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Review and Measurements of Chord Mojo DAC and Amp
- Thread starter amirm
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- Oct 25, 2019
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Why not objectively too? Is this shorthand for eyes open, uncontrolled listening?
No controls, no blind tests, sorry, don't have that level of commitment at the moment. The differences are pretty clear and consistent to me; you'll draw your own conclusions I'm sure. May try to talk to Rob Watts about how he tunes the various filters and convertors on his products and what makes the difference. BTW I fed it from a PC initially but I tried the optical from a good CD transport and it sounds best to me, really very good indeed.
Sorry if that is inconclusive for you.
Sorry if that is inconclusive for you.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Or level matching...
That's egregiously careless. I'm not putting anything from them in my system.
I find it amazing that two different DACs with ruler flat frequency responses and inaudible channel separation at all frequencies, with ever diminishing distortion levels, can sound so different subjectively! We all have experienced that, "better or worse" is a personal judgement, I just call them different sounding.
Does this mean our ears are better than lab equipments we measure equipments with? or are we measuring everything that matters? or correctly!
An objective lab test is a must to reveal design or manufacturing flaws, but are objective tests the final word in an audio equipment?
Going back to Mojo , from tests done by various outlets, we know it has ruler flat FR and excellent channel separation, yet compared to Mojo2, the stereo image is lacking! and bass definition is better on Mojo2 - over all Mojo2 sounds noticeably brighter that Mojo.
According to Mr. Watts those attributes have nothing to do with increased number of taps in Mojo2 but are attributable to a simple signal capacitor omission on Mojo2 and better internal power supply arrangement.
Whatever is said about Chord, Mr. Watts, their equipment and school-yard ridicules made here on ASR, their equipments (despite the high price) have been proven by test of time. One needs to take a look at eBay to see how fast and for how much their used equipments fly out, as proof.
If it is just a hoax, cleverly spread by Mr. Watts about his designs, you gotta hand it to the man, it has been a successful one.
P.S. Yes they should have addressed the USB input chip issue and the white noise blast, and they didn't - they also made other errors IMHO, so perfect? they are not, but good enough to be almost peerless.
Does this mean our ears are better than lab equipments we measure equipments with? or are we measuring everything that matters? or correctly!
An objective lab test is a must to reveal design or manufacturing flaws, but are objective tests the final word in an audio equipment?
Going back to Mojo , from tests done by various outlets, we know it has ruler flat FR and excellent channel separation, yet compared to Mojo2, the stereo image is lacking! and bass definition is better on Mojo2 - over all Mojo2 sounds noticeably brighter that Mojo.
According to Mr. Watts those attributes have nothing to do with increased number of taps in Mojo2 but are attributable to a simple signal capacitor omission on Mojo2 and better internal power supply arrangement.
Whatever is said about Chord, Mr. Watts, their equipment and school-yard ridicules made here on ASR, their equipments (despite the high price) have been proven by test of time. One needs to take a look at eBay to see how fast and for how much their used equipments fly out, as proof.
If it is just a hoax, cleverly spread by Mr. Watts about his designs, you gotta hand it to the man, it has been a successful one.
P.S. Yes they should have addressed the USB input chip issue and the white noise blast, and they didn't - they also made other errors IMHO, so perfect? they are not, but good enough to be almost peerless.
How and where has what you claim here been established? As for "standing the test of time", I don't consider that necessarily indicative of audible improvements, for many reasons laid out here:
How can bogus claims and inferior audio thrive in a competitive market?
I keep running into the same addlepated thought, here and in other forums. It goes something like this: Market success is the clearest indication of value. Expensive cables must sound better, or people wouldn't pay for them; exotic amplifiers must be better or they wouldn't survive. Even...
www.audiosciencereview.com
There has been no "school-yard ridicule" here, rather persistent calls for controlled tests and an objection (mine) to a lack of quality control that jeopardizes my other investments. "My friends and some reviewers heard it (across unknown time, volume, biases and rooms) so it must be so" strikes me as much more of a school-yard boast than "have you tested this in a controlled fashion?".
I will not get into a back-and -forth arguments on this.
"Test of time" in this case means, there are plenty of people willing to pay between 50/60 percent of the new price for DACs that are over 5 year old in design.
I suppose they are all stupid or under some kind of spell! They should all save their money and buy a new Topping.
I sold my Mojo with a new $20 Aliexpress battery (declared) on eBay for £225 (new £400), I now miss it, trying to buy one cheap with a bad battery for less than £180 is nigh impossible! Hugo2 goes consistently at over £1100 (new £1800).
Finding a Hugo TT2 for less than £2.5K has been impossible, I am still looking.
That is test of time.
Audible improvement is a subjective issue.
Which replacement battery did you buy? Link? TIA!
Yep; level matched using the mojo volume control.
People have believed, and continue to spend money on, wild things for thousands of years. That doesn't make them true.
As I described in the link he didn't click. So neither up for "back and forth" nor something more substantive.
Well, maybe not accusing people of schoolyard taunts would help with that.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #434
I bet if Chord had called the new unit "Mojo Lite," and price it lower, many would say the opposite! This is why any such testing needs to be blind so that the listener is not biased by model number, etc. Level match and do the test blind. Not hard.
One of many on this very thread.
And another?
First of all, Respect!
Cheaper? Compared to what?
In real terms, allowing for inflation, Mojo2 is cheaper than Mojo classic, the EQ, desktop mode and fast charge are improvements on original at a lower overall price, forget about sound quality.
The number 2 as you know, is just to say it came afterwards, I hear no such comments when a manufacturer calls a device as |Ultra, XS or other such things, meaning better.
Apart from a simple separation test, what other lab test is indicative of how a DAC sound stage would be? any?
What test is there to predict flat sounding or "not dynamic" (in a DAC), I believe you have used those terms in the past.
I am not here to sound Chord's bells, what I am saying in general is that, lab tests are a must, but results alone can not determine the final sound of any audio equipment.
Bad lab results can!
Good lab results are the first steps, which luckily Chord Dacs have always passed.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #436
Compared to original Mojo. And we are only talking about sound quality which you commented on. It is simple marketing to make people think something is better by calling it "V2." And that calling it "lite" would mean it is less so. You agree with this?
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Extremely unlikely. It's far more reasonable to assume that the culprit is our brain's ability to fabricate the things we expect to hear.
Level matching is also often completely ignored, and when it's actually considered, it's mostly done by ear, which is a highly unreliable.
Another thing people never check is whether there's clipping in the signal chains or not, or whether stupid design choices for input/output impedance causes audible deviations in the frequency response.
Using your ears as the indicator?
I believed I addressed that already, despite Mojo2 having more facilities compared to older brother, in real terms, considering 7 years of inflation,Mojo2 is cheaper than original.
I do and I don't! if it was called Super or SX or some thing similar , then yes, but a simple 2 could mean revision or firmware update or something not meaning better, so it is not a marketing ploy in this case.
Compared to Mojo classic, Mojo2 has:
- selectable crossfeed levels
- selectable filters
- Desktop mode (after a period of time , it runs on USB power only)
- selectable 4 band Hardware tone-controls (1dB increments upto +/- 9dB)
- extra USB-C input
- Mute function
- Fast charge/ standard charge
- slightly better battery performance
- I believe it also has twin coax input to match mScaler.
Lets not get into possible sound quality issues as yet, the above alone is reason enough to use (British conservative!) a simple 2 designation.
Lite? it is certainly not.
don't you agree?
Unfortunately the USB input sensitivity to packet loss and resultant white-noise blast was not addressed (Watts says he did not design the USB input nor wrote the firmware for it, someone else at Chord).
Regarding sound quality, as yet I have not found any lab test results for Mojo2 (Hint hint Amir), so anything I say is subjective.
Add to that I had a Mojo2 and a Mojo classic for only two weeks to compare side by side (I returned Mojo2 and sold off my Mojo).
Enough to say the sound quality difference is not day and night, but noticeable. To me, there were two distinct changes:
- Mojo2 sounds more open and expansive
- Bass definition is better
According to Mr. Watts, neither of the two has anything to do with taps or the DAC section! better stereo he puts down to better power supply regulation and separation, Bass def. to omitting the capacitor coupling between the DAC and the analogue section. So it is purely an analogue thing we can all understand, and possibly showing up in a future lab test (hint hint again).
Last edited:
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It came in a blue shrink wrap (so it didn't look like the picture), it charged perfectly and I got 6+ hours out of it per charge, using USB (uses most power) , feeding my Hifiman Edition XS headphones, inefficient at 18 ohm impedance, I used it for few months without drop in performance.
I am sure one would get better battery performance feeding an efficient IEM of 30+ ohms, possibly using coax or Toslink.
I experienced similar finding on Topping vs Mojo. I only use the Dacs at line level in my system, The portable thing is dead and over with great sounding smartphones. I removed the battery on the Mojo permanently. When I turn it on it does not remenber the volume setting , nearly killed my speakers. I hate the looks of it with those stupid colored marbles, but you know what ? It sound better than any of my 4 Toppings way better actualy.
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