TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
It's yer tectonic market shift, last years technological battleship is this years door stop.
No thread crapping involved Ali.Barry Williams stop crapping on threads and stop trolling here.
you seem to be a Naim wannabe to me. Somebody who doesn't own any naim kit but wants to talk about it. Keep it up.
Are your speakers in your neighbour's house?... and 40m of NACA5 in my main system.
Gary a little over 2 grand will buy that great sounding digital jukebox.Not relevant really as the Hugo is being touted as better than CD555's. If you really want to talk prices then how much is a Hugo, a Mac Mini and a Nas? Say near £3K. When new the CD player was still less than that and i still prefer the CD player. Now if you want to talk how much you could buy a CD5/FC2X for now, we are talking £650.
Joe,Barry,
Are your speakers in your neighbour's house?
Joe
I would need 14 miles for that as the crow flies.Barry,
I hear ya, man, but your comment suggested your speakers might be in a nearby city.
Joe
It's a very good DAC. You won't be disappointed I'm sure. Personally for red book I prefer a 555 but that's just me.
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.
Analogmusic, I look forward to your comments and feedback if you do purchase. I found the Hugo needed a few days constantly operating from new to stabilise its performance .. But there after works great, whether PSU connected or on batteries (unless the batteries are near exhausted I can hear absolutely no difference between these two modes).
I use Naim Hiline audio interconnects and use either Gotham or Naim DC1 SPDIF interconnecs
Simon
after spending some weeks with the Chord Hugo, I find it to be uniquely musical, similar to live music and immensely enjoyable. My biggest problem with the Hugo will be this. Once I start listening to it, I don't want to switch it off and hours pass by. I am not getting enough sleep now !
This is a true game changer for people like me who love music. We are lucky that Rob Watts understands music as well as his huge expertise in technology.
I would high recommend the Hugo to anyone who wants to get closer to a live performance in terms of enjoyment and musicality.
It is my best hi-fi purchase ever made.
after spending some weeks with the Chord Hugo, I find it to be uniquely musical, similar to live music and immensely enjoyable. My biggest problem with the Hugo will be this. Once I start listening to it, I don't want to switch it off and hours pass by. I am not getting enough sleep now !
This is a true game changer for people like me who love music. We are lucky that Rob Watts understands music as well as his huge expertise in technology.
I would high recommend the Hugo to anyone who wants to get closer to a live performance in terms of enjoyment and musicality.
It is my best hi-fi purchase ever made.
In terms of sound quality, is the Hugo any different to the 2Qute? Anyone heard them both?