Article: My Quest for a New DAC, Part 5: Chord Electronics Hugo M Scaler & Hugo TT 2

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@austinpop very, very informative. Best (worked out) review I've read on this site for a long time! I am little biased because I am a happy DAVE owner for quite some time and considering adding M-scaler technology in the near future. Question: did you try optical out from your MacBook Pro > optical in HMS? I think I've read somewhere that this is Rob Watt's preferred connection.

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9 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

To paraphrase the Eagles: "we haven't had that spirit Toslink here since 1969 1999!"  

 

More seriously, no I didn't try that, as I really don't use Toslink in my audio system, and I only had this combo in hand for a preciously short time. 

 

I understand. Optical/Toslink has its limitation in bandwidth but since HMS is doing all the heavy lifting it kind of makes sense because by doing this you'll seriously eliminate all possible electronical noise upstream.

 

I found Rob's quote: 

Quote

It’s complicated and depends upon a number of factors - principally the amount of RF noise injected and the amount of correlated noise that gets in. It will depend upon the source device as to which sounds best. My preference is optical, as this has the smoothest sound quality and best depth, as it does not suffer from both of the aforementioned problems. Chord DAC's employ a DPLL digital phase lock loop. This means optical in is clocked by the internal FPGA and jitter is totally eliminated.