Chord Hugo ?

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 - 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.

Hugo has great tech, but so-so implementation. Battery limits the dynamics.
When the Desktop Hugo comes out with waaay more taps, then we can start talking. It is reportedly a bit thin sounding now. Heck one hugo owner says he prefers his Qute with a Teddy Pardo PSU.

Better than a Lampi L7??/ Who said so? I never saw that on the thread. AL owns the Hugo and rates it below the Direct Stream which is below the LAMPI L5!

I have heard favourable comparisons of the L7 to Trinity!

I know what you mean, the head-fi community is quite active. One problem here that will probably prohibit the Chord Hugo from penetrating the market too much is that it is simply not big enough nor "audiophile" enough. It doesn't benefit from an expensive power cord, its just simply fabulous. Its a game changer. Fr instance, I see all the time old dacs trade hands here for multiples of the cost of the new Hugo and I just shake my head in disbelief. A few of the dacs I've owned: Benchmark, McIntosh, Mytek, Playback, Audio Research, Naim, LM, Cary and while they are all excellent and enjoyable the Chord is pretty special.

The people in our hobby have traditionally been reluctant to adopt products that have have small or outside the box/unconventional form factors. Maybe some of the newer entrants to our hobby are less wed to the milled aluminum remote control as a critical arbiter of quality? Maybe the 100 pound slabs of milled aluminum casework are no longer necessary for great sound? What is being done inside the Hugo was not possible even a few years ago. The FGPA would have, according to the designer, required a power supply weighing over 100 pounds to power the processing requirements of the previous generation FGPA technology. We will see what the future holds but the Hugo is the real deal.

Dear RGS

I you can hold on for a few days I can let you know.

My shop Audio Doctor in NJ just signed on to sell the Hugo,
and we do sell the Auralic Vega, M2 Tech, Naim, Amr, Meitner, Emm Labs, Esoteric, Aqua Hifi, NAD, Lumin and many others.

We ordered the Hugo for both its dac and its headhphone capability, we will be putting our Hugo on line in the next few days so I can easily answer your question.

It's just funny how the hugo thread has 4500 posts on the big
headphone site, and there is little here. It is said to be
better than the Auralic Vega, Lampi 7, Ayre qb9, and others,
maybe on par with the Meitners.

Some of what you have read here on Audiogon may have been from me. I am
listening to the Chord Hugo on my main rig as I type this. It is really an
amazing dac and while I have listened to the headphone outputs, Im not really
a headphone listener so I can't compare its performance as a headphone amp.
As a dac, I am very impressed by the performance. All the detail, layering and
fluidity one could hope for in an audio component.

The fact that it was designed to be portable and thus runs on battery power
creates a few pros and cons. Pros: The thing is dead quiet. I mean silent! Its
footprint is obviously tiny which provides numerous placement choices. It also
doesnt care about a power cable which will save you a few bucks if you are
into audiophile cables. While on the subject of cables, its usb input is of the
micro variety which means, even though it is supplied with all of the cables
you need to hook up to almost any transport, few of us have audiophile grade
usb cables with the tiny micro termination. The cable they supply is ok and
will get you up and running. Also on the cable front, the Hugo is so light
weight that heavier audio file rca interconnects will require you to secure the
Hugo with a weight of some kind if your interconnects apply any weight.

I leave mine on and it is really a revolutionary product BUT....and this may be
a big BUT, it is so small that the on off switch is tough to use if you have large
fingers because it is placed between the charger cable input and the usb
input. Other than those small nits, this dac is terrific! I surmise when Chord
releases their dedicated rack mount dac based on this technology that it will
make waves. Best of luck.