I have the good fortune to be able to try out the Hugo in my system for the next several days. It is connected to the Unitiserve with a naim BNC to RCA cable and a pair of Chord Anthem 2 cables* connect the Hugo to the Analog 2 input on the Superuniti. The question for me is whether I prefer the sound using the Hugo over not using it.
After several hours listening the initial impressions that music is immensely enjoyable with or without the Hugo and this is corroborated by Mrs KC.
The differences are not that pronounced to our 55 year old and 50 year old ears. Mrs KC, who is often slightly skeptical of matters hifi, has stated that the Hugo adds a clarity to the sound. It is less harsh than the non Hugo system. However she feels it is lost some of its soul, but not much.
I tend to concur. The pure naim system has a wonderful propulsive character, especially noted on the intro to Paul Simons " Graceland" where the baseline seems to be faster paced than with the Hugo. The Hugoless naim may be fractionally more " rough" in texture but communicates very well the essence of the music. Having said that the Hugo does timing very well and to my ears has perhaps slighter better definition of the various voices and instruments.
So far , so predictable. The differences are slight,as mentioned above, and suggestion and placebo effect may be playing their part.
To apply science to this trial we will conduct some single blind tests this weekend where we will take turns listening to the same track twice,not knowing which is the Hugo'd one,and see which we prefer. We will each play each other 5 songs Hugo and not Hugo in random order and see if we a. Can tell the difference blind and b. Which we prefer. Should be fun! Will report back in a few days.
If anyone has suggestions on how to improve the design of this single blind trial please let me know.
* No chinchillas will be used or harmed in this trial.
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by Bart
Originally Posted by Zipperheadbanjo:
What this thread seems to be telling me is to focus my upgrade dollars 1st on my vinyl source, and wait for some of the dust to settle with regards to this DAC business :-)
My take on this dac business is that digital storage / replay is a great way to go. Find a dac / replay system that sounds good to you. But chasing the next big thing, the next latest and greatest dac, is exhausting unless in and of itself it's your 'thing' -- your hobby.
I think that the relative affordability of the Hugo has made it easy for people to try it, which of course is great. But of course something else will (or has) come along.
On the other hand, the dust likely NEVER will settle. If you wait . . . you'll never decide that the time is right. So jump in with something that you like, and just relax and enjoy it for a while 
The release of the next-new-dac will surely not make yours sound any worse.
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by Steve J
I know two people selling or have sold their NDS after hearing the Hugo. It certainly shines in a high end system. As Graeme said above they have the 'heard' mentality. It amazes me how many people criticise the Hugo when they haven't listened to it, or perhaps they are afraid to find that it's so much better than the high cost streamer they have already invested in. I'm not telling people to buy one, just listen to it and make up your mind for yourself. It may or may not suit your system, room or ears. It's very important to listen to a well run in example with at least one hundred hours on it as it can sound a bit light when new. There are far more happy Hugo owners on this forum than those who didn't like it.
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:
I have no idea whether the Hugo is better than the SuperUniti DAC or not. I suspect that the analogue input into the SU is masking any difference : when I got my SU last year I ran my then CDS2 into it and was underwhelmed, whereas the streamed signal from the UnitiServe sounds really excellent and I'm convinced better than the results I obtained from the CDS2.
Originally Posted by hafler3o:
I cannot hear the Hugo either, unless I buy it without hearing it. The posts by Simon-in-Suffolk and HungryHalibut most likely hit the nail on the head. Analogue input on the SU might be 'masking' the benefits or the power stage might not be resolving enough to get the capabilities of the DAC communicated to the speakers.
Well I'm confused. How can the analogue input mask differences? If it does, it must be of pretty poor quality...
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by hungryhalibut
My supposition is simply that the analogue input is insufficiently good to show the full potential of the Hugo. In this case one is comparing the digital output of the Serve with the analogue output of the Hugo, which is a different scenario to comparing the analogue outputs of the NDS and the Hugo. Could it be that the Serve is just as good as both? Yikes.
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
The comparison in this case was US > S/PDIF > Hugo DAC > Chord Anthem > SU, vs US > UPnP > SU. So it's actually a comparison of two different DACs and two different methods of moving the digital data to the DACs (S/PDIF vs UPnP). With an interconenct cable thrown in to the mix.
Given that UPnP is generally heard as being superior to S/PDIF, as a means of moving bits to a DAC, then I would suspect it to be the more likely cause for the lack of a clear winner in this case, and not the quality of the analogue input.
In other words, the comparison was of a (potentially) lesser DAC with a better transport method vs a (potentially) better DAC with a lesser transport method.
The apple vs apple comparison (if it were possible) would have been to take the digital output of the SU (being fed by the US), feed that into the Hugo and then route the Hugo's output back into a SU analogue input.
Posted on: 22 September 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:
Given that UPnP is generally heard as being superior to S/PDIF, as a means of moving bits to a DAC, then I would suspect it to be the more likely cause for the lack of a clear winner in this case, and not the quality of the analogue input.
Is it? I have never heard that said before. SPDIF is completely different to UPnP and does a different job. You could perhaps compare UPnP to a CD or a DVD transport or web radio.. But SPDIF is about transferring the extracted the audio PCM albeit encoded in SPDIF frames in a non duplex way between two devices. Comparisons to SPDIF i would include AES/EBU, USB, HDMI and I2S.
Simon
