CHORD M-Scaler Review (Upsampler)

[aj625]

This product is certainly not crap. It should be measured with Dave or tt2 or even qutest/mojo 2 at 16x upsampling to get that brick wall filter attenuation.

 

[goat76]

I think the designer should have only allowed operation at 16x following your take on it. He of course wanted to widen the pool of potential customers I think. I mean at $6 grand if the designer thinks 16x sounds better than 2x or 4x I see no reason to include those other than making it work with other devices at reduced effectiveness. And of course of the various possible combinations you decide Amir picked the only one that would show no benefit. For $6k benefits should be available all the time.

I also don't mind saying, I don't think you heard any difference that would stand up to the slightest scrutiny. It was all uncontrolled listening I'm guessing.

Don't you think Amir could have at least tried the M Scaler with the 16x setting vs no M Scaler in the chain for his listening test? That could have been done with an external switch, and even if it was an obvious delay time he should at least be able to hear if it was a significant change in the sound by having the M Scaler (with the highest setting) in the system. If he liked the change he could do further investigations on why that is.

Without clear and significant changes to the sound for the better, I see no point in buying this expensive hardware.

 

[spooky]

I think the designer should have only allowed operation at 16x following your take on it. He of course wanted to widen the pool of potential customers I think. I mean at $6 grand if the designer thinks 16x sounds better than 2x or 4x I see no reason to include those other than making it work with other devices at reduced effectiveness. And of course of the various possible combinations you decide Amir picked the only one that would show no benefit. For $6k benefits should be available all the time.

I also don't mind saying, I don't think you heard any difference that would stand up to the slightest scrutiny. It was all uncontrolled listening I'm guessing.

There's no point in debating whether my subjective experience is anything other than subjective - that's self-evident.

I did not 'decide that Amir picked the only one that would show no benefit' - that's a rather defensive comment. I simply asked why the testing was limited to 2x upsampling into, if I recall correctly, a Topping DAC. I don't think it's an unreasonable question. Amir has answered it but I don't agree with his reasoning (not that it matters whether I agree or not).

I think we must be about done.

 

[Veri]

This product is certainly not crap. It should be measured with Dave or tt2 or even qutest/mojo 2 at 16x upsampling to get that brick wall filter attenuation.

There is another measurement/review here. Summary: very poor jitter performance. Filtering-wise; compared to the default Mojo2 filter

CHORD Mojo 2 Review (Portable DAC & HP Amp)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the CHORD Mojo 2 portable, battery operated stereo DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $799. The Mojo 2 is solidly built. While I am definitely not a fan of multi-color interface, the buttons feel better in...

www.audiosciencereview.com

there's no way one could think there is reason for investing on the m-scaler, it won't make the already sharp filter realistically any better.

 

[JSmith]

The tone of your response

... is that you Rob?

That is, you will hear better depth and detail resolution, unless you are deaf, or not blessed with good hearing, or not interested in the SQ and musical performance, in which case why on earth would you be interested in an expensive up-sampler?

Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

Well..we can have a normal discussion over the measurements from Amir, can't we? You can try to have it on the ASR site itself and see how it goes..

www.head-fi.org

I'm interested to know if there are any blind test results at all that show this marked depth and detail can be easily heard? I also wonder why this product is so expensive... considering what is inside.


JSmith

 

[spooky]

For the life of me,why do people who spend money on a product,refuse to believe that it could be crap and then waste everyone's time defending their/its honor like some kinda medieval death match.Face it dude,this product blows,you got burned.Take it as a learning experience and move on.

Why do people who haven't spent money on it refuse to believe it makes any difference. You state that the product 'blows' without having tried it simply based on Amir's review. That's not much different to someone buying something based on one review.

Keep in mind that my results with it were mixed, dependant on the DAC used. I'm not convinced of the benefit with my Dave but I certainly was convinced with my previous TT2.

Anyway, there's no sense in continuing the discussion as I have the answer to my question (albeit after some personal/aggressive comments from some members).

 

[Deleted member 19122]

This product is certainly not crap. It should be measured with Dave or tt2 or even qutest/mojo 2 at 16x upsampling to get that brick wall filter attenuation.

Again....here is the only actual tested proof that it doesn't do anything,But feel free to believe that it does.I'm sure that Chord will provide you with their own scientific measurements that it does something.Why don't you ask them and post back here at ASR what you find.

 

[spooky]

... is that you Rob?

Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

Well..we can have a normal discussion over the measurements from Amir, can't we? You can try to have it on the ASR site itself and see how it goes..

www.head-fi.org

I'm interested to know if there are any blind test results at all that show this marked depth and detail can be easily heard? I also wonder why this product is so expensive... considering what is inside.


JSmith

Funny.
You know the answer to that question - there aren't any blind tests for anything. Cost of products isn't a direct relation to component parts - there's development time and costs and market size to account for in order to provide the required return on investment. I'm sure you know this.

 

[solderdude]

1: Chord owners believe in Chord and hold whatever Rob W. says dear. Because of this products are defended and expected to do as advertised.
2: When you fork out many $ (even if it is a relative small amount of one's budget) you really want this to work and so... it does to owners I am sure.
3: People buying Chord have enough disposable income and are free to spend it anyway they want, we are not to judge or tell them they can do better for less money. They usually don't have to budget their audio purchases and don't care about VFM only about 'quality' products.
4: They rely on manufacturers to do their work properly when paying top $ and could care less how it measures. It is ensured to measure good enough.
5: When people are happy with their M-scaler even if they don't need it or it brings no real (provable in blind tests) technical advantages/improvements they should do so.

Most likely the performance of Chord DACs won't diminish SQ and so this device is not harmful to the sound, equally so with uber expensive cables, risers, chakra stones and whatnot. It can be seen as money grabbing but it is an industry based on profits with rather small amounts of sales compared to other brands.

A 1 or 2dB difference in S/N ratio is not an audible concern, the filter is steep enough, delay does not matter for music enjoyment, the small increase in jitter is not audible either.
The only thing that Amir found and was not found by others is the strange behavior but that measurement is suspect (harmonics not being harmonics in the D70 measurement for which it is not intended but arguably should work properly.

I nor anyone else don't have to buy one and it obviously is very low VFM. So are expensive cables, power conditioning and most 'tweaks'.

A lot of fuss about nothing. If it were my review I would look a bit further and do some nulling at 16x using Chord DACs and redo the other brand DAC measurements perhaps.

 

[spooky]

Again....here is the only actual tested proof that it doesn't do anything,But feel free to believe that it does.I'm sure that Chord will provide you with their own scientific measurements that it does something.Why don't you ask them and post back here at ASR what you find.

In the interests of accuracy, this is not the only test with measurements - Stereophile did this ages ago, although I'm sure that will be dismissed - and this listening test was rather limited.

 

[BDWoody]

Why do people who haven't spent money on it refuse to believe it makes any difference.

Because there is zero evidence that it does. Why is that so hard? Claims aren't evidence.

You know the answer to that question - there aren't any blind tests for anything.

And, what does that tell you?

Anyway, there's no sense in continuing the discussion as I have the answer to my question

Good choice.

 

[voodooless]

we are not to judge or tell them they can do better for less money.

We are, and we will. Deal with it

 

[Veri]

A lot of fuss about nothing. If it were my review I would look a bit further and do some nulling at 16x using Chord DACs and redo the other brand DAC measurements perhaps.

You didn't miss the bit in the review where amirm tried to do just that, right?

FYI I could not run a null test with DeltaWave as there is too much clock drift and clips are not lined up. The difference shown was the same as two consecutive captures without changing anything.

 

[Blumlein 88]

In the interests of accuracy, this is not the only test with measurements - Stereophile did this ages ago, although I'm sure that will be dismissed - and this listening test was rather limited.

They didn't measure as many things about this device as Amir did. And I don't see anything that is different in what is common. The noise floor and shape of the filters is relatively the same being about 12 db in the ultrasonic noise floor. The difference is JA shows the noise at -40 db and Amir pegs it at 0 db. They only used it with the Dave.

 

[Blumlein 88]

You didn't miss the bit in the review where amirm tried to do just that, right?

FYI I could not run a null test with DeltaWave as there is too much clock drift and clips are not lined up. The difference shown was the same as two consecutive captures without changing anything.

That might have been overcome with longer test files. One of a couple minutes is about optimum for Deltawave. You get below 60 seconds and it doesn't have enough info to work as well.

 

[solderdude]

You didn't miss the bit in the review where amirm tried to do just that, right?

FYI I could not run a null test with DeltaWave as there is too much clock drift and clips are not lined up. The difference shown was the same as two consecutive captures without changing anything.

Yes, but was this with Chord DAC or Topping... The Topping measurements are clearly wrong as the harmonics aren't harmonics. Something was up.
Requires re-testing in my p.o.v.

 

[Blumlein 88]

A 1 or 2dB difference in S/N ratio is not an audible concern, the filter is steep enough, delay does not matter for music enjoyment, the small increase in jitter is not audible either.
The only thing that Amir found and was not found by others is the strange behavior but that measurement is suspect (harmonics not being harmonics in the D70 measurement for which it is not intended but arguably should work properly.

I nor anyone else don't have to buy one and it obviously is very low VFM. So are expensive cables, power conditioning and most 'tweaks'.

A lot of fuss about nothing. If it were my review I would look a bit further and do some nulling at 16x using Chord DACs and redo the other brand DAC measurements perhaps.

Yes, I'd like to see the D70 measured again considering that strange result.

I can live and let live, but maybe not as much as you suggest here. Not that it is a bad idea, I just know the constant retort of you have lousy gear, you cannot hear, you've never heard good gear, and you don't enjoy music gets tiring and is much more untrue than complaints I have going the other way. Uncontrolled listening without level matching, and not done contemporaneously. All of which are simply very poor methods which should not be given much credence at all. Yet are posited as the gold standard instead which trumps all other methods.

 

[Deleted member 19122]

In the interests of accuracy, this is not the only test with measurements - Stereophile did this ages ago, although I'm sure that will be dismissed - and this listening test was rather limited.

I just checked.you have 135 posts here at ASR since you joined.Every single one is attacking the various Chord product measurements.You have posted zip,zero,zilch, NADA about anything else.I'm guessing you are an employee/associate of Chord.And if not just go and enjoy your Chord that does absolutely nothing to your audio .Like I said show me controlled/double blind tests where the product actually make an audible difference! But you can't and you won't and the company sure can't.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Why do people who haven't spent money on it refuse to believe it makes any difference. You state that the product 'blows' without having tried it simply based on Amir's review. That's not much different to someone buying something based on one review.

Keep in mind that my results with it were mixed, dependant on the DAC used. I'm not convinced of the benefit with my Dave but I certainly was convinced with my previous TT2.

Anyway, there's no sense in continuing the discussion as I have the answer to my question (albeit after some personal/aggressive comments from some members).

Why would I spent 6k on a product which proofingly does nothing and where any proof to the opposite (ABX) is vehemently rejected by the manufacturer and the owners of the product to convince me otherwise. So no thanks.

 

[solderdude]

Yes, I'd like to see the D70 measured again considering that strange result.

I can live and let live, but maybe not as much as you suggest here. Not that it is a bad idea, I just know the constant retort of you have lousy gear, you cannot hear, you've never heard good gear, and you don't enjoy music gets tiring and is much more untrue than complaints I have going the other way. Uncontrolled listening without level matching, and not done contemporaneously. All of which are simply very poor methods which should not be given much credence at all. Yet are posited as the gold standard instead which trumps all other methods.

I agree on the 'dismissive' post and 'you have lousy ears/gears' thing.
That I am afraid will never stop though. All one can do is reply to that aspect.
They will never test truly blind and under proper conditions because they don't care, secretly don't want to know and trust their hearing and gurus over some plots they do not even remotely understand (and thus dismiss).
Never ending story and no amount of scientific evidence is ever going to change this... alas.

After being so many decades in audio I have given up on those characters. I just tell them to do some proper blind testing to convince themselves.

On the other hand when measurements are suspect they should be repeated (I don't care by whom).