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Chord Hugo M Scaler with Qutest DAC.

The layers would need to be mastered exactly the same, at exactly the same levels, for a fair comparison of the formats. On the occasions I've checked, this hasn't been the case.
 
For remasters of older recordings it's a jungle, but for new material the hi-res PCM download is IME usually the same as the CD except not down-sampled to 16/44, and so no bad thing IMV.
 
Having recently learned to rip SACDs, and previously ripped my modest DVD-A collection, it does seem that the former rips do have a nicer, dare I say more analogue, sound. Doing a comparison between rips of the CD and SACD layers of the same disks I was quite taken aback by how much better the latter sounded.
Yes, that was the big surprise for me with SACD- not that it delivered more information- but that it sounded more analogue as you say. It just sounded ( and still does) more relaxed and natural to me. Tonal colours and timbre come through better too. Recordings are also a hell of a lot better than they were back in the 80s, with a lot of red book recordings a mile ahead of what used to be the norm. I put on a DG recording of Karajan from the early 80s last week and it was monstrous. A good system just showed it up even more. When you think about the time and money we’ve spent listening to that awful “perfect sound for ever” stuff...
 
The layers would need to be mastered exactly the same, at exactly the same levels, for a fair comparison of the formats. On the occasions I've checked, this hasn't been the case.
Agreed, making a completely accurate comparison's always extremely difficult. But after playing a fair number of albums you do tend to notice certain common trends in the sound.
 
I understand that the M-Scaler coverts DSD to PCM. Anyone experienced that? How does it affect SQ? Tbh - this would potentially turn me away from the M-Scaler which is a shame as I really think this would be a logical addition to the Hugo TT2.
 
What does an external clock actually do? I see them mentioned more frequently lately with Auralic unveiling the Leo.

.sjb

It is useful in a studio to slave different equipment to the same master clock generator.

When it comes to domestic audio all it does is $tuff the manufacturer's wa££€t.
 
I understand that the M-Scaler coverts DSD to PCM. Anyone experienced that? How does it affect SQ? Tbh - this would potentially turn me away from the M-Scaler which is a shame as I really think this would be a logical addition to the Hugo TT2.

I think that the TT2 also converts DSD to PCM.
 
No. The TT2 does DSD over DoP with MAC’s & Native DSD with Windows

I've googled and found a Hi-Fi World review of the TT2:

After writing the above I was told Hugo TT2 converts DSD to PCM, presumably because the custom FPGA chip lacks a DSD process route with low pass filter.

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Hugo-TT-2-Review-HiFI-World.pdf


And this is Rob Watts about the Hugo:

Getting back to design of the DAC. Now I run my DAC's with a very simple single stage active analogue section, with only 2 caps and 2 resistors in the direct signal path - and I do this for transparency. But this means the digital RF noise in the 100k to 1M band must be very low, so the digital source must be filtered - and DSD is at -20dBFS at 100kHz. So I can't put raw DSD into the DAC, or it will sound very hard. So the DSD is filtered, which converts it to regular PCM.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-hugo.702787/page-128#post-10462953
 
Rob Watts again:

Now in Hugo, we have a potentially much more serious problem with DSD, as Hugo has to do volume control and cross-feed EQ. This means it has to be converted to PCM, and at a rate the cross feed and volume control works at - which is 16FS. So the filtering was much more challenging now, as I had to decimate the signal too (make it a smaller sample rate). This meant a new design, as the Qute filter would have aliasing problems due to not enough stop band rejection - it needed much more than 50dB filtering that Qute had. So I decided on a sledge hammer approach to aliasing problems, by having 140 dB of rejection. This actually is much better than pro standard ADC aliasing filters, but that is another story. The other benefit of this filter was that it removed the DSD noise at 100 kHz, as it had 110 dB worth of rejection at that frequency. Now I could have the benefits of PCM with DSD in that out of band noise is non-existent.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-hugo.702787/page-166#post-10494245
 
Hi Tuga, I was just going by the spec of the TT2 as shown on the Chord website:
“Materials: Precision machined aluminium casing with steel ball bearing buttons, gloss black acrylic signal window, glass viewing portal, and dot matrix display. Available in a choice of two colours – silver, and satin black

Tap length filter: 98,304-tap 16FS WTA 1 – 10 element design

Connectivity (input): 1x USB Type-B, 2x Coax BNC, 2x Optical & Bluetooth

Connectivity (output): Stereo XLR, Stereo RCA, 2x 6.5mm Headphone jack & 1x 3.5mm Headphone jack

Connectivity (digital output): 2x DX BNC (expansion outputs)

Weight: 2.53kg

PCM support: 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz, 358.8kHz, 384kHz, 705.6 and 768kHz

DSD support: DoP DSD 64 to DSD 512 – native via Windows

Volume control: Digital

Line-level mode: Activated within the menu

Driver support: Driverless with Mac OS X and Linux, driver required for Windows OS”

From your posts this now seems a bit disingenuous as DSD is converted within the DAC to PCM?
 
Hi Tuga, I was just going by the spec of the TT2 as shown on the Chord website.

From your posts this now seems a bit disingenuous as DSD is converted within the DAC to PCM?

Hi Mike,

I realised that and was only saying that the TT2 also converts DSD to PCM just like the M-Scaler.
If you are happy with the TT2 then there's nothing about the M-Scaler that would make DSD sound worse.
Based on the information that I posted above I wouldn't buy a Chord DAC for playing DSD, though to be fair there are other aspects that impact performance just as much so a dedicated DSD DAC (as opposed to a Chord which only supports DSD) may not perform better than the TT2 overall.
Does DSD playback sound good to you?

R
 
I understand that the M-Scaler coverts DSD to PCM. Anyone experienced that? How does it affect SQ? Tbh - this would potentially turn me away from the M-Scaler which is a shame as I really think this would be a logical addition to the Hugo TT2.
I am reasonably sure it does convert DSD to PCM. The only way I know to do the signal processing Rob Watts writes about (WTA-windowed sinc interpolation) is to operate on PCM. However my knowledge of DSD is light, so if I am wrong I would be very interested to understand how to do that processing directly on DSD.

So using the M Scaler doesn't seem to provide a path to having native conversion of PCM to analogue if that's your preference. But I think all of the Chord DACs that proclaim WTA have to convert DSD to PCM to do the processing.

EDIT: I just pulled down Rob Watts block diagram of the Hugo. It does seem to have a possibly native DSD decoder but that bypasses part of the WTA filter and there's more processing afterwards. Not sure what that really means for native DSD.

As for audibility I was at a Chord-run demo late last year and heard the Dave DAC alone and Dave + M Scaler. I don't doubt others' reports of improvement by adding the M Scaler but I was not able to grasp a significant difference in four circa 10-minute sessions in two pairs without / with M Scaler a couple of hours apart. But perhaps I am not accustomed to looking for differences at that level.
 
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Hi Mike,

I realised that and was only saying that the TT2 also converts DSD to PCM just like the M-Scaler.
If you are happy with the TT2 then there's nothing about the M-Scaler that would make DSD sound worse.
Based on the information that I posted above I wouldn't buy a Chord DAC for playing DSD, though to be fair there are other aspects that impact performance just as much so a dedicated DSD DAC (as opposed to a Chord which only supports DSD) may not perform better than the TT2 overall.
Does DSD playback sound good to you?

R
Yes DSD playback sounds fine. I would never have known it was being converted to PCM without following this thread! That begs another question though - Would it be better to convert the DSD files to PCM before sending the data to the DAC? Less processing for the DAC could result in better sound?
I’ll give it a try later today
 
I heard the M Scaler and Dave at the Chord demo in Edinburgh last night, following a presentation by Rob Watts on psychoacoustics and his design concepts. This took place in a heavily treated listening room at HiFI Corner’s new showroom (very nice) using Wilson Sashas, so the stage was set -quite literally.
Dave alone- very, very good and you automatically think ‘how can you better that for realism?’ then with the press of a button to engage the m scaler, it happens. In a nutshell- simply a more relaxed, lifelike sound. Little spatial cues appeared and timbre was improved, it was (even if Mr.Watts had put the idea in your head beforehand) simply more like the real thing. Delicious.
 
That's a great summary of the differences that we hear too.

DAVE is already so good that the M Scaler makes a relatively subtle yet important difference. Putting the M Scaler in front of one of Chord's other dacs brings greater improvements - those you describe above plus tighter and more tuneful basslines, better sense of rhythm and a much larger soundstage/spacial cues. Hard to capture in words what it does but what it does is a very good thing!

Best regards, FT
 
Ha! Translating that into English, I got a clearer impression of the singer’s head moving in relation to the microphone on one of the two tracks. Yet, as Watts himself said, it’s all an illusion created by your brain..
 
Just when I thought I had the lingo sorted, understanding my noise floor lowering from veils being lifted, along comes this chestnut.......

.sjb

It's the same thing.
Lower the noise-floor and you get more low-level detail including decay, ambience, mechanical sounds from the instruments, mouth noises, etc. (if they're in the recording).
 


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