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Chord Hugo, overrated or DAC of the century

The Qute HD is being sold off at 750 and it's a cracker.The 2Qute at a grand will be a belter. The switchable input is for me a big improvement also.
 
It seems to have gone up before anyone has any.:D

I think the Hugo is a wonderful DAC, so am sure the 2Qute will be bring a lot of pleasure to the people that don't want volume controls and headphone outputs. I shall be very interested in the TT when it appears.
 
Dear Rick @ Musicraft

thanks for your alternative views. Please keep it up. I didn't feel any Hardselling was involved. And nowadays, Iphones/Ipads/Macbooks are made in china. And so is the naim muso. I have no issue with made in China.

Best regards
Analogmusic
 
Haven't heard one yet

I have a Naim DAC V1, but all the hype on the internet tempted to go for Chord Hugo. Can't audition before purchase

what's the big deal about this dac???

As you say (never having heard it) it must be the most overrated DAC of the century.;)
 
Thecurrent flavour of the month seems to be dacs with the Sabre chip. Is it that superior that all others are not worth bothering with?
 
Yes, but all things being equal, is it the next best thing or just an alternative?

Just an alternative, if we're talking realistically.

Sabre is use in cheap and expensive designs, so I think every converter should be judged in the context of your system and required functionality.

Peter
 
I've heard a friend's Exasound E22 using the Sabre DACs but haven't done a head-to-head with my Hugo. Gonna do so tomorrow when (if) I get the E28.

My impressions are that the Sabres are super-duper clean and precise.

Its not what you would get with the Hugo.

The Hugo essentially tries to replicate an analog sound. It was interesting when I gave my impressions of how the Hugo made a poor analog recording sound pleasing to Rob Watts, the designer. He mentioned he mostly listens to Radio 3's mono recordings. And he basically tries to make a DAC that gives the most analog sound. Or musicality.

The Exasound is a bit analytical.

I think they are both good, but depends on material.

The Sabre looks to be the pinnacle of current DAC technology.

The Hugo takes a different approach. Its all about time discrimination. Its somewhat similiar to Meridian's take on pre-ringing although Rob will probably splutter if he knows I reference it as such!

The Hugo tries to fill in the temporal gaps in digitally sampled sound. The theory comes from the fact that human hearing has a time discrimination of 0.04ms (I may have gotten the units muddled up). While there's a lot of argument about audible frequency etc, Rob is looking at how closely spaced, or spread out a bunch of sounds need to be to sound natural.

44.1Khz I think is works out to be around 0.2ms. So while we may hear all the 20Hx to 20khz range, (there's some dispute to how ultrasonics and subsonics interact with our hearing of the "audible" bit), our ears can tell the gaps between the samples and perceive that as being unnatural.

The Hugo tries to fill in these gaps with its propietary algorithm to make sampled sound more natural. And it applies to all resolution.

And while high res stuff certainly has that temporal information, Rob was really trying to make 16/44 sound good.

Why? Because there's more music in 16/44.

At the end of the day, you may have great kit. But its got to play stuff you enjoy.
 
Chord Hugo, overrated or DAC of the century?
With quite a few years left in this century I would suggest overrated rather than DAC of the century.
 
At the end of the day, you may have great kit. But its got to play stuff you enjoy.

And that's the key point.

Ultimately, it's about the music and your enjoyment, which is one of the reasons the NOS converters are winning such acclaim.

Peter
 
Chord Hugo, overrated or DAC of the century?
With quite a few years left in this century I would suggest overrated rather than DAC of the century.

Well, I consider the Hugo to be an outstanding product tbh.

Ok, I'd rather own a DAD AX24/32, but I do have a soft spot for this Danish design and its tuneful sound.

Peter
 
"The new DAC also gains a handy switch to easily move between coax, optical and USB digital inputs."

Anyone got a real-world view why DACs (and stuff) costing about £1,000 ever have 1) so few inputs and 2) compromised auto-switching (yawn, using a 'strict hierarchy')

1970s tellies had the right number of buttons. Linn Kolektor pre-amp (albeit mince sounding) had IIRC 10 analogue inputs. So why on earth would a DAC in the digital age have ONE optical, ONE coax, ONE USB? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
 
"The new DAC also gains a handy switch to easily move between coax, optical and USB digital inputs."

Anyone got a real-world view why DACs (and stuff) costing about £1,000 ever have 1) so few inputs and 2) compromised auto-switching (yawn, using a 'strict hierarchy')

1970s tellies had the right number of buttons. Linn Kolektor pre-amp (albeit mince sounding) had IIRC 10 analogue inputs. So why on earth would a DAC in the digital age have ONE optical, ONE coax, ONE USB? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Naim CD drawer and puck. I quite like it tbh.

Peter
 
Its like women's clothing. You pay more for less!

The development of audio is interesting. Simplicity of circuitry reduces noise to the signal. In audio, its all about the transients. So less is more.

But if components are spaced too far apart, the signal path runs the risk of corruption by external EM as well as loss from the transmission medium.

Goes back to the CDP with external DAC using SPDIF, vs onboard DAC which uses I2S argument.

At around £1k, I think designers are stuck with either improving audio quality substantially over £500 DACs, or throw in loads of functionality and compromise on SQ.
 
For what its worth here are my thoughts on the Hugo. I have been using a Metrum Octave NOS DAC and Audio Note Signature DAC before that. I have also demoed quite a few DACs in recent months from the likes of Wadia Metrum Hex Jolida. The Metrum and AN Dacs were both NOS designs and since its those and particularly the Metrum that I am most familiar with and still own its that to which I have compared it. I loved the sound these NOS DACs provided very natural, open with a large sound stage and great Dynamics.

On first listening to the Hugo in my system i was underwhelmed. It didn't seem to be natural like the Metrum perhaps a little sharp and digital like in the upper frequency. It took a few discs to get used to the sound and when the penny dropped it was wow!

The HUGO is excellent it has way more resolution than the Metrum.Its far more focused around instruments and voices. Its has more tonal color to those elements than the Metrum. Its easier to follow individual instruments and there is a lot of information present that was previously masked and none appears to have been lost. Its far more how i recall music sounding in the Studio when i was regularly at Sonys Whitfield Street studios in the 90s and 2000s. Its well balanced form top to bottom the lower registers being particularly more defined and truthful than the Metrum. There is a pace to notes and overall musical flow that the Metrum does not match. Transients are excellent Timing again excellent Its more focused with no kind or romantic haze or smear to the sound but its by no means clinical or unmusical in fact quite the opposite.It perhaps looses out to the Metrum in terms of Dynamics but its close. Sound stage is is similar but i find it more layered and stable with the Hugo.

Let me put this in perspective the Metrum is and excellent DAC and the Hugo a good few hundred quid higher priced but the extra does seem to be more than worth it. Its early days and i will need to live with the Hugo a good while longer to ultimately rate it but i do consider it to be a landmark product. I bought it for Headphone use and it is excellent for that, driving my HiFi Man HE560s very well. The fact that it can equal or surpass other desktop DACs that I have listened to in a similar or higher price range is a testament to its designers ingenuity.
 


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