CHORD Hugo TT2 Review (DAC & HP Amp)

[Garrincha]

I cant believe Chord are planning an Ultimate DAC which will cost even more than the DAVE.
If and when that product lands would be great to see it measured.

What makes me laugh is, if the difference with a Chord DAC is so obvious, Rob Watts could silence all this with a blind ABX test.
The fact that one has not been done or as far as I can tell planned shows that there is no night and day or even subtle differences that would allow Rob to tell the DAVE from equally level matched 3rd party DACs.

Kev

Unfortunately it is simply too "stressful" and "fatigueing". It would be such a great show, Rob Watts on stage, hundreds or thousands of audiophiles in the audience and he ABX-ing against all the other manufactures who are exclusively doing it wrong and coloring the sound, from Topping, SMSL over RME, Okto, Benchmark to dCS, Weiss, MSB, Nagra, EMM Labs and the like.

 

[Music1969]

Ditto for when he says what we are doing here is useless, not real measurements, etc.

For years he complained that people don't have the proper measuring gear - his APx555

When GoldenSound and Amir both show similar APx555 measurements of Chord Dave, he then resorts to 'they don't know what they're doing' type comments

He probably makes a lot of money from these DACs. Defending his products is probably defending his bank account !

 

[Arnas]

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?

Youre blind fanboy! You waste money on overpriced dac ofc you gonna praise it.
If you want luxury then compare this dac against Matrix x sabre 3 and it will look like an absolute joke.
For 2k or maybe 3k people would be less judgment, but when you price this ugly box this high with cheap parts im sure this attracts attention.

 

[Music1969]

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:

When people have pointed Rob to software doing millions of taps, his reply is "but it is not the WTA filter algorithm".

So he's trying to say taps alone is not enough - it must be his WTA filter to really have transients properly reproduced LOL

Hugo TT 2 by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

I understand this sentiment completely. If it wasn't for Covid lockdown still in my area I would probably revert to my DAP, iem and a few good tunes. I can totally relate to that! Mine is covered with dust:gs1000smile:.

www.head-fi.org

Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

The same thing happened to my friend who owns an Ether Regen, he purchased a heat sink and it resolved all his dropout issues. eivvia 100×100×18 1pcs Control System Components Aluminum Alloy Profile Heat Sink/Multimedia Equipment Aluminum Heat Sink https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JJCNYQ3/ Hmm...

www.head-fi.org

 

[pkane]

When people have pointed Rob to software doing millions of taps, his reply is "but it is not the WTA filter algorithm".

So he's trying to say taps alone is not enough - it must be his WTA filter to really have transients properly reproduced LOL

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Hugo TT 2 by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

I understand this sentiment completely. If it wasn't for Covid lockdown still in my area I would probably revert to my DAP, iem and a few good tunes. I can totally relate to that! Mine is covered with dust:gs1000smile:.

www.head-fi.org

Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

The same thing happened to my friend who owns an Ether Regen, he purchased a heat sink and it resolved all his dropout issues. eivvia 100×100×18 1pcs Control System Components Aluminum Alloy Profile Heat Sink/Multimedia Equipment Aluminum Heat Sink https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JJCNYQ3/ Hmm...

www.head-fi.org

In the above, RW is saying it's not the number of taps, but it's the number of taps in Whittaker-Shannon. OK, great. Whittaker-Shannon showed that Sinc is a perfect reconstruction filter. Sinc is a brickwall, linear phase filter, which is the same as linear phase, low-pass FIR filter, just of a limited length. My demonstration showed that a 16k linear phase FIR is not going to produce any audible artifacts when reproducing orchestral music compared to a 4M one, so there's no need for WTA or PGGB-style filters if you can do the same with much less.

I'm not even going to touch the "we don't know what level of transient uncertainty the brain needs", since that's not an argument for doing anything but charging more money for something that nobody understands or needs.

 

[the_brunx]

Rob, please return people‘s money.
and stop designing stories to sell people overpriced gimmicks.

 

[Robbo99999]

I cant believe Chord are planning an Ultimate DAC which will cost even more than the DAVE.
If and when that product lands would be great to see it measured.

What makes me laugh is, if the difference with a Chord DAC is so obvious, Rob Watts could silence all this with a blind ABX test.
The fact that one has not been done or as far as I can tell planned shows that there is no night and day or even subtle differences that would allow Rob to tell the DAVE from equally level matched 3rd party DACs.

Kev

They might give it one last go, but I can't really see such companies existing years into the future if they take the same tack. I just think sites like ASR have become too prevalent and majority of people are gonna be understanding the logic of ASR once they've found it. (I'm still not a fan of the obvious bashing that is going on in this thread, but I can't stop it.)

 

[Garrincha]

It remindes me a bit of a controversy about table water in the UK some years ago. DACs are a commodity kind of as widespread and cheap as tap (!!) water. The Coca Cola company were selling their bottled water "Dasani" with the advertising line that it is purer, cleaner and healthier than tap water. Luckily the local water providers stepped in, claiming rightly that they provide cleaned, filtered water, which is scientifically tested and does not contain any toxic components anymore. Furthermore it was discovered that Dasani is from the same source as normal tap water. Additionally too large amounts of bromate were detected in it. Caught in the act, the Coca Cola company withdrew their "clean" water from the market.

 

[SuicideSquid]

They might give it one last go, but I can't really see such companies existing years into the future if they take the same tack. I just think sites like ASR have become too prevalent and majority of people are gonna be understanding the logic of ASR once they've found it. (I'm still not a fan of the obvious bashing that is going on in this thread, but I can't stop it.)

When you're charging 20x what a product is worth, you don't need to convince the majority, you just need to convince a handful.

 

[amirm]

I think this attitude to ridicule other people only polarizes, most likely chase away undecided audiophiles and enforces group think.

The person ridiculed was me at his hands. So your concern should be addressed to him if genuine. Our comments are directed at the technical claims and value of the product.

 

[Robbo99999]

When you're charging 20x what a product is worth, you don't need to convince the majority, you just need to convince a handful.

Ha, well that's true that if the markup is large enough then yes they don't need to sell a massive number of units. We'll have to see what Chord offers in the future and what kind of tack they take.

 

[amirm]

I cant believe Chord are planning an Ultimate DAC which will cost even more than the DAVE.
If and when that product lands would be great to see it measured.

What makes me laugh is, if the difference with a Chord DAC is so obvious, Rob Watts could silence all this with a blind ABX test.
The fact that one has not been done or as far as I can tell planned shows that there is no night and day or even subtle differences that would allow Rob to tell the DAVE from equally level matched 3rd party DACs.

Kev

I asked Rob at one of his talks if his tests are blind. He said no and that blind tests are no good because they are stressful.

 

[amirm]

I suspect that less than 5% of their customers even know about forums such as this.

I don't think this is the case. Chord would not buy sponsorship on headfi if that were the case. Furthermore they have no presence in high end audio market where products are bought the way you say. These dacs are too small and too cheap to have status in luxury audio market.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I don't think this is the case. Chord would not buy sponsorship on headfi if that were the case. Furthermore they have no presence in high end audio market where products are bought the way you say. These dacs are too small and too cheap to have status in luxury audio market.

Head-Fi.org Sponsors

www.head-fi.org

I don't see their name on the sponsor list, am I missing something?

 

[SuicideSquid]

I asked Rob at one of his talks if his tests are blind. He said no and that blind tests are no good because they are stressful.

They're only stressful if you have a vested interest in the outcome and suspect you're going to fail...

 

[Lukino]

So Rob openly admits that his products are hard to tell from the classic properly engineered ones. If you want to recognize his products, you must not have stress, a closed window, the right temperature and drawn curtains, etc. He is like a liar who denies and denies. For the company's profit to grow. He will continue to use this status. The desire of people is that they want to have something more. More 3D, nuances, etc. He promises them that. The only option is to buy it and enjoy his dream.

 

[voodooless]

I asked Rob at one of his talks if his tests are blind. He said no and that blind tests are no good because they are stressful.

Isn’t that what interns are for? They were bred to be stressed out all day without personal consequence (personal, as in the one bossing then around)

 

[Phorize]

I think we should lay off the personal attacks against the designers of these or any audio gear. I've never really looked at Head-Fi, but I was reading in their forum just now after one of you dropped a link to them....it's true it doesn't look good if we abuse the product designers personally.

Yep I agree with you, IMO this is happening too often and it's:

a) not nice (imagine someone you cared about being called a crook online for talking about objectively baseless but probably sincerely held views on dac design audibility) and,

b) highly counter productive; what a gift it must be to someone who wants to dismiss rational criticism to be able to point at a post personally attacking Rob Watts and say 'they are medievals with measurements'.

 

[TabCam]

The person ridiculed was me at his hands. So your concern should be addressed to him if genuine. Our comments are directed at the technical claims and value of the product.

You're right to say it applies both ways. I do not see Rob Watts here and he has been already told so on head-fi.com. There are however far more than technical comments about the Chord products. Take this comment.

Rob, please return people‘s money.
and stop designing stories to sell people overpriced gimmicks.

The comment, if it is valid, should be directed at Chord Electronicas. And is it a gimmick? Most are technically proficient enough and have a high polarizing design.

And you only answer one aspect of the post. In Dutch there is a proverb that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Do you think more people will be persuaded with the vinegar as present on this forum? It is a rhetorical question and I won't pursue the topic any further as I have hope I made the issue clear enough.

 

[Robbo99999]

Yep I agree with you, IMO this is happening too often and it's:

a) not nice (imagine someone you cared about being called a crook online for talking about their unevidenced but probably sincerely held views on dac performance) and;

b) highly counter productive; what a gift it must be to someone who wants to dismiss rational criticism to be able to point at a post personally attacking Rob Watts and say 'they are medievals with measurements'.

I agree, yes, apart from the "unevidenced" part in your point (a), but yeah, I agree with what you're saying there.

EDIT: I misread your post, I know what you mean by "unevidenced", I agree - for some reason I had thought you meant "unevidenced" that he was wrong about his views.