplift in SQ.

 

Based on this extensive feedback, I would expect that a Hugo QBD/Qute, a STAYPUT if you dont mind would be a revelation and the true killer dac. It would likely have the electricals to match the digital engine. I hope Chord keeps the price digestible. LoL

 

Lacking body when used as a portable? Well, sure, duh! I'm talking about using the Hugo (or any other DAC) as a home DAC. When plugged into the wall (not a lot to ask, and beautifully isolated from noise) the Hugo is full bodied (the battery trickle charges and never gets below the level where this phenomenon of portability would kick in). Maybe that's the issue with all of these users. However, Rob and Chord are pretty clear on all these forums that keeping the Hugo plugged in is not detrimental in any way (except for portability, of course).

[wisnon]

No Ted, used as a desktop....

 

They all used it plugged in. The keeper likes it as a portable for that price.

[SeeHear]

Was it motherboard based or from a dedicated card? I found mobo s/pdif outs don't have nearly the fidelity that a good audio card can. I use the Juli@ and find its performance FAR superior to every motherboard s/pdif output I have tried.

 

Ted i had the same experience too. Did not like the sound using the spdif. It sounded too dull and lost the dynamics. I guess the only option left to get maximum performance from the dac is the usb cable.

[CoolHand]

This is funny stuff, and as I kinda like funny stuff I'm gonna poke my noggin in...

 

'It seems their consensus is that the battery power is holding it back and unlilke a great LPSU cannt deliver the full body and do justice to the SOTA digital section.'

 

Actually it seems that 'they' have absolutely no basic understanding about power supply design period, nor that of the output stage design employed in the Hugo.

 

Which is entirely understandable given that most consumers of hifi gear are simply that, and perhaps also great lovers of music... The technicalities of how the gear works is usually far beyond their scope of interest or comprehension.

 

I don't have much motivation to spend too much time on the subject here (instead, below I have cut and pasted a couple of my own prior posts, either from PM's, or on other forums -aka. Humble Experiences).

 

However for those inclined, I do know that Rob Watts the designer of the Hugo has explained several more salient facets of the power supply and output stage design over on the Head-Fi forum, and both aspects are indeed quite remarkable achievements on both levels of ingenuity, and capability.

 

The Hugo really breaks new ground with its output stage design as far as raw current ability and EXTREMELY low impedance....

 

Humble experience #1:

 

Recently I spent quite sometime experimenting with various options of transformer coupling/fully balanced conversion of the HUGO output to determine various sonic outcomes between components in my system. Ultimately reverting back to the HUGO directly driving pseudo balanced lines into my pro gear directly as it has ZERO issue driving 30 foot plus lines to my quad amped fully active monitors, and actually sounds better like that than via any other means !!)

 

In my case the HUGO as previously mentioned has nothing short of astounding bottom end, not only quantity but even moreso, quality of definition.

As a recording engineer who is also involved in production and much less frequently mastering, I was doing back to back tests with the latest dac from Prism Sound (these are commonly employed as Mastering Studio Reference Dac's worldwide) a couple of weeks back, and the low end drive & resolution of the Hugo was unequivocally far advanced over that of the Prism, as superb as it was.

 

In fact the HUGO was simply the much more resolving and NATURAL sounding device in ALL respects.

Upon first listen, without any clue as to which was which, my loving female partner (!) immediately remarked how dac B was significantly more pronounced in the low end dynamics, sure enough dac B was the HUGO, and although the bass was what she immediately noticed, it was not due to any imbalance of the rest of the spectrum as she, like myself noted that recorded spacial cues defining the ambient nature of the samples we listened to were also much more lifelike.

 

Humble experience #2

 

Just for chuckles earlier today I soldered up a 1/4" jack and connected it directly from one of the the Hugo's headphone outputs to my pair of custom Zingali speakers (2 x 15" bass + 2 x 15" horn) in the main room... running SOLELY from its internal batteries, fed via usb (self powered and no OS X driver required) from a MacBook Air with Audirvana+, playing all kinds of music from my own recordings to stuff like the truly phenomenal Joe Holland Klipsch Tape Project in DSD128.

Totally off the grid, totally off the planet, brother.

 

Hugo IS the Brother From Another Planet*

 

Up to what many would call LOUD listening levels what we heard was extremely well resolved, articulate, spacially and tonally complete with bottom end that plumbed the depths with composure.

 

No it did not compete with my $20k tube reference amp, the insanely dynamic and sublime Silbatone JI-300B equipped with NOS Western Electric 300B's, 16lB silver foil output transformers and an ultra low impedance Mil-Spec power supply etc, etc... but seriously,

 

Fark Me !!!

 

........................

 

So when I hear cats out there essentially saying that the Hugo lacks fullness of body with its Achilles heel rather likely being its feeble battery power supply (which employs Li-po batteries having enough instantaneous current potential to start a cold motor vehicle engine, or spot weld a lackadaisical technicians screw driver to the chassis).... I really do laugh.... out LOUD :^]

 

When I had the QuteEX I modified a high current fully discrete power supply to supply exceptionally low noise to it, yes it was an improvement over the supplied $10 switching wall-wart supply, but it was of its own incapable of transforming the Qute into the truly reference class (IMHO) device which the Hugo unequivocally is, to me, in my system/s, YMMV yada, yada .....

 

A point I'd like to add, and one which I believe is most relevant is that very few devices in the world of shall we say 'hifi' as different from the broadcast industry, are in fact designed to be truly transparent to the source.

Notably the few which do bridge these markets are more often disparaged than embraced by audiophiles.

Most every device is voiced to represent either the designers inclinations or that of a perceived market.... Such a context sounds initially absurd, surely these esteemed designers are seeking 'the truth, the original sound', are they not ??

 

Rarely.

 

....and perhaps for many a good reason, that I am not here to question.

 

Hifi.. is a hobby, it's supposed to be about suspending disbelief and there are many avenues by which to pursue this goal. The journey, is often a larger part of the fun !

 

Just as the cd mastered with greater compression initially may appear to be the one with a better sound, or the TV in the show room with its colours and contrast tweaked for punch, the meal with enhanced levels of salt or msg for flavour, the girl with enhanced... Y'all catch my drift :-P

 

A bespoke built room acoustically treated and optimised for minimal sonic anomaly, with speakers similarly tuned, can initially sound to the unfamiliar, shall we say somewhat lacklustre, maybe even dull or lacking something.

Indeed visitors to my space are not immediately struck with sonic excitement.

Although many many hours later, I have often been asked, 'so what's for breakfast ?' !!!!!!

 

Similarly I find the Hugo as a device which is a considerable departure from many other products of its vein by its apparent absence of intentional voicing, embellishment or discrepancy.

 

This can be a double edged sword.. on one hand it is entirely undemonstrative, thus I can see why some may find its character as almost insufficiently descript or developed, whilst on the other it's almost too capable for its own good, as much as there are some people whom may in fact not 'connect', nor wish to revel in such unadorned, unadulterated clarity and correctness to the source !

 

Although even then, excluding such aspects of patent artifice, it also displays something profoundly pleasurable and simultaneously intangible, an innate sense of timing and flow the degree of which up to this point I have only ascribed as belonging outside of the digital domain.

 

My references for sonic truth are not recordings made by others, of voices and instruments with which I am intimately unfamiliar, (to the contrary)...yet all too often such arbitrary comparisons (relative or otherwise), as 'reviews' define others judgements.

 

The Hugo fares exceptionally well in regards to my own captured source/replay comparisons. Ideally what I would really like to have for capture is an ADC which similarly employs Rob Watts brilliant technological developments.

 

Opinions, such as my own are merely that, and like my own should never be taken too seriously. Just read between the lines and listen with your own ears heheheh.

 

On that note I will pull the plug by saying that Hugo may require one to 're-calibrate' their sonic replay preconceptions, or not.

Different will remain different and better will hopefully always come, there is nothing quite like the real thing after all.

 

If it does happen to pleasurably tickle your auditory bones however, you can always pack it along with a portable music source, your favourite pair of headphones and take a mountain hike or head to a tropical island escape and get fully immersed in the transcendental healing power of music.... That's what I'm about to do anyway.

[earflappin]

Great post CoolHand....loved it.

[kennyb123]

Great post CoolHand....loved it.

 

Yeah me too!

[ted_b]

Luc, thanks for that; it echoes, of course, our ongoing dialog (which is a blast, btw). By the way, a little squirrel told me that someone who looks a lot like Rob Watts is toying with the idea of developing an ADC along the lines of his DAC designs:

 

""Yes there will be info above 22.05 kHz - but I don't think you can hear it! So when I talk about transients, its about the timing of the transients, not the speed of the rising edge of the transient. I can't hear above 16 kHz, so info above this frequency will be ignored. But the timing of what I can hear is vital as we can perceive 4uS.

But like you I am bothered about the recording side of things, so I have been working on a pulse array ADC. This will have proper aliasing filters, and multiple OP's at different sample rates, so from the same recording and equipment one will be able to see what the true affects of sample rate is. This won't be available for some time though."

[Larryng]

I am comparing the HUGO to other dacs/CD players that I have and found the HUGO amazing and for its asking price , quite an HUGE success , I have having 240 hours on it and the sound is by any standard not thin sounding , I am using it as a pure dac and both USB & SPDIF inputs , I have MPS-5 , Burmester 069 , Parasound CD1 , Sony Modwright 5400 and at a fraction of the price of any of them , you get quite a sound and if music is what you aim for , it is more than enough and certainly no lacking unless AB with the best . Give the battery 5-6 cycles of full charging and you also get improve dynamic . Overall speaking , for its price , it is one little amazing dac .

[earflappin]

I am comparing the HUGO to other dacs/CD players that I have and found the HUGO amazing and for its asking price , quite an HUGE success , I have having 240 hours on it and the sound is by any standard not thin sounding , I am using it as a pure dac and both USB & SPDIF inputs , I have MPS-5 , Burmester 069 , Parasound CD1 , Sony Modwright 5400 and at a fraction of the price of any of them , you get quite a sound and if music is what you aim for , it is more than enough and certainly no lacking unless AB with the best . Give the battery 5-6 cycles of full charging and you also get improve dynamic . Overall speaking , for its price , it is one little amazing dac .

 

Thanks @Larryng. So are you saying that if you do A/B the HUGO to the MPS-5 for example, you can hear differences that would lead you to conclude the MPS-5 is better overall, but that on a price/performance basis its a winner? That was my takeaway from your post anyway.

[ALRAINBOW]

As I own it too and use it daily. Has anyone compared it tonally to other dacs. I feelings piched a little high . Any one with any thoughts. Please

other than this I think it's really good and I paid full,price for it .

al

[rossb]

As I own it too and use it daily. Has anyone compared it tonally to other dacs. I feelings piched a little high . Any one with any thoughts. Please

other than this I think it's really good and I paid full,price for it .

al

 

Compared with the Bel Canto DAC 3.5VBS and the Invicta Mirus, the Hugo is a little cooler sounding, and has an extended treble (particularly compared with the BC, which may be a little rolled off), but I wouldn't describe it as "pitched a little high".

[ALRAINBOW]

Well I'll be someone Someone who hears it. Do you have any idea how crap, I have taken for saying that. It's a joke every product must be perfect and none are. It can start my mo ped and power my infinities and heck many my jucer too. But it's perfect , maybe it's burn in how many hours is on yours. Mine has been going about 14 hours a day for about 7 or 8 days now. It is really a very good product and pairs great with anything I have tried it with.

Thanks

al

[Larryng]

earflappin , maybe I am not like others , I listen to my favorable/selected musics many hundreds of times and I have a very good memory of each song and the different points/highlights that caught my attention and I have these remembered & compared from time & time with different machines and only AB them if I wanted to find out which really was an edge better . I have not AB the HUGO with MPS-5 nor 069 as really shouldn't be on par with them but I can surely say that when I listen to HUGO , I find myself no desire to switch it away , no little achievement as I am also the one who would not compromise on sound quality - being an audiophile for over 40 years .

 

I would surely switch it away had I heard something less - from my deep memory - of course .

 

I bought the HUGO just to see if it is as most who praised it and it gave me a surprise , it sound so good !

 

BTW , I find SPDIF input can sound better than USB input . I just use an Audio-gd USB to SPDIF converter and you can hear dynamic coming back if you are hungered for it so it is probably not due to battery supply . The HUGO is designed not as a table dac so we should see a better option in the near future BUT that would cost you much more ,

Chord has been putting so much into HUGO just to win the youngster hearts , not ours and I seldom listen to headphone . CHORD have priced HUGO low enough for youngster markets - we just have discovered that it can sound so good as a table dac .

[ALRAINBOW]

DI v3 ?? What firmware you useing if I may ask. ???

al

[Larryng]

DI V3 , yes , do not know firmware version as I have never updated one myself , I bought it @8 months ago ! I assume that you have both also , please try it yourself to see if you have the same impression as mine !

[ALRAINBOW]

Yes I will and I have a empirical spidif cable as well to,use. I also have a offramp

and the funny this is. It helped almost any dac I hVe tried it with. Except 3 one is my msb

but the others are the Hugo and os audio DS it's kinda odd . And I tried it with spidif and the HDMI i2s with his HDMI cable. It takes the shine off both FPGA dacs .

reg the Di v3 They just came out with a firmware and new USB driver for it. About a moth ago. It really helped improve the audio gd M7 dac. But the offramp over HDMI still bests it out overall.

Al

[ALRAINBOW]

Did you buy the PSU from him as well. It's cheap and very good too .

Al

[Larryng]

The following is between the 2 inputs only , direct USB - standard Chord cable coming with HUGO - warmer sound , more fluid , slightly compressed dynamic . SPDIF from Audio-gd - Better dynamic , cooler sound , more defined bass .

 

The difference may be due to USB input chips .

[Larryng]

I have not bought any power supply from Audio-gd other than the one power coming with my DI-V3 . It is the only product that I have from this company !

[ALRAINBOW]

http://www.audio-gd.com/USB32driver2014v3.rar

new USB driver it removes the asco panel. It came out a couple of weeks ago maybe a month . For me as a portible it's the best I ever heard. Most of the daps I used had the sabre chip and in dsd it's ok but with PCM it's needles to my brain. It's not that I cannot use them as I have for years , but when I heard the Hugo and it had the direct stream type of presentation it was a done deal . I do not feel it's thin either it's just so much more detailed I think people just think it is.

Al

[ALRAINBOW]

So it's two pc,s correct one just has power cord and a on off rocker in the back . If so that's it . The original,one used a lipo battery .

al

[ted_b]

The following is between the 2 inputs only , direct USB - standard Chord cable coming with HUGO - warmer sound , more fluid , slightly compressed dynamic . SPDIF from Audio-gd - Better dynamic , cooler sound , more defined bass .

 

The difference may be due to USB input chips .

 

I'd recommend upgrading the USB cable, even if it means using a micro USB adapter. The stock Chord USB cable is average to poor.

[ALRAINBOW]

Well tat sounds good but who makes one as is with a mini. As I have some really good ones but I cannot use this on the subway. Any ideas ??

al