Tír Na HiFi

Ken Moreland wrote:Thanks for that Adam, there's already interest in the Ciúnas here but I'll bear the link in mind. If someone is interested in buying a Chord Hugo , probably best to buy from a dealer because the early batches had very tight fitting around the RCA outputs and lots of cables wouldn't fit, recent models have this rectified and I believe there is a retro-fix from the company.

No problem, good luck with both.

Good luck also to Cvrle59 with his new Hugo. No wonder Naim is going Chinese! :)))

As always a product even one as small as the Hugo can raise some angst on PFM.
Anything but the good attributes of the Dac raise the temperature. Only tepid stuff mind you compared to the usual fare.



http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/show ... p?t=154170

tony wrote:As always a product even one as small as the Hugo can raise some angst on PFM.
Anything but the good attributes of the Dac raise the temperature. Only tepid stuff mind you compared to the usual fare.



http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/show ... p?t=154170

Give them a chance they're only warming up & I'm sure will not disappoint - after all Maxi & Julf have not picked up the scent yet.

I'm waiting for Max to start complaining about audiophile batteries, or something similar.

Those can complain as much as they want, but Hugo is an outstanding DAC, regardless.
I have not even dreamed about, that I could have such an impressive SQ in my leaving room regarding my budget. The best spent money on a HiFi piece ever!

It is posted by a Naim owner...very detailed review and comparison with the way more expensive gear.
http://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/ndx-a ... 0955634848

A summary of the Hugo DAC connected to the NDX SPDIF digital source being streamed with 44.1/16 WAV media. This is turn is connected to a NAC282/NAP250.2 with HiCapDR and ATC SCM19 speakers. The interconnect is a DIN to phono Hiline cable.
The comparison has been made with a NDAC/555PS and NDS/555PS.

After having left the Hugo powered up for around 24 hours and fully chanrged the sound opened out and I started to seriously listen. I have a rather eclectic taste in music and so what follows is list of some of my tracks/albums that I am very familiar with.

30s/40s Boogie Woogie
1. Tiny Bradshaw; Shout, Sister, Shout. A 1934 recording – so not hifi – but the Hugo finds great pace and rhythm – and no hint of stridency.
2. Will Bradley & His Orchestra; Scrub Me, Mama, With a Boogie Beat. A 1940’s recording but has a sweet Big Band texture with a really satisfying and realistic drum set and percussion. The timing and the textures of his voice are impressive. There is no thinness and plenty of detail and organicness for a 1940’s recoding.
3. Louis Jordan; Choo Choo Ch’Boogie; Again authentic sweet brass with lots of harmonics and textures, a lovely textured Jordan voice and a double bass strutting its stuff convincingly and enjoyably well. Great timing and pace.

50s/60s Jazz
1. Atlantic Jazz Vocals Volume 1: A track sung by George Weir has an immediate and yet mellow response. The close mic technique working really well. Again the voice has loads of texture and overtones.
2. Sylvia Syms; a lovely female jazz voice, mellow and emotional. The Hugo really digs out the emotion. The harmonic and textures from the Hugo playing woodwind/Trumpet and Piano all sound accurate and emotional. No dryness or dullness – just lots of textures.
3. The jazz drums sounds lifelike and dynamic with a great dynamic response that really shifts the air in the room to give that jazz club feel. Impressive for 50s/60s recording.

David Flood’s Canterbury Cathedral Choir – singing Benjamin’s Ceremony of Carol
1. Now this is an area that NDS did well and less so the NDAC. The Hugo in my opinion beats both. The Canterbury Cathedral reverb is magnificent yet subtle and the Harp accompanying the choristers provides initiates a great multitonal reverb with a lovely range of textures and subtle dynamics. The lead soprano chorister is Joel Whitewood and his voice, although soprano, sounds full and textured with lovely intonation. The final track, Recession, is outstanding and nerve tingling. Wow. I have never hear my ATCs sound like that.

Other female singers.
1. By now I started to get a feel that voices sound rather special on this DAC. So I listened to Francois Hardy – she sounded wonderfully Gallic and sensual with the Hugo holding nothing back – definitely need a cold shower after that…
2. Then one of my all time favourites, Sandy Denny, and a gig recording of her singing The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. The technical quality of the recording is not outstanding – but the detail, the sound of her moving around the microphone provides and her wonderful phrasing and close mic technique provides a delightful and insightful recording – again nerve tingling.
Jazz Clarinet
1. I find clarinet a great test. When you a clarinet acoustically live there are lots of textures and tomes that really enhance the sound. Often this appears lost on replay. I played Evan Christopher, Django a la Creole - Finesse. It was gorgeous, the mids through to treble worked naturally and dynamically as a whole on the clarinet. All those complex textures and tones just seemed to appear in the room. It sounded authentic. No brightness or dullness. – and on Tropical Moon there is a wonderful interplay between a guitar and clarinet where the texture differences really seem to add to the musical performance.

Rock & Pop
1. Charlie Blackwell – The Girl of My Beest Friend. Now this sounds fab on the NDAC. The Hugo does well, the bass bounces – perhaps not quite as rhythmically driven as the NDAC but sounds more natural.
2. Specials – Ghost Town. Sounds awesome with great weight and vocals – with the Hammond like accompaniment and drums really providing a great sound. It all sounds as it should with an infectious timing and pace that you just cant sit still to. I even heard new notes played by the guitar in the chorus.
3. Deadmau5 – Sofi Needs a Ladder. A great juvenile track that needs to be played loud. It has ultra low and loud bass line with deep club type drum line with lots of rich harmonics. Your speaker cones will have a workout when you play this. Timing needs to be spot on – as there is some interesting timing interplay. The Hugo dishes it up perfectly – and I hear some new production/mixing techniques that I never noticed before – awesome.

So I could go on – I listened to the Wall, The Black Dyke Brass Band, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Jean Michel Jarre, Chopin, Edith Piaf – and time after time the Hugo dished up detail and musicality – with no hardness – and a wonderfully natural tonal balance that makes piano, violin, brass band, wood wind, voices sound natural and real and vibrant with seemingly great timing.

So is there anything I don’t like? Well its small and a little fiddly – it has limited SPDIF inputs – and perhaps the very deep bass is a little softer than the NDAC/555PS I have been used to… but other than that I can’t fault it. It makes my regular Red Book music sound so real and wonderfully enjoyable – and my Naim NAC/NAP has never sounded so good.

I shall be ordering one.

Simon

Great review & reading down further in that thread it has some more technical info from Rob Watts which is interesting!

jkeny wrote:Great review & reading down further in that thread it has some more technical info from Rob Watts which is interesting!

This the Rob Watts 'Master class' on the Hugo from the chord Hugo product page
http://chordelectronics.co.uk/files/Hug ... 20(1).pptx

Thanks Aleg, I read it before - I particularly like his references to auditory scene analysis - an area I have been interested in for some time

Rob Watts is a very talented guy - thinks outside the box - whereas most digital design "experts" will tell you that 16/44 can completely represent the timing of a bandlimited signal down to the level of picoseconds, they fail to state that this is just the theory & to actually achieve this requires an infinite filter tap length which, of course is impossible in practise. I don't know anybody who has studied the repercussions on transient timing of limiting the number of filter taps?

I just found the fleshing out of his logic about increased Filter Taps in that thread was particularly interesting.