CHORD ELECTRONICS HUGO TT 2 REVIEW. The most beautiful audio hardware designed? 

To our newcomers, welcome, to the old crew, welcome back. Apologies, this review was delayed by eight months, and in the intervening time we have experienced more audio equipment than we can count, so a shootout will be coming against some of the others later on .

Watching you fondle this thing's curves in the intro genuinely made my day.

Excellent review. I’m not likely to be buying one of these soon, but your review kind of brings it alive , so I can almost feel as though I’ve had a close up look. 8:30 ‘Restraining order’ haha!

Love what you do, thanks for the hard work, I dig your sense of humour, a few times you’ve made me chuckle out loud, you’ve got a great personality and I just wish you well, I’m interested in Naim Atom Headphone Edition or Feliks Envy, I’d love to hear your view opinion on either, what source you would use to feed the Envy and your views on sound, please stay impartial it’s really important, don’t buckle on manufactures, distributers pressure to big up what there trying to flog or what others think is good. Thanks again keep up the good work.

By the way, I have ordered the Hugo TT2 as a DAC and headphone amp. I will give my take on it here when I get the unit and has started listening tests on it. It will be paired with a Hegel H390 amplifier and Dynaudio Evoke 50 speakers with dual Rel T9i subwoofers.

Thank you for your reviews. So can you directly Connect headphones to the rear balanced output? Can the volume also be controlled through the ball?

Hola from sunny Malaga. Brillant channel! Don't know if you´ll catch this though but I gotta try... You are probably the only one audiophile youtuber so knowledgeable and experienced I can actually ask and hope for an answer. So i have the mojo 2 with a focal clear, and the kef ls50 wireless 2 + kc62 sub, great apartment system and neighbors friendly :) I have to say I am really happy with all this gear. I actually found out that if I plug in my mojo 2 into my desktop computer via usb-c and then in the other end into my ls50 wireless 2 via mini jack 3,5 mm, I get the kefs to sound better, not by much but still I appreciate the upgrade. So of course now I am looking at the superior bad boy from Chord to get even more out of my kef if possible, as well as it would also upgrade my sound on the focal clear I guess and also possible futur high end headphones I might buy later. To be honest I never use the mojo 2 on the go, almost only desktop setup as I described which brings me to think, if I want to upgrade, no need to pay for a device with battery like the hugo 2, I might as well look at the next level with the TT2 desktop device. So simple question : How much better could the sound be with same use (plugged into ls50 w2 and with focal clear) from the mojo 2? And how should I connect the TT2 to the ls50 w2? is the mini jack 3,5 mm my only option or is there a better one? (the ls50 w2 have earc, coax, toslink optical and the aux I am already using with the mojo 2. Thank you very much and please keep doing what you are doing, much admiration ;)

Hi Koji, im going to throw a question at you as no one seems able.to help , Im wanting to have a tube amp that takes Zmf verite closed and Audeze Lcd5 using a chord tt2,mscaler setup. But none so farxseem ablecto handle 2.5v from the Dac of Tt2, im not wanting to always switchvto Tt2s amp section low gain. Can u advise please

Excellent review! :) I have never able to try a chord dac. I only read and watched reviews about them. I have an RME adi-2 dac fs which also have the features you praise like crossfeed and filters but I have no idea how the RME implementation is like compared to the chord dacs. I hope one day you will be able to test RME to compare them :)

Agree about M-Scaler... it's something where when you flip back and forth you immediately realize the difference. Much wider, more open, more precise sound with m-scaler.. like you say, instruments just "appear" out of nowhere, precisely positioned. I'm flipping back and forth between this stack and a Holo May KTE and it's hard to say one is better than the other.. more just different. One more articulate and precise (TT+M), one more warm and natural and "musical" (May).

Did you also test the XLR out when you tested it as a DAC or a Pre-amp?

How does the TT2 perform with the Bliss + Susvara? Would you recommend this combo? How does the TT2 differ from the Spring? I'm more of a fan of a bright sound, so the treble shouldn't be too restrained.

Are there any dacs in the $1000 to $1500 that will pair against the chord tt2 dac. I plan to pair it with the voyager amp. General is fine too.

Did you notice a drop, in gain adding the TT M Scaler to the TT2? With Ferrum oor / HYPSOS - TT2 /M scaler - ZMF VC I notice a high drop in gain … Versus just Ferrum oor HYPSOS -TT2 - ZMF VC … with M Scaler in the chain I’m using 2 to 3 o’clock on the nob of the OOR. Without Mscaler 12 o’clock… is this normal or something is wrong? This is in mid gain on the oor, but now thinking to use high gain for my ZMF VC. Thanks in advance for the help!

Having just bought the TT2 and using it with my VC I can totally agree with everything you said. The VC never sounded this good and I have gone through Denafrips Pontus II, Chord Qutest, and Chord Hugo 2. I am getting more enjoyment out of it than my Susvara on Cayin HA-300b mk2 :) Magical pairing!

Tip for headphone swapping: pause playback, plug in the 2nd headphone into the 2nd jack, then unplug the 1st headphone. You only lose the few seconds while music is paused but you avoid the discharge / recharge cycle.

Hello! I love your reviews and im genuinely curious, do you think that the TT 2 beats a OOR + Hypsos stack? I can pick up a used TT 2 for almost a grand more than a new OOR + Hypsos and wonder if it is worth it.

I would love to hear TT2 with VC.

You've said in a couple of reviews that Chord doesn't have good synergy with Focal headphones. However, I often see you mentioning the Stellia only. Could it perhaps be different for the Clear MG or the Utopia? I think the issue is that the Stellia already has a very smooth sound (compared to other Focals, at least)

Hi, also have the Ferrum OOR and HYPSOS and love it with the TT2. I found the hard way that the RCA output in the back is the best sound connected to a external amp as the OOR. And also from the back outputs for top performance you i must have just one output connected , like RCA or the XLR ( just use one ) . As the my understanding and after exchanging some msgs with Chord and Rob himself , the both outputs share the same single ended output, with different gains . The reason i say the hard way is because of wanted use both at the same time, as in DAC mode, to connect two external amps . TT2 - OOR from the XLR and TT2 - Feliks audio echo 2 from RCA, it´s a no go . Still if you have one amp off and Just one of them on ,the sound is bad . Only plug one in the back at the same time , if the two are essencial , use amp mode with -15L in volume , but still the sound is not great as in dac mode with just one output being used. Hope this help someone !

I also agree with you regarding Sus + TT - I *wish* it was powerful enough, but it's just not. Sounds closed and thin on bass. Too bad. Did you try powering Susvara from the rear dual XLR's? I've heard that can help but don't have the right adapters to make it work, so I've only used SE.

After even more playback, my lasting impression is that is is a very good product, also as a preamp/DAC combo. Maybe the amplifier / speaker has something to do with the impression that the test here showed? It works well with most kinds of music. The biggest impact for me is for orchestral music with busy tracks. The separation and clarity is in another world of what I have heard before.

I think you need to wait 15 seconds switching between headphone mode and pre-amp/dac mode (via unplugging a headphone) because you set the gain differently in these two modes. I had the same issue at first when I set high gain for pre-amp/dac mode and low gain for headphone mode. But then after a while I set the headphone to high gain as well. And the problem goes away. No more waiting, not a second in switching headphones.

I’m in the process of buying a used Chord Hugo TT2 DAC & headphone amp + Sbooster linear power supply for $4900 Canadian. Am I doing the right thing since it only being use as a headphone setup? It will be connected to an Aurender N100. How would you compare it with the Fiio k19?

What studio monitors are you using? Have you specified that somewhere?

How does it sound on the hd800s ?

very interesting that you like it as an all in one unit. I usually hear people use it as just a dac

Ok, i love your reviews, now, how is this with mscaler using Lcd5?

You totally nailed the visceral criticism of that cheap plastic 5 dollar remote , the same one CHORD inflict on DAVE buyers , its actually a criminal act in my book when spending so much cash !

Would HUGO TT 2 be good match for Empyrean 2? Also do you think it will have enough power for them to be at their max potential.

Focusing purely on textural and detail retrieval is this accurate?: TT2 > Mojo2 > Hugo2 Or is the character of the TT2 fundamentally in a different place? While the are not on a level playing field pricewise, the commonality I find intriguing is that they are all "complete" on their own. I spent a fair amount of time with a Mojo2 as a reference point.

From what I've heard in reviews, I wonder why everyone who is considering something like the TT2 plus some top at the line headphones, which will together cost >8k new, does not simply consider the Warwick Bravura system. Can TT2 (without M scaler) with the right headphones be better than the Bravura system? It's also very compact, just like the TT2. So these could be seen as two direct competitors.

My friend ! I listened one of this in a showroom somewhere far far away. It fed a Yamaha A-S1200 to a pair of BW 80.. two ways. It lose the microdetail. Maybe a 20000 euro DAC will do the job. I will return with feedback after i listen it at home with a A-S2200 and a pair of Dynaudio Evoke 20

I own lot of gear including the TT2+Mscaler and ZMF VC and this is not the best setup, not even by a long shot. My Susvara with a Holo May Kisume (L3) plus my Woo WA33 Elite edition with KR tunes is by far a better experience. It is holographic, better bass response, more textured and better detail. The VC and TT2 sound fair by comparison.

You’re all missing the best DAC: Audio Music DAC/1.

The m scaler is a sign the product wasn’t optimised. Why wasn’t it included inside the DAC?? I know a few people who don’t like the Chord sound. Afraid China make the best DACs.

beaten by many dacs at a fraction of its price