CHORD Hugo TT2 Review (DAC & HP Amp)

[amirm]

It amazes me to see so many jumping on the bandwagon of condemning a company that really puts effort into designing proper audio devices. You may not like the price and design language, but that is the same for all other things. This is not CheapestAudioScientificReview and that seems to be the main complaint against Chord.

Company deserves a good bit of it. They have decided to build a custom DAC with highly overdesigned filter. This causes a massive hit to the manufacturing cost. In order to justify this, they need to show audible benefit in controlled testing. They not only not do this, but spread myths around measurements mattering down to -300 dB. They have caused confusion among good segment of the desktop DAC market, aided and abetted by financial motivations of Head-Fi. None of this is proper.

Yes, general performance is excellent in most areas but it damn better be at anywhere near these prices. That is a given. Not something to take credit for to justify the rest.

 

[RustyGates]

Company deserves a good bit of it. They have decided to build a custom DAC with highly overdesigned filter. This causes a massive hit to the manufacturing cost. In order to justify this, they need to show audible benefit in controlled testing. They not only not do this, but spread myths around measurements mattering down to -300 dB. They have caused confusion among good segment of the desktop DAC market, aided and abetted by financial motivations of Head-Fi. None of this is proper.

Yes, general performance is excellent in most areas but it damn better be at anywhere near these prices. That is a given. Not something to take credit for to justify the rest.

So have many others. Being boutique / custom design is a characteristic of being audio jewelry; price is not of your concern if you don't like it.

"Highly overdesigned" I disagree, its almost textbook perfect; its like saying having a SINAD any better than 120dB is "highly overdesigned".

 

[amirm]

"Highly overdesigned" I disagree, its almost textbook perfect; its like saying having a SINAD any better than 120dB is "highly overdesigned".

No it isn't. I don't set 300 dB SINAD as the target and tell people if it is a hair below that, it is audible.

 

[amirm]

So have many others. Being boutique / custom design is a characteristic of being audio jewelry; price is not of your concern if you don't like it.

What others do is neither here, nor there. And this device is quite far from being audio jewelry. As I said in my video review, I am happy to pay a huge premium for such a device if it truly delivered on that front. No one coming to your house is going to drool over this little quirky desktop box.

Give me absolute best performance, with incredible build quality, looks and features and I will fork over thousands. After all, I own a $4,000 headphone that falls in that bucket.

Really, don't go around making excuses like this. It is this kind of PR defense that has kept the company drunk with its own Koolaid. They need to hear the message loud and clear that they have missed the mark on a number of issues.

 

[Postlan]

This is all about long tap FIR. This unit is way too expensive, but their claim is real if you can hear the difference.

 

[RustyGates]

No it isn't. I don't set 300 dB SINAD as the target and tell people if it is a hair below that, it is audible.

Not sure what Robs -300dB statement has to do with this, but if a SINAD >=120dB isn't "highly overdesigned" then neither is a filter which is brick-wall.

 

[RustyGates]

What others do is neither here, nor there. And this device is quite far from being audio jewelry. As I said in my video review, I am happy to pay a huge premium for such a device if it truly delivered on that front. No one coming to your house is going to drool over this little quirky desktop box.

Give me absolute best performance, with incredible build quality, looks and features and I will fork over thousands. After all, I own a $4,000 headphone that falls in that bucket.

Really, don't go around making excuses like this. It is this kind of PR defense that has kept the company drunk with its own Koolaid. They need to hear the message loud and clear that they have missed the mark on a number of issues.

This is all entirely your personal opinion; I don't see how it isn't great build quality, the device chassis is CNC'd from a single Al billet, its a rock solid build, looks fantastic in all black and I do love the LED colours. All I hear from you is nit-picks of which we've discussed in previous posts. Re. the UI - again, you only need half a brain to use it.

"No one coming to your house is going to drool over this little quirky desktop box. " Yeah, its not bought for anyone to see, other than myself. Get it yet?

 

[pkane]

This is all about long tap FIR. This unit is way too expensive, but their claim is real if you can hear the difference.

Can anyone? Just curious, because I can't. Millions of taps are now easy and free compared to Chord devices if you use a computer. Here you go, a 4M tap brickwall FIR filter, cost me exactly $0:

 

[RustyGates]

Can anyone? Just curious, because I can't. Millions of taps are now easy and free compared to Chord devices if you use a computer. Here you go, a 4M tap brickwall FIR filter, cost me exactly $0:

View attachment 226628

Great, now put that into a DAC so it can apply that to an incoming signal in real time. ESS can't seem to do it, instead they give you a plethora of garbage filter options for the user to screw around with.

 

[Merkurio]

Great, now put that into a DAC so it can apply that to an incoming signal in real time. ESS can't seem to do it, instead they give you a plethora of garbage filter options for the user to screw around with.

Funnily enough, I see cases in which the performance of the Hugo TT2 may have a negative impact to the sound (50 mV performance with ultra sensitive IEMs, for example), but I can't think of a single scenario where the damn fancy filter could make an audible difference compared with the "garbage" filters used in the rest of delta-sigma solutions.

 

[pkane]

Great, now put that into a DAC so it can apply that to an incoming signal in real time.

But why? It doesn’t sound any better and doesn't measure any better.

 

[RustyGates]

But why? It doesn’t sound any better and doesn't measure any better.

It does affect measurements, you can see it in the high BW tests on any of the ESS based dacs; either the 90kHz BW THD+N from 0-20kHz is rising (very sharply for some) at high frequencies or you select filters which have an early roll-off of a massive 14db or so by 20kHz.

 

[Jimster480]

This is all entirely your personal opinion; I don't see how it isn't great build quality, the device chassis is CNC'd from a single Al billet, its a rock solid build, looks fantastic in all black and I do love the LED colours. All I hear from you is nit-picks of which we've discussed in previous posts. Re. the UI - again, you only need half a brain to use it.

"No one coming to your house is going to drool over this little quirky desktop box. " Yeah, its not bought for anyone to see, other than myself. Get it yet?

Their devices regularly have out of place ports (not centered) or ports that feel loose or weak. This is not top tier build quality fo the price.

It does affect measurements, you can see it in the high BW tests on any of the ESS based dacs; either the 90kHz BW THD+N from 0-20kHz is rising (very sharply for some) at high frequencies or you select filters which have an early roll-off of a massive 14db or so by 20kHz.

DACs don't have 14db rolloff by 20kHz. This is a mistake of interpretation for most.
High frequency noise doesn't matter in most cases.

Funnily enough, I see cases in which the performance of the Hugo TT2 may have a negative impact to the sound (50 mV performance with ultra sensitive IEMs, for example), but I can't think of a single scenario where the damn fancy filter could make an audible difference compared with the "garbage" filters used in the rest of delta-sigma solutions.

So true, the performance in 50mv is quite bad actually.

Can anyone? Just curious, because I can't. Millions of taps are now easy and free compared to Chord devices if you use a computer. Here you go, a 4M tap brickwall FIR filter, cost me exactly $0:

View attachment 226628

What software is this?

This is all about long tap FIR. This unit is way too expensive, but their claim is real if you can hear the difference.

Except its unlikely that ANYONE can.

 

[KeithPhantom]

It does affect measurements, you can see it in the high BW tests on any of the ESS based dacs; either the 90kHz BW THD+N from 0-20kHz is rising (very sharply for some) at high frequencies or you select filters which have an early roll-off of a massive 14db or so by 20kHz.

Not always. If you limit your bandwidth to ~20,000 Hz, noise-shaping noise and out-of-band distortion do not show, not affecting THD+N:

 

[Merkurio]

It does affect measurements, you can see it in the high BW tests on any of the ESS based dacs; either the 90kHz BW THD+N from 0-20kHz is rising (very sharply for some) at high frequencies or you select filters which have an early roll-off of a massive 14db or so by 20kHz.

I envy being able to hear 14 dB drops at 20 kHz in the last year of my 20s.

Definitely the ears of Chord buyers are made of another wood, lucky you.

 

[Ilkless]

What others do is neither here, nor there. And this device is quite far from being audio jewelry. As I said in my video review, I am happy to pay a huge premium for such a device if it truly delivered on that front. No one coming to your house is going to drool over this little quirky desktop box.

Give me absolute best performance, with incredible build quality, looks and features and I will fork over thousands. After all, I own a $4,000 headphone that falls in that bucket.

Really, don't go around making excuses like this. It is this kind of PR defense that has kept the company drunk with its own Koolaid. They need to hear the message loud and clear that they have missed the mark on a number of issues.

What really gets me about brands like Chord is that, compared to unabashedly purely subjective anecdote-driven and mystical brands, they are superficially engineering-driven and use rhetoric that refers to actual empirical phenomena. But when challenged either on their application and understanding of the phenomena, or its audibility, they then fall back on subjective waffle. That to me is much more disingenuous, bordering on insidious.

 

[BDWoody]

I don't see how it isn't great build quality, the device chassis is CNC'd from a single Al billet, its a rock solid build, looks fantastic in all black and I do love the LED colours.

You've been the definition of Chord fanboy since you got here.

I'd suggest you get a tattoo, maybe ' I love DAVE ' , until then I don't think anyone here will take you seriously.

Got that tattoo yet? Only been a couple years of the same story.



We get it. You like yours.

 

[Jimster480]

What really gets me about brands like Chord is that, compared to unabashedly purely subjective anecdote-driven and mystical brands, they are superficially engineering-driven and use rhetoric that refers to actual empirical phenomena. But when challenged either on their application and understanding of the phenomena, or its audibility, they then fall back on subjective waffle. That to me is much more disingenuous, bordering on insidious.

I agree, it really is extra bad to make claims like the ones Chord has made and then defend them with subjective rhetoric.

 

[JSmith]

This should be the cash grab panther.

That strikes a chord with me too, cordially.

What is really nice to see that Amir did include an impulse response measurement, since the Chord followers enthuse about this topic so much. But in fact this has been measured by Stereophile as well before, and for the Dave it wasn´t more impressive than for the Okto DAC (even less so). What does still remain from the claim of the specialty of the Chord DACs?

Chord Electronics DAVE D/A processor Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Okto dac8 Stereo D/A processor Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Dave:
View attachment 226594
Okto:
View attachment 226595

Well now that will be audible for sure...

the device chassis is CNC'd from a single Al billet

That's quite a waste of resources.

I do love the LED colours.

Personally if I wanted coloured LED's I'd attach a multicoloured LED strip to the top of this... then ones has a screen and pretty colours;

JSmith

 

[Garrincha]

What really gets me about brands like Chord is that, compared to unabashedly purely subjective anecdote-driven and mystical brands, they are superficially engineering-driven and use rhetoric that refers to actual empirical phenomena. But when challenged either on their application and understanding of the phenomena, or its audibility, they then fall back on subjective waffle. That to me is much more disingenuous, bordering on insidious.

I think that is one of the fundamental dilemmas of audiophoolery and "high-end audio". If they would only use technical and engineering language and criteria, with the recent cheaper competition from China and elsewhere and a general greater appreciation of analytical criteria and measurements, they would have a hard time justifying the prices. So they see as a way out esoteric speach and mystical jargon. In reality it is quite simple, listening to music can in fact be a magical experience, but the magic derives from the music itself, not from the gear reproducing it.