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

[ankur625]

Want to share a little secret. Power both tt2 and HMS with sperate 12v ups battery like 18ah or 26ah. But be careful to not to accidentally connect the battery in reverse polarity as it will immediately blow the protection diode inside. So cover one terminal by some tape or something so that there is no possibility of reversing the polarity even by accident. I have permanently fixed one wire to terminal to avoid that possibility. After the battery is drained to the level when tt2 is not powered enough, it will shut done indicating low power and in low power HMS will start breaking intermittently the output through dual bnc. Then you know its time to charge the battery. One full charge of 26ah 12v battery gives around 15 to 18 hours of playback which is sufficient. Believe me it will be the best and cheapest upgrade you can do with this combo because no lps or even power bank can beat clean battery power as power banks also have regulators inside. Also get a good quality BNC cables like oyaide dbnc 510 or some good furutech bulk cables and use 3 or 4 clip on ferrite per cable on tt side. You don't need ferrite in all along the length as too many will affect "drivability of digital signal" by increasing the impedance too much and sound may lose weight or punch after certain numbers of ferrites (3 or 4 per cable ) don't heed any bullshit of RFI affecting tt2 if you keep both tt2 and HMS too close. I found no affect of RFI with the above tweaks in place .

[ankur625]

Imho tt2 and HMS combo driven with 12v ups batteries and 3-4 ferrited BNC cables beats any dac combo on earth, it's so clean and realistic. There are much more details, depth and realism that it is difficult to believe that it is not a live performance.