Sad trombone for Hugo 2?

Posted by: joe9407 on 21 October 2017

Folks on the "Chord DAC" thread mentioned that the Hugo 2 gets nowhere near the level of love on this forum that the OG Hugo did -- it certainly seems that way to me, so I thought I'd open a thread on the topic.

I replaced a 2Qute with the Hugo 2 and found it does "what it says on the tin": the Hugo 2 sounds bigger, more spacious, and more detailed. I listen to a lot of Internet radio, particularly FIP, and while the Hugo 2's advantages are present when listening to FIP's 128k stream, higher-rez sources sound a lot better than with the 2Qute. In other words, while the rising tide has lifted both boats, better streaming sources, such as Radio Paradise or Tidal, now make FIP sound fairly shut-in when in direct comparison.

Caveat: I'm running a 250.2 into Devore Gibbon 8 speakers, which in my experience have a mellower sound than the new Naim amps and some of the speakers I've demoed that get a lot of chatter on here.

Maybe the Hugo 2 intersects poorly with the new Naim gear? Or I need to get my hearing checked? (Always a possibility, that.)

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by Norton

There may be a pattern here.  

I owned a Hugo1 and loved it and borrowed a  Hugo2 for a couple of days' listening in my home system recently.   I was hoping it was going to be most of DAVE for a lot less £, but I ended up underwhelmed.  It may be that the original Hugo and then DAVE were such steps forward that Hugo2 generated unreasonable expectations (such as mine) against a greatly raised benchmark.  I suspect Hugo2 may well be the best DAC available sub £2k, but for me it's not the desktop giant-killer I was hoping for.

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by ChrisSU

Have you tried it with CD rips or Hi-res downloads? "better streaming sources, such as Radio Paradise" is setting the bar pretty low (although their new FLAC stream is an improvement.)

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by Norton

I tried it (admittedly on a non Naim system) with all formats up to DSD 11.2 and 384 PCM.  Latterly though, I'm coming to the conclusion that it's the quality of RBCD replay that marks out a great DAC.  I thought both DAVE and the Resonessence Mirus were outstanding with CD rips.

I was admittedly looking for a bargain, but what I heard was simply a very good £2k DAC.

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by analogmusic

well Rob Watts was not going to undermine his flagship Dave 8500/- GBP DAC with the Hugo 2....

 

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by joe9407
ChrisSU posted:

Have you tried it with CD rips or Hi-res downloads? "better streaming sources, such as Radio Paradise" is setting the bar pretty low (although their new FLAC stream is an improvement.)

Hi Chris,

Yes, I have -- and everything sounds great -- though truth be told, I can't hear a huge difference between Radio Paradise at 320k, Tidal lossless, and the few CD rips I've been able to make myself do. (So there's your huge grain of salt with respect to my taste in digital gear.)

LPs are my choice for "serious listening" -- between that and Tidal, ripping CDs seems like a chore on par with cleaning the toilet! One of these days, I'll force myself to do it, mainly because CDs can deteriorate and I want to cover my bases in case streaming somehow ceases to be a viable option.

--Joe

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by Norton

True, but I was hoping for some of the magic to trickle down at least and a renewal of  the wow factor from the original Hugo.  As a bit of a Chord fan and a former DAC64  and Hugo1 owner, I don't want to overstate the criticism of what is clearly a good product, but it just didn't "do it" for me.

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by M37
joe9407 posted:

Folks on the "Chord DAC" thread mentioned that the Hugo 2 gets nowhere near the level of love on this forum that the OG Hugo did -- it certainly seems that way to me, so I thought I'd open a thread on the topic.

Thanks for this thread joe9407

Posted on: 21 October 2017 by analogmusic
Norton posted:

True, but I was hoping for some of the magic to trickle down at least and a renewal of  the wow factor from the original Hugo.  As a bit of a Chord fan and a former DAC64  and Hugo1 owner, I don't want to overstate the criticism of what is clearly a good product, but it just didn't "do it" for me.

there are 4 filter settings.... the hugo 2 can go back to the hugo 1 sound if that is what one likes?