Personally I’m waiting for reports on the ND5 XS2 with a Hugo or Qutest compared to a NDX2 bare.
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you have not the ndx2 or nds at home…
I’ve been wondering why pretty much only DAC people use here, outside Naim offerings, is made by Chord? There’s tons of DACs out there but Chord is only one approved by Naim-users?
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like you i don’t understand why… the same for turntables…if you know what i mean
Did a compare with HDx and HDx/555 with and without Hugo and Dave.
These chord DACs are special
Well I’ve always been purely into digital. But I’ve had this impression that on turntable side it’s either Linn LP12 or Rega.
i didn’t said they are not good, just wanted to know if adding chord hugo on the ndx2 or nds can improve the sound or not.
For now a majority prefer bare ndx2 or nds.
sorry, i will not spoil this thread…it’s off topic ( but interesting)
Guys, it really doesn’t matter though… it’s an entirely a personal choice, the Hugo DAC and the two different Texas Instruments DACs used in the NDS and NDX2 perform reconstruction in very different ways. All digital to analogue reconstruction is a compromise. Both practically and mathematically in can never be precise. So it will depend on how you listen to recordings and the music contained within.
With a high quality NAC like the 252 or 552 the Hugo allows me to listen in to the recording, what I call the ‘Mandelbrot effect’. With the ND555 (PCM1704K) for example I just can’t do that to the same extent … I need to listen to the recording as a whole and to that extent it works very well… but I prefer the former approach… it’s just me.
Therefore there is no right or wrong or absolute reference… it’s an individual thing. You just need to ensure there is a DAC designer somewhere that listens to audio in the same way as you as in high end it’s individual.
I do similar things in other media too such as films, photography and paintings…I look into them and dissect.
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This forum would be a dull place if we always agreed on what sounded best, and of course we often don’t. For me, the most musical enjoyment comes when I stop consciously looking into the recording, analysing, and just sit back and enjoy it.
Now…where was that list of Hugo setup tweaks I keep meaning to catch up on…
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I like the “mandelbrot” effect too very much from the Hugo generation of DACs from Chord.
I interpret this as the separation of instruments bring very clear, and the louder instrument not drowning out the one which is less loud, similar to live music, each instrument has it’s own voice and can be heard clearly and individually in the mix.
But others may prefer the Naim presentation.
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Your description matches the Naim presentation with regards to separation of instruments etc so the Hugo has no added value in this respect.
The last few posts discussing the presentations of different DACs, is interesting.
For my part I do not normally listen into the music, rather I listen to it. I am sometimes drawn to listen deeper to particular themes etc within the music, but that is not my purpose in listening and for the most I absorb it as a whole. What I want from presentation is for it to make the music as natural sounding as possible, and that means no emphasis or de-emphasis of anything - no distortions of any sort of the original. Of course in reality everything is absolutely limited by the recording - more specifically the version of the recording that is available to play - and there can be and often are huge differences between different recordings. Given this, I feel that the best approach of the hifi system is to be as neutral and accurate as possible in reproducing what is recorded, because if it tried to make one recording sound good, any different recording could be renfdered more negatively.
Relating this to DACs, my experience of DACs is limited. Prior to hearing the Cambridge CD2 in about 1990 I hadn’t loked the sound of any CD players I had hear, either listening in hifi shops or in people’s homes. The CD2 changed that, sounding good to me, not the same as vinyl: not better and not worse, just different, with some benefits that made CD a viable complementary medium. Roll on 10 or 12 years, the Cambrigde died, replaced with a Shearne Phase 7, which had a very similar sound/presentation. Roll on another 10 or 12 years and the Shearne was replaced with an ND5XS - which also had very similar sound, though that was based on memory as there was a Few months gap between the Shearne and the ND5.
Then I heard Hugo in place of the ND5XS’s DAC, and the difference was quite marked - not in terms of any easily discernible specific musical descriptor, but it suddenly imparted a greater ‘naturalness’ that I hadn’t really realised wasn’t there with digital until then - the elusive difference between analogue and digital sounds, even making my analogue diehard brother-in-law grudgingly admit that it no longer sounded digital to him, other than that it had a wider dynamic range and lacked any spurious noise.
Since then I have heard HugoTT and Dave: TT a marginal advancement, but Dave simply stunning - just when I was thinking it can’t get much better Dave showed that it truly could, enough to make the very significant cost feel totally worthwhile.
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personally i have not tested, but i am curious how it can sound on naim streamers. Perhaps i would prefer the hugo on my nds, i don’t know.
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and LP12 for turntables - maybe a little Rega - 
Hugo does have huge added value to my ears to musical enjoyment
… a naim preamp does takes you very far in opening the window on the source, but it cannot turn a Naim DAC into a Hugo and vice versa.
The Hugo’s talents are audible on Naim and Non-Naim amplifiers I have tested.
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I would add that I use some non chord DACs such as audio quest dragonfly red, and also a I-fi nano ione, and music does sound enjoyable to my ears on those… It is not a necessity to enjoy music on a Chord DAC, but it is quite a bit more immersive on the Chord when comparing A/B.
On days I have my dragonfly red and leave my Chord Mojo at home, I still enjoy music very much.
I’m probably in the KIS side of audio life. I’m a fan staying “in house” with components. I figure Naim excel at designing HiFi, my job is to enjoy the music.
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Don’t you think that a fairer comparison would be NDX 2 against Hugo 2 TT? Has anybody did a direct comparison between these two?
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I have but with Hugo mk1… wrote about it on the old forum
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