Darko Chord Hugo 2 review

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21 hours ago, Norton said:

Thanks for the link.

 

Hugo2 is still on my shortlist as next DAC, I'm hoping for close to DAVE performance from  a fraction of the £.  

 

However, I don't read this as necessarily  a rave review, for me this extract is significant:

 

"The Brit’s detail retrieval smarts are also on par with the Coloradoan. Where it falls short is on acoustic mass and slam".  

 

For me, using in a main system, a top DAC has to have both exemplarary detail retrieval and acoustic mass and slam, both are needed for realism.  It's why I rate DAVE so highly, but it sounds like H2 may have inherited some of it's predecessor's limitations when used in a main system, maybe an inevitable consequence of the battery power supply?

   

 

 

 

 

Yeah, probably.  It could also be related to output stage design.  My experience with various portables is that they fall down when put in room/speaker system, without enough body, weight, and dynamics for really great playback.  Small DACs generally have small power supplies, and there is no substitute for a nice, beefy power supply with multiple, separate rails for right and left channels.  Does Hugo2 have balanced outputs?  This can make a big difference as well if one's amplifier is balanced.  Of course DAVE is balanced.  Is a 3Qute announced, or how about a Hugo TT2?  I would like to see a TT2 with balanced outputs, full galvanic isolated USB input, volume control and a real AC based power supply.  Close to DAVE performance for a speaker system around $5-$6 K would be a nice price point for Chord to hit.

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3 minutes ago, Indydan said:

Battery power is extremely quiet. That is the main advantage.

I find this to be somewhat of a myth.  I have experimented with LiFePO4 batteries (the best ones) and found that a really well engineered AC based supply can be made just as quiet, and often with lower output impedance.  There is a reason almost all really high end products do not use battery based supplies.

Batteries work by internal chemical reactions and indeed do have noise caused these reactions, they also only perform at top levels in terms of output impedance when run above 50% charge rates.

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6 hours ago, ecwl said:

I’ve compared Hugo TT and Mirus and I definitely prefer Hugo TT but my dealer thought it was a toss up because he sells both probably. We used the same USB/CD transport (S/PDIF) for the comparisons. But then maybe some people prefer Mirus sound over Chord DACs. 

The other part of this comparison which would be good to know is if we are talking about driving a power amplifier input directly, or with a preamp or integrated amplifier in the chain.

In my experience, smaller, more portable DACs just do not have the power supply/output stage to really excel driving a power amp directly (lets not debate whether or not this is a good idea here, that is for other threads, but just to be clear, in my system amp direct is better than any additional preamp added, as long as the DAC has a good output stage).

 

BTW, with the Mirus Pro I do not find big differences in performance via SD card vs USB, at least not with the Signature Rendu SE, and no differences in terms of body, weight, and dynamic contrast.