Chord Mojo

Sounds like a good enough reason, haha. I doubt I'll be very active since audio is more of a secondary hobby/recent interest, but who knows? I've been wrong before!

I may post a quick A/B here if and when the meet pushes through, so I suppose there's that to look forward to at the very least.


Cheers,

R. Passerby

I listened to one a few days ago, and i quite liked the sound.

With my Sennheiser HD800 and HiFiMan HE500, also tried them both on at the same time. Good levels with both playing and the pot (or should i say balls, on blue), drained the battery fast though like that.

Plenty power, very detailed, no harshness, slightly narrower sounstage as what i am used to from my desktop rig (Soekris Dam R2R Dac, Schiit Mjolnir).

I cant be sure but from memory i think it might be better than the Ifi micro.

I am considering getting one to use on the go.

In relation to the problem I suspect my Mojo had the official line from Chord was that they were only aware of  10 or so* affected units. I also believe they caught the problem early in production so any units being sold now should not be affected.

Not really followed events since returning mine but ongoing QA issues could be one reason for people offloading but I also suspect that some people bought into the hype and then realised they didn't really need a £400 dac/amp solely for portable use. Or if it was their first time 'enhancing' their portable set up they perhaps found the reality of carrying an extra box around and messing about with OTG cables etc. was more inconvenient that anticipated or perhaps didn't give them the improvement they'd been expecting.

I've read enough about the iDSD to suspect (for what that's worth) that the Mojo isn't likely to be a huge upgrade. I imagine it boils down to personal preference in terms of how one unit presents sound in comparison to the other, rather than one being vastly better on a more technical level.

I have to say that whilst I liked the Mojo as a unit I didn't really like it as a DAC fed to my iCAN or O2. For some reason I found that either pairing sounded a bit 'off' and both seemed to have nicer synergy with my MF V90-DAC. Of course the V90 can't handle DSD or higher bitrate files but 99% of the time I listened to CD quality FLACs and in that respect I'd take the V90 every day.

btw welcome to the forum cursive! I think in your shoes I'd just enjoy what you have unless you get a chance to directly compare both, preferably with your own IEMs or headphones. £400 is a lot of cash and it may be that all you really gain is some nice fancy lights and a smaller form factor.




* my personal feeling is that Chord downplayed the numbers a bit or that some owners may even have been unaware of the 'noise' issue (in my case it was very subtle). I did try to get a definitive answer from John at Chord (seems a bit ***ly at times) with regards mine by quoting a couple of his HF posts on the subject. First time I got no response and put it down to them busy but second time I got the distinct impression I was being ignored, as they seemed to have no issue responding to each and every post regarding cases, FR graphs and general trivia. So I voted with my wallet and returned for a refund.

The current crop of (ostensibly) mobile head-amp/dacs like Mojo, Ifi, etc, which give superlative mobile sound quality, but which can also be plumbed in to a main two-channel system, give me lots of "Reasons to be cheerful".

I shall certainly be looking at these when I next think about up-grading. Cambridge Audio don't seem to be serious about up-grading their streamers anytime soon, so these units seem to fit the bill.

It seems that music fans who seek top quality sound, but who unfortunately don't have top quality wallets, have another avenue to explore.

I mean, why pay for a full size hi-fi unit with 8mm thick, aircraft-grade aluminium, sniper-proof front fascia, a load of bells 'n' whistles, (oops, I mean led's and switches) when the actual chip-set I want could comfortably fit into a tiny casing with an external PSU?

Thanks, jellofund! And yeah, I may have the opportunity to A/B both soon enough since more and more of my friends are buying in to the Mojo craze (with one saving up for a Hugo TT some time down the line— yikes!). Most of my listening is either done at the office during slow hours or at home on my days off, so my choices in audio gear are limited to what I can comfortably carry around in my bag. The smaller form factor of the Chord is a huge plus as the Micro iDSD isn't exactly jeans-friendly, so I'm definitely going to be tempted to upgrade if there's a pronounced difference between both amp/DACs. Also, as far as aesthetic goes I'm torn between the two; I'm something of a calligraphy and fountain pen enthusiast, as one might glean from my screen name, so while sound is definitely my primary concern I also take appearances quite seriously. The iFi looks more impressive and businesslike while the Mojo appeals to my rambunctious, start-singing-for-no-particular-reason side. It's a tossup.

I do love how the Micro's dual-DAC sounded out of the Lake People G109 with my Beyer DT880s, but as I listened to that setup in a moderately noisy cafe during a HP meet there's a fair chance that my opinion may change if I get to try it in a quieter environment.

Err, that last bit doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their aftersales. I contacted iFi about a minor niggle with my unit and they were of great help. I can only hope that things improve on Chord's end if and when I pick up the Mojo. As things stand at the moment, though, I'm perfectly happy with my current transportable setup, and will likely only demo the Chord to satisfy my curiosity. Part of the fun in this hobby comes from playing around with toys that aren't yours, after all


Cheers,

Kevin

Ah, but the downside of having friends who are also into headphones is that your rig never seems good enough! Just the other week, I got to try out Micro iDSD/Theorem 720>Lake People G109>Senn HD800/Audeze LCD-2 rev. 1; it took a few days before I was able to really appreciate my humble Beyers again XD

Jokes aside, auditioning things way out of my budget is fun even though it exacerbates my upgradeitis. I'm just now getting back into "good" audio after a good long while and it's excellent fun picking out new things I could just barely hear before like plucking feathers out of the air with my hands (weird analogy, but it seems apropos). The only reason I'm -still- fixated on trying out the Mojo is because it's supposed to be better at presenting details than the Micro at similar SPLs.

By the by, good point about the buttons being maybe a touch too easy to accidentally depress. I'll have to ask my friend about that and hope he's open to lending it to me for a while so I can really get to know it, haha. Fat chance of that, but a guy can dream! Also, speaking of trigger-happy settings, I just spent maybe 10 minutes wondering whether I was going prematurely deaf (early 20s here) because I could barely get enough kick out of my cans with the pot on my Micro nearly at 6 o'clock on Eco mode. It turns out that the IEMatch toggle on the bottom had travelled all the way to Ultra Sensitivity (-24 dB?) after an hour in my bag! *facepalm*

I don't doubt that Chord is usually really good with these sort of things. I only discovered their product line a few months after the Mojo came out, but from what I hear they're excellent people. You're probably spot-on about their being really busy thanks to the launch. There was actually an event here in the Philippines not too far back. I wasn't able to go, but the people that did manage to make it say it was good fun. Colour me green with envy, haha.


Cheers,

Kevin