Chord launches new M Scaler for Hugo TT

What does it actually do?

.sjb

Interesting the blu2 technology without the CD player. Depending on the price the new nd5xs2 with Dave and mscaler could best the ND555..... interesting times.

Taken from Chord website  

The Hugo M Scaler is a highly advanced standalone upscaler capable of redefining sound quality from digital audio. It uses Rob Watts’ (our Digital Design Consultant’s) unique filter technology, the most advanced in the world, to upscale standard 44.1kHz digital audio up to 705.6kHz (16x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution), ready to be passed to a suitable DAC; Hugo M Scaler extends its upscaling performance to 768kHz (from 96kHz input data) for our dual-BNC-input DACs: DAVE, Qutest and the new Hugo TT 2

Make of that what you will but it won't be on the top of my Christmas list..

I’ve never understood upscaling, and how it can make music sound better. When I tried using Asset to upscale from 16 to 24 bit it made the music bland and boring. Maybe this Chord thing is different. Can anyone explain in simple terms how it makes things sound better? 

Me neither. How can any piece of kit reveal something that's not there in the first place?  I too would be interested in a layman's explanation of upscaling. 

My dealer has the Blu2/Dave with Melco as their best digital front end. When a few of us quizzed Steve Sells on ladder dac vs other technologies, he seemed to say to me.....it’s how to get to the Naim SQ...we still think ladder dac sounds best. But there are other options to try......I think I will end up with a new Naimstreamer.

Bob the Builder posted:

Taken from Chord website  

The Hugo M Scaler is a highly advanced standalone upscaler capable of redefining sound quality from digital audio. It uses Rob Watts’ (our Digital Design Consultant’s) unique filter technology, the most advanced in the world, to upscale standard 44.1kHz digital audio up to 705.6kHz (16x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution), ready to be passed to a suitable DAC; Hugo M Scaler extends its upscaling performance to 768kHz (from 96kHz input data) for our dual-BNC-input DACs: DAVE, Qutest and the new Hugo TT 2

Make of that what you will but it won't be on the top of my Christmas list..

Having actually heard this upscaler inside the Blu 2, and attached to DAVE, it most certainly is on the very top of my Christmas list. Quite why it should work as well as it does I do not know, and I don't really care overmuch. 

I can use roon to upscale files from CD to DSD (sonictransporter i5). Is this different from what they announced?

One thing I don’t get it that you can use the mscaler with qutest / tt2 / Dave 

so will all they be 1m tps and sound same?

tonym posted:

Bob the Builder posted:

Taken from Chord website  

The Hugo M Scaler is a highly advanced standalone upscaler capable of redefining sound quality from digital audio. It uses Rob Watts’ (our Digital Design Consultant’s) unique filter technology, the most advanced in the world, to upscale standard 44.1kHz digital audio up to 705.6kHz (16x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution), ready to be passed to a suitable DAC; Hugo M Scaler extends its upscaling performance to 768kHz (from 96kHz input data) for our dual-BNC-input DACs: DAVE, Qutest and the new Hugo TT 2

Make of that what you will but it won't be on the top of my Christmas list..

Having actually heard this upscaler inside the Blu 2, and attached to DAVE, it most certainly is on the very top of my Christmas list. Quite why it should work as well as it does I do not know, and I don't really care overmuch. 

Tony, presumably same sound quality without a CD player should be lower price, has the same number of the “watts” taps for conversion, so could be happyxmas.

I asked one of the Chord guys at CanJam and was told it would sell for just under £3.5k, so a Hugo TT 2 + M Scaler would be around £7.5k, compared to £8.5k for the Chord Dave.

Or vs £20k nd555 with 555ps

Interesting price, thanks for the info

My (simple) understanding is that most  DACs do upsampling (isn’t that what the TAPS do in Chord DACs?), is is this just removing the load of upsampling from the DAC, so less CPU stress and RFI and God know what interfering with the signal?

Also as mentioned Roon can upsample, is this the same thing, just not with Rob Wyatts secret sauce?

.sjb

I think I stick to my Planar

Sloop John B posted:

My (simple) understanding is that most  DACs do upsampling (isn’t that what the TAPS do in Chord DACs?), is is this just removing the load of upsampling from the DAC, so less CPU stress and RFI and God know what interfering with the signal?

Also as mentioned Roon can upsample, is this the same thing, just not with Rob Wyatts secret sauce?

Hi, many DACs do oversampling for various reasons including helping the effectiveness of low pass filters required for effective analogue signal reconstruction. A filter works less hard, has less side effects and performs better when it is less steep or severe. Oversampling the sampled audio allows this to happen.

Taps or more conventionally termed filter kernel size is something quite different. When the DAC digital reconstruction filter is modelled as a Finite Impulse Response filter, the fact it is finite means it’s effectiveness is bound by the sample resolution and the size of the filter kernel.. or the number of modelled sample values in the filter. The more taps or in other words, the more modelled sample values in the filter the more accurate it is. The theoretically best filter to completely reconstruct an analogue signal would be infinitely long with infinite resolution sample depth.  However back in the real world, the FIR filter with the larger number of samples can potentially produce the more accurate  reconstructed analogue audio.

'upscaling' 'up-sampling'  'oversampling'  … are these terms referring  to the same concept in the context of this thread?

enjoy

ken

hungryhalibut posted:

I’ve never understood upscaling, and how it can make music sound better. When I tried using Asset to upscale from 16 to 24 bit it made the music bland and boring. Maybe this Chord thing is different. Can anyone explain in simple terms how it makes things sound better? 

I don’t understand either - and Dave already preoduces such a wonderful presentation of music that it is hard to believe anything can be better. but not having heard, I have an open mind, perhaps primed by experience of the designer’s proven ability in maling digital sound natural.

Gazza posted:

Tony, presumably same sound quality without a CD player should be lower price, has the same number of the “watts” taps for conversion, so could be happyxmas.

Yes, I hope so Gazza, and that was my understanding, although reading through Chord's blurb it states the device is optimised for the TT, and doesn't mention DAVE.

I’m still none the wiser. Simon talks of oversampling, which I’ve always understood to be totally different to upscaling, which seems to be trying to create something that wasn’t there in the first place. If you upscale MP3 to 16/44 you don’t get back the code lost when the file became MP3, so how is what the upscaler is doing any different? Baffled....

In simple terms, up scaling takes two successive snaps of a digital signal (video or audio) and inserts an additional artificial snap between the other two, by averaging those successive original snaps. This then creates are more seemless image or sound. Whether the difference is discernible or natural, I’m not sos sure.

tonym posted:

Gazza posted:

Tony, presumably same sound quality without a CD player should be lower price, has the same number of the “watts” taps for conversion, so could be happyxmas.

Yes, I hope so Gazza, and that was my understanding, although reading through Chord's blurb it states the device is optimised for the TT, and doesn't mention DAVE.

Yes I noticed that Tony, but the number of taps is the same as Blu2? The latter also for me has a CD player that I d not need, hence the interest in the MScaler, guess we have to wait. I am sure it will be at Audio show east in November, if not available before for demo.

The Dave sounds excellent 

until you hear it with Blu2

Going back to the Dave alone is not pleasant after hearing Blu2.

Mike Sullivan posted:

In simple terms, up scaling takes two successive snaps of a digital signal (video or audio) and inserts an additional artificial snap between the other two, by averaging those successive original snaps. This then creates are more seemless image or sound. Whether the difference is discernible or natural, I’m not sos sure.

Is that different from what upsampli g does?

Based on that description, it seems it creates something based on an assumtion that the music ‘slides’ between the two. Which is probably right (?), but intuitively seems wrong particularly when going up large amounts like 44.1 to 705.6. However maybe that’s what DACs do themselves internally, so thos is just doing maybe in a more effective way with more processing power? 

I don't think the combined Chord Hugo TT 2 + M Scaler is intended to be superior to the Chord Dave. I asked one of the Chord reps at CanJam which would he buy if he had the choice and he clearly opted for Dave. I did have a quick listen to the combined Hugo TT2 + M Scaler over headphones but trying to assess the sound quality of almost anything with the level of background noise in the CanJam hall proved virtually impossible.