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Chord Hugo ?

Has anyone (or could anyone) try the Chord Hugo as a DAC in their system. It's getting tremendous attention in the headphone community as a revolutionary DAC that competes way beyond its 2400-dollar price that is up there with the best DACs at any price. I have never heard it so I don't know if this is true, but buzz about it is striking.
I see little about it here, so I thought I would ask. Thanks.
rgs92
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
Wisnon - your summary does an injustice the overwhelming number of positive comments on the Head HiFi thread. The "thin" and "like my Qute better" comments are rare, maybe 1 per each of those. Remember, this is a $2,400 DAC. A Lampi L5 with DSD is 3 times that. Is it the best DAC out there? Probably not. But by most accounts it is remarkable at its price and competes well with DACs at 3 times its price.

It does not seem like Chord is going to do a Qute like packaging of the Hugo technology. I believe the next version is going to be a lot higher price.
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
The Hugo does both 64 and 128 DSD and by most reports it sounds very good. For those interested, it does convert DSD to PCM. It needs to do that because of how it implements volume and headphone crossfeed. Rob Woods has explained this is detail on the Head HiFi thread.
wisnon
700 posts
 
DTC, I have a Qute HD soon to be upgraded to an EX, so I own both Chord and Lampi and the Lampi L4 is the better Dac so far, especially with DSD.

Hugo has great promise, but until they do the Qute and QBD version with the huge tap lengths, we are yet to see the best of it.

To say its currently better than a Lampi Big7 is a joke though I mean really!
wisnon
700 posts
 
Oh and many people are tweaking trying to beef up the thin sound. Its an underground obsession caused by the battery power supply. That will be corrected when the desktop versions come. We can Hynes/Teddy P the Qute form factor and the QDB factor will have iots own beefy power supply (I hope linear and not SMPS).
ghasley
2,530 posts
 
No one is comparing the Hugo to a Lampi here but lets make a couple of things very clear: it is at an entirely different level from the Qute line, this is a reference caliber dac. I listened to both versions of the Qute and its a really good dac, the Hugo is really great. Secondly, it is far from thin or lacking in dynamics....somebody is either talking out of their bum or have an agenda. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but the only way I could imagine someone thinking the Hugo is thin is they were listening through very inefficient cans. It may or may not compare with other dacs in the opinion of a given user but this dac is extraordinary on its own merits.

Chord themselves consider this an accidental reference dac. They admit they discovered its extraordinary performance after prototyping. While I'm interested in others opinions and system implementations, the excellence of the Hugo is obvious to even the casual listener. Peace.
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