This is a review and detailed measurements of the CHORD HUGO 2 portable (battery operated) DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $2,950.
As expected, Chord carries its "design language" into this product which in my opinion, puts looks ahead of usability. If you use it a lot, you may get used to to the meaning of the lights but as a reviewer, it is a pain. The right globe is a rotary encoder for the volume. Meaning of the rest is such:
I am not a fan of two separate USB inputs one for data and the other for charging. Why not charge using the data connection? I also found the sockets finnicky. Two of my USB cables were too lose in there to make stable connection. A third fit nice. A migration to USB-C is badly needed.
Connectivity is excellent for a portable product:
You have RCA analog out, coax (through odd 3.5mm socket) and Toslink. Headphone out is provided through two connections to fit the flavor of your unbalanced headphone.
Chord Hugo 2 DAC Measurements
I adjusted the volume to 2 volts out while connecting the unit over USB:
I could see from the dancing and varying spikes in the FFT that it was picking up noise over that link. Any attempt at grounding the unit would make the situation far worse.
Edit: I tested the Hugo 2 at a later time and the USB noise did not manifest itself:
Rest of the tests use Toslink so not impacted by the USB noise issue above.
I disconnected USB and used isolated Toslink input which remedied that:
Much cleaner. Ranking as a result land in two tiers:
For a portable device, these are excellent rankings. To give the benefit of doubt, from here on the test is using Toslink unless otherwise stated.
Output can go above 6 volts but it clips badly half way there:
Dynamic range is excellent if you let it to go max output:
IMD distortion is also best at full output and competitive at nominal 2 volt:
Linearity is a bit noisy and unstable:
Jitter is excellent over toslink and as expected, not so good with USB:
Fortunately even with USB jitter is inaudible at -120 dBSPL.
Filter response is super sharp as we expect from CHord designs:
I can't figure out what the cryptic explanation means for each filter. They certainly not reflected in the measured performance.
Good attenuation results in excellent THD+N vs frequency (wideband):
I had to run multitone over USB since Toslink won't go up to 192 kHz sampling:
Chord Hugo 2 Headphone Amplifier Measurement
Let's start with dynamic range 50 mv:
So just about average performance:
Careful with extra sensitive IEMs/headphones as you may experience hiss/noise.
Power is very respectable for a portable product (but no competition for desktop amps):
Output drive gracefully degrades:
Sorry, have not had time to listen to the unit but I expect it to sound excellent.
Conclusions
As a portable DAC+headphone amplifier, the Hugo 2 has superb performance. As a Desktop product, its USB noise sensitivity is disappointing but otherwise performance is very good. Mind you, desktop products at far, far lower costs run circles around it. So if that is your application, I highly suggest you look elsewhere.
As a portable product, I can highly recommend the Chord Hugo 2. For desktop, it is a pass for me especially at the astronomically high retail cost.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
As expected, Chord carries its "design language" into this product which in my opinion, puts looks ahead of usability. If you use it a lot, you may get used to to the meaning of the lights but as a reviewer, it is a pain. The right globe is a rotary encoder for the volume. Meaning of the rest is such:
I am not a fan of two separate USB inputs one for data and the other for charging. Why not charge using the data connection? I also found the sockets finnicky. Two of my USB cables were too lose in there to make stable connection. A third fit nice. A migration to USB-C is badly needed.
Connectivity is excellent for a portable product:
You have RCA analog out, coax (through odd 3.5mm socket) and Toslink. Headphone out is provided through two connections to fit the flavor of your unbalanced headphone.
Chord Hugo 2 DAC Measurements
I adjusted the volume to 2 volts out while connecting the unit over USB:
I could see from the dancing and varying spikes in the FFT that it was picking up noise over that link. Any attempt at grounding the unit would make the situation far worse.
Edit: I tested the Hugo 2 at a later time and the USB noise did not manifest itself:
Rest of the tests use Toslink so not impacted by the USB noise issue above.
I disconnected USB and used isolated Toslink input which remedied that:
Much cleaner. Ranking as a result land in two tiers:
For a portable device, these are excellent rankings. To give the benefit of doubt, from here on the test is using Toslink unless otherwise stated.
Output can go above 6 volts but it clips badly half way there:
Dynamic range is excellent if you let it to go max output:
IMD distortion is also best at full output and competitive at nominal 2 volt:
Linearity is a bit noisy and unstable:
Jitter is excellent over toslink and as expected, not so good with USB:
Fortunately even with USB jitter is inaudible at -120 dBSPL.
Filter response is super sharp as we expect from CHord designs:
I can't figure out what the cryptic explanation means for each filter. They certainly not reflected in the measured performance.
Good attenuation results in excellent THD+N vs frequency (wideband):
I had to run multitone over USB since Toslink won't go up to 192 kHz sampling:
Chord Hugo 2 Headphone Amplifier Measurement
Let's start with dynamic range 50 mv:
So just about average performance:
Careful with extra sensitive IEMs/headphones as you may experience hiss/noise.
Power is very respectable for a portable product (but no competition for desktop amps):
Output drive gracefully degrades:
Sorry, have not had time to listen to the unit but I expect it to sound excellent.
Conclusions
As a portable DAC+headphone amplifier, the Hugo 2 has superb performance. As a Desktop product, its USB noise sensitivity is disappointing but otherwise performance is very good. Mind you, desktop products at far, far lower costs run circles around it. So if that is your application, I highly suggest you look elsewhere.
As a portable product, I can highly recommend the Chord Hugo 2. For desktop, it is a pass for me especially at the astronomically high retail cost.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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