After spending some time with the Chrod Qutest and Hugo TT 2 I wanted to share some thoughts on the key differences that might influence which one you would choose.
Chord for me is like OLED, a tech that doesn't have any equal to any other tech, in all aspects. Even if it's expensive, you get what you paid for. My opinion is that there is no BS in Chord products. They are legit from top to bottom. I have Hugo 2 and Mojo and the only thing I can upgrade in my life is TT2 or Dave, I will never think twice if I had the money for an upgrade.
I loved your opening comments about the complaints about the aries. Having tried the denafrips pontus 2 and the metrum hex, I agree that these traditional NOS dacs are musical, but EXACTLY as you describe, they sacrifice the musical elements that you want to be sharp, the fizz of a ride cymbal, the snap of a snare drum are softened and lacklustre. This was also a complaint I had (to a much lesser degree) with the original TT as well, but it was still hugely better than the r2r dacs in that aspect. As you say, the standard ESS dacs etc are too sharp, too etched, to cool and matter of fact. I’ve ordered a TT2 today, and I look forward to seeing if it pushes the game forward
Very good review. I’ve watched many Chord reviews and this is the first time I heard about the color being helpful for IEMs and suddenly use of color makes perfect sense :)
I thought the orbs were weird at first but when you mess around with other DACs with cumbersome jogwheels and menus it’s easier to just quickly tap a couple times until you hear the input you need or the effect up you want. I can do it in the dark without looking.
Great. Love your comfy style. I’ve been pulled into the Chord rabbit hole starting with Mojo 1. I liked it… simple. Ahhh the lights! At night in the dark what fun. I too have a Denny Aries. That Drives a Pass Headphone HP1 The Denny was good but then I swapped out for the Chord Cutest… that combo rang my bells. Ahhh yes. And now the Hugo at $$$6k? 80 %? Hummm Maybe Dump the Pass hp1 and the Cutest Don’t know yet. 16:13
I feel like Chord are the Apple of DACs and audio. It's annoying. You don't want to like it because it's annoying. Gimmicky for no good reason, form over function to a fault. But, it's very very good and if you don't like it, you still have to kinda admit that it's still, very very good.
Thank you so much for an informative upload. I really would love a Chord TT2 but the price is a bit prohibitive 😔 So actually what I would really prefer in the real world is a combo of the Anni and Qutest with a cross feed option, for listening to old recordings where some instruments are panned to the extreme left or right. When that instrument then happens to play solo 😳oh goodness does it take away all enjoyment! Actually almost painful! Well the solution is probably a Hugo 2 which has cross feed but a more limited power output than the Anni. There are seemingly to many options in this world or are there to few 🤔I am not quite sure. Greetings from Denmark
So many options but never the exact one I want ;) I visited Denmark this summer, wonderful time. Copenhagen has some fun record shops and I dig the jazz coming from that part of the world.
How much better (assuming that it is better) is the Chord's built-in headphone amp compared to the signal being run through something like the A90 before reaching the headphones?
To my memory the TT2's integrated headphone amp was very detailed and clean in its presentation. Definitely not an afterthought bundled in. I personally prefer having a separate DAC and amplifier as it allows me to dial in the sound I'm looking for and better match the amp to a given headphone's needs.
The majority of the time I was testing both with headphone setups. Hard to recall exactly what I had on hand at the time but likely a few headphones, tube amps, and solid state amps to mix and match.
I don't have any first hand experience with it. I think the Mojo is about the same age and it still sounds great so I'm guessing it should be a very well performing DAC. I suspect if you a/b compared with the Qutest or Hugo 2 it would not be technically as good but I bet the value for dollar on it is pretty solid.
Hello. Thanks a lot for the review ! I own a Qutest at home and a Mojo2 that I use at work in combination with the Chord Poly streamer and I like it a lot. I'd like to buy a used TT2 to upgrade the Qutest at home. But even in second hand the price is hefty and it would hurt my wallet since I'm not rich. You had the chance to test them both, do you feel that upgrading to the TT2 will up my quality listening by some margin ? Or is the difference to small to justify it ? I use with the Qutest a Stax enegizer with Stax headphones and I also have a Feliks Elise MKII tube amp that I like but which I feel is a bit too warm for my taste. Thanks for sharing your opinion. Have a nice day
Hello. I only listen to music through headphones. From Qutest outs I go to the the Stax SRM-700T energizer and the headphones are the SR-L700MKII. From the SRM-700T outs I go to the Feliks Elise MKII tube headphone amp which is driving Audeze LCD-X 2021 headphones. My streamer is the Innuos Zenith MKIII and I listen to files from Qobuz. I'm pretty broke with all these things that I bought by depriving myself a lot So what do you think, is it worthwhile to get the TT2 if I can get a good used one ? Or the difference with the Qutest will be too small ? I have to say that I was also looking for a transistor preamp for the Audeze headphones, to change color from the tube amplifier. I'm sorry for my poor English
Have you heard the Sony TA-Z1hes? I owned both and found the TT2 to have great clarity in the treble and very slightly more separation but I found the bass to be too clean and to lack some slam compared to the Sony. Ultimately I could not justify keeping it - in many ways it, to my ears, was equivalent to the Sony; just different. All of this combined with the lack of headphone output options, the external power brick and the feed that is heard when you plug in your headphones make the TT2 overpriced.
"Balanced is always better" - Big no. When the measurements beats true balanced DACs with double the hardware, XLR is of no use other than convenience. You can use the XLR's on the back with a 2x3pin XLR to 4pin XLR cable for headphones.
For sure, if you like the clean, detailed, three dimensional (but not overly analytical) Chord sound signature it offers a decent value per dollar ratio when compared to similarly priced DACs. I personally prefer R2R options in that price bracket, namely the Holo Audio Spring III and Denafrips Pontus II offerings.
i need to know the titel and artist of that opening track. It sounds SO familiar and yet it keeps eluding me - it drives me nuts^^ so if you could end my suffering i would be ever so greatfull.
I totally so so not agree the qutest sound the same or similir, especially. The tt2+mscaler goes way beyond the qutest (even if you include the mscaler with it). What amp and speakers were you using?
Nice comparison video!! but I have to disagree with you about the Qutest. I my system, the Qutest is only about 80% of the TT2. I have done several listening tests with multiple people, and most of them agreed that the Qutest is below the TT2 by a long distance.
Thanks for sharing your experience with them. This stuff is pretty subjective so great to get more impressions and opinions. Is your system speaker based? I mostly spent time with these two on headphones, wondering if the gap is more noticeable on a 2-channel set up.
for me dac doesn't improve the sound by much it grow on you the more you use it. biggest factor is headphones and good amp that's it focus on dac later better wait and buy used dac cause the price isn't worth it really. I own hugo 2 it sounds no different from my motherboard ASUS it just driver headphones better because of the amp.
I hear this kind of comments all the time, to the point it gets annoying. Buy some decent headphones like hifiman arya and above, audeze etc… and then listen again, and say you don’t hear difference… I don’t own a hugo, other dacs. But saying a mainboard out sounds the same as decent dac… with all do respect you are either deaf or have bad headphones….
@@Cestmoi50 which dacs you heard and noticed huge difference? I owned hugo dac barely noticed any difference between it and my motherboard which had good chip dac too.
