NDX and Chord Hugo
Posted by: Foxman50 on 18 April 2014
I have been contemplating adding a DAC to my NDX/XPS2 to see (or should that be hear) what it can bring to the party. And so thought it about time i made inroads into Having a few home demos. After looking around at products that are within my budget i came across the Chord Hugo DAC.
Although it is meant to be a portable headphone unit, it can be used as a full line level fixed DAC.
The dealer lent me a TQ black digital coax lead, which have twist grip plugs. This was required as the present batch of Hugo's have a case design fault that wont allow any decent cable to fit, soon to be rectified. Thankfully the TQ just manages to hang on to the coax port.
Once all connected and gone through the minimal setup procedure of the Hugo, what does the red LED mean again, i left it to warm up for half an hour.
Poured a beer and sat down for an evenings listening.
What was that, where did that come from, that's what that instrument is. OMG, as my little'n would say, Where is it getting all this detail from.
After spending last night and today with it, all i can say is that it has totally transformed my system from top to bottom. I never considered my NDX to be veiled or shut in, not even sure that's the correct terms. All i can say is its opened up the sound stage and space around instruments. Everything I've put through it has had my toes, feet and legs tapping away to the music.
Even putting the toe tapping, the resolution the clarity to one side, what its greatest achievement for me has been in making albums that I've had trouble listening too enjoyable now.
One added bonus is that it has made the XPS redundant. I cannot hear any difference with it in or out of the system.
While i thought a DAC may make a change in the degree of the jump from ND5 to NDX, i was not prepared for this. Anyone looking at adding a PSU to there NDX may want to check this unit out first.
For me this has to be the bargain of the year.
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by jpr
Can anyone share pictures of the newly machined cases that fix the issues with RCA interconnects?
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by jpr:
Can anyone share pictures of the newly machined cases that fix the issues with RCA interconnects?
Hi jpr
They have machined the holes as wide as they dare go without joining the two together. I've tried Chord, Tellurium Q and Van Den Hull ends and have been fine, which i would say are kind of standard. If you have really chunky connectors then i doubt they would fit.
Need to mention that the coax input is unchanged, so I've taken the shroud of my TQ cable. The optical has also been opened out to take larger cables
Graeme
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Clearance is OK for the RCAs, but the optical input doesn't allow full insertion of the cable (Wireworld in this case). Plastic optical with the small connectors is OK.
The optical plug is loose on the second picture. Perhaps the Wireworld plug is larger than standard ?
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Foxman50
Jan
What RCA's are you using. Mine have nowhere near that clearance around them.
Graeme
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by lovethatsound
Chord cables now do the right size coax cable 4 the the Hugo . their's 2 u can get, one at £50 and one at £230, I've ordered the £230 one, hope it's worth it, should have it next week.
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by lovethatsound:
Chord cables now do the right size coax cable 4 the the Hugo . their's 2 u can get, one at £50 and one at £230, I've ordered the £230 one, hope it's worth it, should have it next week.
What model is it can't see anything on the web site
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by Foxman50:
Originally Posted by lovethatsound:
Chord cables now do the right size coax cable 4 the the Hugo . their's 2 u can get, one at £50 and one at £230, I've ordered the £230 one, hope it's worth it, should have it next week.
What model is it can't see anything on the web site
Der its under new stuff
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by lovethatsound
Hi foxman chord Anthem digital tuned aray
Posted on: 10 May 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Graeme, they're the Chord Cobra 2.
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by jpr
Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:
Clearance is OK for the RCAs, but the optical input doesn't allow full insertion of the cable (Wireworld in this case). Plastic optical with the small connectors is OK.
The optical plug is loose on the second picture. Perhaps the Wireworld plug is larger than standard ?
Thanks for the photos Jan-Erik, it looks like it is not possible to connect coax and optical at the same time which is a showstopper for me. Is that the new case?
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by lovethatsound
Hi jpr u can get cables that fit 4 the hugo, as well as chord cables,moon audio allso do cables 4 the Hugo . optical and coaxial,and both can be in at the same time . I'm sure over time more cables will become available by other cable manufacturers as well.hope this helps u out. Ps u get an optical cable with the hugo and it sounds fantastic.
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by Wat:
I read a note from its designer that implied Hugo by design has about half a second of silence when changing between formats - e.g compressed AAC to uncompressed PCM (AIFF or WAV) to DSD. This is to prevent interpreting DSD as PCM which would cause a nasty noise. Curious if anybody has noticed this. It would require using a playlist with a mixture of AAC or mp3, 16/44.1 and 24/96 (and if you have them DSD).
Great pictures Jan - i think the small package will have physical limitations, but it would still work really well if you were primarily using USB. I think Chord provide a kit to help people who have the original casework to overcome the problem.
Would this be an issue, as surely there is longer than a half second gap between tracks anyway. Unless it was a gapless album, but this would be the same format.
I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to remove the case and open out the holes if it was required to accommodate larger plugs.
Ive been trying a few cables and have settled on the TQ graphite digital coax. I liked the Chord Indigo Plus also, a touch warmer sounding. The biggest difference i found is changing the power cord on the NDX from the stock Naim one. The Naim one was sounding too bright. Using a LAT AC-3 and I'm surprised how much difference it has made.
Still being amazed by this superb little device.
Graeme
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by Foxman50
Found this comment over on HeadFi by Rob Watts
"Yes there is indeed a mute operation built into Hugo. Some OS/software (no names) do not handle the changes from sample rate gracefully, so the computers buffer has data which is flushed out by the media player at the wrong rate. If it is DSD data being treated as PCM, you get a horrible noise. So I had to fix this by muting the beginning of whenever data changes or SR changes. The function of mute delay, plus volume ramp up, plus exponential smoothing of the volume coefficients means you lose about half a second. But you would not want to hear that garbage noise! Also, when I have had to reset Hugo, it is the computer driver that has failed, not Hugo. By turning Hugo on and off, the computer re-establishes USB connection and (mostly) re-sets itself."
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by Foxman50
Wat, yes it looks like only the HD USB input is capable of accepting DSD.
It would have been handy for Rob to have been more specific regarding which software has this issue. I must admit i don't tend to create playlists, so it wouldn't be a problem for me
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Small update. With the Wireworld Supernova 7 optical cable in place, I find myself listening much more to the Hugo than before. Very, very addictive this evening with a mix of electronic music. The bass on the Hugo has to be heard to be believed. This cable may have just tipped the balance in favour of the Hugo from the Naim.
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by analogmusic
I think we need to be mindful of the politeness of the host of the forum, Naim audio.
Let's not try to take the piss here.
This is a Naim forum, not a Chord forum.
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by analogmusic:
I think we need to be mindful of the politeness of the host of the forum, Naim audio.
Let's not try to take the piss here.
This is a Naim forum, not a Chord forum.
Analogue
We are trying to inform others of our experience with an item in connection with our Naim equipement.
If any of the posts or indeed the thread has offended Naim or broken forum rules i would expect the moderator to remove or block it.
May i suggest if you are offended by this thread that you don't read it
Graeme
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by joerand
Posted on: 11 May 2014 by tonym
+2. I'm sure Naim will be looking closely at the Chord DACs with the intention of manufacturing a competing reference Async. USB DAC that does DSD; the nDAC doesn't really cut the mustard in comparison. I'm patiently waiting... (Oh, and please Naim, don't lumber it with exterior power supplies)
Posted on: 12 May 2014 by Claus-Thoegersen
Originally Posted by tonym:
+2. I'm sure Naim will be looking closely at the Chord DACs with the intention of manufacturing a competing reference Async. USB DAC that does DSD; the nDAC doesn't really cut the mustard in comparison. I'm patiently waiting... (Oh, and please Naim, don't lumber it with exterior power supplies)
So you want a Naim dac that is not really a Naim dac? Unless Naim overnight stops believing in extern ps's for the higher end equipment.
DSD seems to have an almost religious folowing these days.
Claus
Posted on: 12 May 2014 by analogmusic
I looked into DSD briefly and found that in the end, it still sounded quite digital to me.
too much hassle, too many complications for a small musical gain, hardly significant.
end of... DSD for me at least.
Posted on: 12 May 2014 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by analogmusic:
This is a Naim forum, not a Chord forum.
Be it sight, sound, smell, or touch,
There's something inside, that we need so much.
The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an oak, with roots, deep in the ground.
The wonder of flowers, to be covered, and then to burst up,
Through tarmac, to the sun again, or to fly to the sun,
Without burning a wing, to lie in a meadow,
And hear the grass sing. To have all these things,
In our memories hoard, and to use them,
To help us, to find the lost chord... |
Posted on: 12 May 2014 by tonym
Originally Posted by Claus-Thoegersen:
So you want a Naim dac that is not really a Naim dac? Unless Naim overnight stops believing in extern ps's for the higher end equipment.
Claus
Oh yes, I really, really do. I still have fourteen black boxes on my Fraim & I'm not interested in adding any more. Besides, many other high end equipment (including Chord of course) seems to be able to dispense with them and IIRC the use of whopping great transformers will soon be banned.
I don't consider the use of external power supplies to be vital to maintain Naim's identity, nor its excellent sound quality.
Posted on: 12 May 2014 by analogmusic
Thanks Wat for well written post.
My views might not be too relevant for you. I use DSP software on all my digital playback, hence I never really listen to any digital source at home without software correction.
Naim themselves use their own DSP correction for their Bentley and now the Muso.
Plenty of software already in the market to choose from. Some obviously much better than others.
Anyway - i have said more than enough on the subject. It would be great to read your views when you have had a chance to hear Hugo.
Posted on: 18 May 2014 by lovethatsound
Hi analogmusic have you had chance yet 2 hear the chord hugo in action?
