Chord Hugo 2 Review (Portable DAC & HP Amp)

[the_brunx]

I do like that it has only one even order harmonic distortion over toslink right next to fundamental.

 

[solderdude]

I don't know how the RCAs are mounted. They were kind of loose in there.

 

[PeteL]

I don't know how the RCAs are mounted. They were kind of loose in there.

Loose? You mean they are actually moving and not soldered to the PCB? That would be beyond any sort of acceptable , not sure if it's what you mean?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Loose? You mean they are actually moving and not soldered to the PCB? That would be beyond any sort of acceptable , not sure if it's what you mean?

My guess is they aren't firmly attached and wiggle a bit under pressure. I'd guessed they were mounted to the circuit board. I don't think he meant floating as in loosely hanging by wires or some such.

 

[amirm]

Loose? You mean they are actually moving and not soldered to the PCB? That would be beyond any sort of acceptable , not sure if it's what you mean?

No, just wiggle left and right.

 

[F1308]

The moral of the story, the moral coming out of this device is simply that you should not go offering four distinctive choices that turn out meaning nothing. For me, seriousness comes first, then show me good performance and a deal will be made. Not this time.

 

[Garrincha]

The main criticism to the chinese products is design and built quality. If a $3k device can not deliver in these aspects, while hardly managing to cope up in measurements, then there is really no point in it.

 

[jsm]

This chord design... looks like the firsts Flash websites of 2005 or before. And this price... I prefer using a usb or external DAC/amp and custom it with some LiPo battery like chord do, but for a fraction of the price and maybe better perf.

 

[tktran303]

I'm not defending Chord Electronics or this product, but to understand the design language aka looks and pricing of Chord Electronics products, you need to know the history of it. Americans on one side of the pond may be aware of classical brands like Crown, McIntosh, Threshold, Mark Levinson, Krell etc. Some of them are still alive, some are dead and some have respawned. On the other side of the pond is Audiolab, Arcam, Naim, Rega, Cambridge Audio etc.

We're talking amplification of the 20th century, at the dawn of BJT solid state amplifiers. We're talking Class A/B amplifiers that go 200-1000W or beyond, back in the day when amplifiers were measured by their weight in pounds (due to enormous heatsinks or transformers) and requiring metal casing as big as your file cabinet. In the not so olden days.

Then all of a sudden life changed and everyone went headphones. Apple probably had something to do with that. So high end audio companies had to switch gears, switch to making amplification for headphones, or making headphones. Even some of the original headphone makers got caught sleeping at the wheel eg. AKG, Sennheiser, Koss, despite their considerable experience.

Chord is one of those companies from across the pond. Designed and Built in the UK.

I'm glad they changed gears. I mean, some companies who haven't, or didn't, didn't do so well. Consider Halcro.

If you don't want to buy/support product like this, by all means, do not.

But be careful what you wish for.

 

[bluefuzz]

$295 would be more appropriate...

Yes. Even at that price I'd be hard pressed to find a use for it. Does anyone still use wired headphones for mobile listening? When travelling on public transport all I see is the ubiquitous Apple wireless earbuds or wireless noise-cancelling headphones from mostly Sony and Bose ...

 

[JSmith]

Does anyone still use wired headphones for mobile listening?

Not me... I just crank the stereo in my car.

If I really need earbuds on a bus/train/plane, I use the cheap ones that came with my phone... which I don't use very often anyway.


JSmith

 

[DanielT]

$295 would be more appropriate... build quality looks pretty average too. Agree... pass, rather quickly.

Good to see the measurement on this though, cheers.


JSmith

But a little more than that, is it still worth, or? Perhaps?BUT 3K is two darn expensive.Would be interesting if those who write in the thread stated a numerical figure on how much money they could imagine giving, what they consider it worth. Amir said $ 600. Or rather, Amir said, "I think we should expect them to sell it for $ 600."

OT, speaking of two darn. Now it is England that is experiencing extreme heat. Record apparently.

Although the song is about sex, or rather it is too hot to have sex but still.

 

[DSJR]

View attachment 218941

Is that it, for HOW MUCH???

Mind you, they usually come via a dealer and retail here at £1995 or so inc. VAT, so a dealer would have his 40 to 50% of that. The 2Go is £995 here...

 

[Jimbob54]

I'm having a hard time understanding why people hell bent on having a portable Chord product would not rather get the very similar performing Mojo 2 at around a quarter of the cost https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...hord-mojo-2-review-portable-dac-hp-amp.34160/

 

[MrOtto]

Design and finish looks like a $5 DAC on Alixpress. And combined with the performance, the price is a disgrace. Pure greed.

 

[uwotm8]

I honestly see no place for such devices. Especially expensive ones.
You can get a good sounding wireless cans for any travel purposes and listen to its fairly good sound with excellent comfort. $500...1000 is enough.
The rest 2k will give you a perfect DAC-AMP (single unit or two) and two pairs of great sounding "home" cans.

 

[uwotm8]

I'm having a hard time understanding why people hell bent on having a portable Chord product would not rather get the very similar performing Mojo 2 at around a quarter of the cost https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...hord-mojo-2-review-portable-dac-hp-amp.34160/

Lol it has USB-C and actually performs better

 

[abdo123]

I honestly see no place for such devices. Especially expensive ones.
You can get a good sounding wireless cans for any travel purposes and listen to its fairly good sound with excellent comfort. $500...1000 is enough.
The rest 2k will give you a perfect DAC-AMP (single unit or two) and two pairs of great sounding "home" cans.

I use a battery powered headphone amplifier for all of my headphones.

I would say a dedicated headphone amplifiers which makes something that is built with portability in mind (headphones) stationary has no place in the modern world.

If i wanted to sit in a chair with my head fixed to listen to music then i would get speakers.

 

[bluefuzz]

Would be interesting if those who write in the thread stated a numerical figure on how much money they could imagine giving, what they consider it worth.

I'd say anything over about $200 is pushing it for a product like this. Especially, as noted above, there is is almost no use case for it since decent wireless phones/buds exist.

 

[poxymoron]

Thanks for the review Amir. This thing is so overpriced, it's ridiculous. You could get a SOA desktop and portable DAC (and headphone amp) for about a third of the price of this thing. I never liked the look of CHORD products but if they were finished exquisitely then I could understand why some fool might want to buy one, but I've seen products finished better than this for a fraction of the price. This thing might sound okay, but it's looks and finish are terrible considering the cost.