CHORD Mojo 2 Review (Portable DAC & HP Amp)

[srkbear]

It doesn't hurt anything to start with losslessly-encoded music even if you end up listening to it in a noisy environment when it would be impossible to hear any advantage from it. You made it sound as if somehow it wasn't even possible to listen to losslessly-encoded music on wireless headphones, which is of course not true. The fact is that most people choose to use wireless earbuds/headphones when they're on the go so the market share for people who ride the bus and use wired headphones connected to a wired DAC is very small by comparison. Obviously the people who read threads like this are not representative of the overall market for these types of products.

I said nothing of the sort. You’re evidently arguing with a member of your family of origin in some psychodrama here. All I said was that I disagreed that wired headphones and DACs were an insignificant market! Are you ok?!?

 

[kanefsky]

I said nothing of the sort. You’re evidently arguing with a member of your family of origin in some psychodrama here. All I said was that I disagreed that wired headphones and DACs were an insignificant market! Are you ok?!?

You said "Apple just went through an enormous expense to convert their entire music catalog, the largest in the industry, to lossless—a format that cannot be utilized on their platform without wired headphones." I don't know how else you can interpret that.

 

[srkbear]

You said "Apple just went through an enormous expense to convert their entire music catalog, the largest in the industry, to lossless—a format that cannot be utilized on their platform without wired headphones." I don't know how else you can interpret that.

OK—for us to resolve this I’m going to explain what I said, not what you made up from how I said it (apparently not very effectively), again. Please clear your mind of any biases or resentments towards me and just read it without any emotions on my part inferred.

The way of interpreting it that aligns with what I meant was that lossless formats, the DACs that will play them, and the headphones required to listen to them are desired by consumers enough for Apple to lose substantial money and work expenditures to convert their entire music catalog to such a format—often 192/24—even if their own headphones won’t play it. That is, they did this because there is major consumer—not audiophile—demand for it.

That suggests that your statement that suggests that wired/lossless audio has insignificant market influence and is expendable, is not consistent with the evidence.

To reemphasize—just in case—you suggested lossless/wired audio occupies a relatively insignificant portion of the consumer industry and is thus relatively expendable. I countered with evidence that wired/lossless audio has emerged over the last few years as a major player in the consumer markets and is being widely sought after and adopted by all major streaming services and platforms.

Thus, evidence suggests that lossless formats and hi res playback devices are anything BUT niche or insignificant in the consumer audio industry anymore, and as such, they matter. Note that I did not imply that they matter to me, nor did I share any opinion about what matters to me. Just the evidence of what appears to matter to consumers.

Can we now please put this ridiculously trivial argument to rest?

 

[kanefsky]

You're getting so many things wrong. The most significant thing is that this whole conversation is in regards to how people listen on the move. My original statement was "The market for people using wired DACs and headphones while literally on the move is very small so no big loss" [emphasis added]. So it has nothing to do with whether there's a large interest in lossless or so-called hi-res music in environments where it's possible you could actually hear the difference. I was talking about listening on the move because I said that I didn't think the Mojo 2 was the best choice for that use case. AudioSceptic said that would reduce its market even more and so I said I thought the market for people using wired headphones with a wired DAC while literally on the move was very small so it wouldn't affect Mojo 2's market in any significant way.

There's also the issue of whether hi-res and lossless are more of a marketing thing vs something that demonstrably improves the sound even under the best of conditions with the highest-end gear. It's indisputable that companies do things all the time more because of the marketing benefit than because of an actual benefit. It's all about increasing sales and profits.

Third, you claim that it's an enormous expense to convert the original (lossless) files that Apple gets from music publishers to a different codec. I can assure you this is not true, having worked for a company that does more conversions than that every single day (more than likely every single hour).

 

[srkbear]

You're getting so many things wrong. The most significant thing is that this whole conversation is in regards to how people listen on the move. My original statement was "The market for people using wired DACs and headphones while literally on the move is very small so no big loss" [emphasis added]. So it has nothing to do with whether there's a large interest in lossless or so-called hi-res music in environments where it's possible you could actually hear the difference. I was talking about listening on the move because I said that I didn't think the Mojo 2 was the best choice for that use case. AudioSceptic said that would reduce its market even more and so I said I thought the market for people using wired headphones with a wired DAC while literally on the move was very small so it wouldn't affect Mojo 2's market in any significant way.

There's also the issue of whether hi-res and lossless are more of a marketing thing vs something that demonstrably improves the sound even under the best of conditions with the highest-end gear. It's indisputable that companies do things all the time more because of the marketing benefit than because of an actual benefit. It's all about increasing sales and profits.

Third, you claim that it's an enormous expense to convert the original (lossless) files that Apple gets from music publishers to a different codec. I can assure you this is not true, having worked for a company that does more conversions than that every single day (more than likely every single hour).

I don’t know where the source is for your allegations. Apple has proprietary mastering protocols for their catalog, meaning they had to incur substantial additional licensing fees to produce new masters, and due to the sheer size of the conversion, the increases in storage space and bandwidth involved, they dipped into their 200 billion dollar nest egg to fund this effort, and it cost them billions.

I don’t know what I said to trigger you into this tangential battle, but this is the last thing I’ll say on the subject and I’m raising my white flag. It just isn’t important. No offense intended, and peace.

 

[kanefsky]

I don’t know where the source is for your allegations. Apple has proprietary mastering protocols for their catalog, meaning they had to incur substantial additional licensing fees to produce new masters, and due to the sheer size of the conversion, the increases in storage space and bandwidth involved, they dipped into their 200 billion dollar nest egg to fund this effort, and it cost them billions.

I don’t know what I said to trigger you into this tangential battle, but this is the last thing I’ll say on the subject and I’m raising my white flag. It just isn’t important. No offense intended, and peace.

Lossless encoding into whatever codec is a purely mechanical process that can be automated. They have some metadata (e.g. album art) and whatnot to go along with the music, but we're just talking about audio encoding and sound quality here. They are not literally remixing or remastering the music from the original multitrack recordings. If they did, then *that* would make a noticeable difference in sound quality versus the questionable difference between AAC and ALAC.

Also the storage space and bandwidth required for audio is downright trivial compared to video. I could fit every song I've ever owned encoded as lossless onto a memory card the size of my thumbnail, whereas with video it takes an entire array of the largest available hard drives to store a much smaller number of videos with lossy encoding.

 

[staticV3]

Topping, your move to develop a similar measuring product (batt powered portable DAC & HP amp) at a third of the price. Unless it already exists and I don't know.

https://www.tpdz.net/productinfo/394769.html
Released five years ago though, so not state of the art. Price is almost exactly 1/4

For more power, you could do NX7 plus Apple A2049 or Meizu HiFi

 

[srkbear]

Yes, I hear you!
We have reached the pinnacle of knowledge, there is nothing out there we don't know, our techniques are perfect.
All else is fantasy.

What are you going on about? Do you know who you’re arguing with here in @solderdude? He’s one of the leading gurus and technical experts on this site. You’d best sit tight and listen here.

He never said we’ve reached the “pinnacle of knowledge”, or that there’s nothing out there we don’t know. He’s saying that the “knowledge” you’re applying to your argument is anecdotal and rife with confounds. You’re also arguing for “knowledge” that makes no sense scientifically and has been disproven as cognitive bias a depressing number of times on this site and elsewhere.

You’re frankly embarrassing yourself with your misplaced cockiness here. I suggest you go reassess your definition of knowledge by reading up on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

What are you going on about? Do you know who you’re arguing with here in @solderdude? He’s one of the leading gurus and technical experts on this site. You’d best sit tight and listen here.

He never said we’ve reached the “pinnacle of knowledge”, or that there’s nothing out there we don’t know. He’s saying that the “knowledge” you’re applying to your argument is anecdotal and rife with confounds. You’re also arguing for “knowledge” that makes no sense scientifically and has been disproven as cognitive bias a depressing number of times on this site and elsewhere.

You’re frankly embarrassing yourself with your misplaced cockiness here. I suggest you go reassess your definition of knowledge by reading up on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

- I do know who solderdude is, we have had many exchanges in the past and on another forum for some time, I do respect him.
He is a knowledgeable engineer, and on technical issues I seek his advice.
- cockiness ? Pot calling kettle!
it is the norm for a lot of members here on ASR to ridicule , talk down to and outright dismiss another member experiences, because the graphs don't agree.
it is all in your head - placebo - powers of suggestion - are all excuses used by many in either side to justify their position.
Let's drop it for now.

 

[srkbear]

Just kidding with you, didn't mean any disrespect.


Expensive, high-end does not necessarily equate to good, so No, I have no Gryphon or Audio Notes (Naim sounds hard to me).
Nor do I have the Mojo one or two anymore! Mojo2 I sent back after a few weeks, as I realized I did not need it, Mojo one, after a few years got flogged off on eBay, again as I did not need it either.
The most expensive gear I have is a Hugo2, which I picked up on eBay under £1k,
BTW, from my name, you should have guessed that I do speak another language! English is not my first language either, but there are such things as spell and grammar checks .
Be good and good night, it is my bedtime (I am as old as my avatar).

Hopefully you’re not too old to learn, as you’ve acquired a mother lode of bad information at an age when one hopes for wisdom. We see a new round of folks like you cropping up here routinely attempting to educate us on what they perceive as groundbreaking information, that unbeknownst to them is simply naive cognitive error.

We do our best to be patient as we offer them remedial redirection and a pathway to understanding how to approach these questions with scientific rigor. Your persistent officiousness has reached the stage where we’re growing impatient with the tedious condescension, but there’s still hope for you to redeem yourself if you loosen up your convictions and open your mind, as I did.

Because, some of the folks you are mistakenly viewing as simple fellow hobbyists are actually the minds in the industry behind creating the gear you’re professing to understand better than they do. The only thing at stake here besides your dignity is your wallet, I’m just sayin’…

 

[srkbear]

- I do know who solderdude is, we have had many exchanges in the past and on another forum for some time, I do respect him.
He is a knowledgeable engineer, and on technical issues I seek his advice.
- cockiness ? Pot calling kettle!
it is the norm for a lot of members here on ASR to ridicule , talk down to and outright dismiss another member experiences, because the graphs don't agree.
it is all in your head - placebo - powers of suggestion - are all excuses used by many in either side to justify their position.
Let's drop it for now.

Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. What you’re calling “technical issues” I suppose is in contrast to the “other factors” that you believe are beyond his grasp. Best of luck to you…

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Hopefully you’re not too old to learn, as you’ve acquired a mother lode of bad information at an age when one hopes for wisdom. We see a new round of folks like you cropping up here routinely attempting to educate us on what they perceive as groundbreaking information, that unbeknownst to them is simply naive cognitive error.
We do our best to be patient as we offer them remedial redirection and a pathway to understanding how to approach these questions with scientific rigor. Your persistent officiousness has reached the stage where we’re growing impatient with the tedious condescension, but there’s still hope for you to redeem yourself if you loosen up your convictions and open your mind, as I did.

ecause, some of the folks you are mistakenly viewing as simple fellow hobbyists are actually the minds in the industry behind creating the gear you’re professing to understand better than they do. The only thing at stake here besides your dignity is your wallet, I’m just sayin’…

See what I mean?
Cockiness!
I clicked ignore on your name just now, perhaps you could do the same for me.

 

[srkbear]

See what I mean?
Cockiness!
I clicked ignore on your name just now, perhaps you could do the same for me.

 

[srkbear]

https://www.tpdz.net/productinfo/394769.html
Released five years ago though, so not state of the art. Price is almost exactly 1/4

For more power, you could do NX7 plus Apple A2049 or Meizu HiFi

Good call! I don’t have measurements handy to confirm equivalent performance but I own the FiiO Q3 and the iFi xDSD Gryphon and they are two others in this category that sound pretty damn good to me as well, and they’re reasonably priced for what they offer in the way of features (I always enjoy a nice ASP bass boost). Wasn’t aware of this Topping unit.

 

[raif71]

https://www.tpdz.net/productinfo/394769.html
Released five years ago though, so not state of the art. Price is almost exactly 1/4

For more power, you could do NX7 plus Apple A2049 or Meizu HiFi

Measured and reviewed here in ASR

Review and Measurements of Topping NX4 DSD Dac and Portable Headphone Amplifier

This is a detailed review and measurements of the Topping NX4 DSD portable headphone amplifier and DAC. It is on a kind loan from a forum member and highly anticipated review. Retail price (shipped from China) on Amazon with free shipping is USD $160 as of this writing. The unit has internal...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[brandall10]

I don't like DAPs because they are bigger, heavier and have UI that I don't like. With a device like this, you can use your phone with its familiar interface and many choices and then get optimal output power to drive headphones.

To add, as a remote worker going on a decade now, I got a fair bit of mileage out of my gen 1 Mojo connected to my laptop using Roon w/ PEQ.

This update is a great option for desktop class DAC and near desktop class head-amp performance... with the marketing focus on its DSP capabilities it's such a shame it can't implement PEQ like the Qudelix 5k does at 1/7th the price.

 

[Peternz]

If the only use case you can imagine is plugging it into your phone, then I don't totally disagree with you (unless you have fancy headphones that need a powered amp). If you're plugging it into a high-end AV system where you need an optical input and your speaker amp weighs 50 lbs, then a cheap plastic dongle wouldn't work and wouldn't seem very appropriate even if it did.

In my opinion this does not make any sense either with any kind of high end stationary system. So, it makes no sense with a phone and makes no sense with a stationary system. I suppose the only scenario where this makes any sense is for lovers of eighties style toys with colored balls. You could save money and get this instead:

 

[Another Audiophile]

I don't like DAPs because they are bigger, heavier and have UI that I don't like. With a device like this, you can use your phone with its familiar interface and many choices and then get optimal output power to drive headphones.

I have both mojos and are both kind of useless as mobile devices connected to my mobile due to 3G and 4G interference. I have the poly and is golden as portable device controlling everything from my mobile. Without the poly the mojo is transportable and not really portable.

 

[srkbear]

I have both mojos and are both kind of useless as mobile devices connected to my mobile due to 3G and 4G interference. I have the poly and is golden as portable device controlling everything from my mobile. Without the poly the mojo is transportable and not really portable.

Are you talking about interference with the Poly? I don’t see why this device should have any problems using mobile devices as an input source. How would LTE interfere, and beyond that what audiophile buying a device this exorbitantly priced is using a 3G phone these days?

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I have both mojos and are both kind of useless as mobile devices connected to my mobile due to 3G and 4G interference. I have the poly and is golden as portable device controlling everything from my mobile. Without the poly the mojo is transportable and not really portable.

I hear you.
But there are many out there who do not have your kind of issues - perhaps when you change your phone, it would work for you.
Never had any issue with my Mojo(s) when I had them, and no issue with Hugo2 and my phone.
And it is a Chinese Huawei!
But I did use the Mojo with an LG and a Samsung.

This is my DIY cable:

It is about 3 foot long, has a ferrite core filter built into it, and that little "sugar cube" size box, is actually a USB hub and a 500GB storage, housed in a copper enclosure. The phone sees both Hugo2 and the external storage, where most of my music is.