at least the hugo 1 was

not sure about the new one

```There isn’t another DAC around at anywhere near this sort of price able to communicate so torrentially, so unambiguously or so effortlessly. We like it a lot.

Read more at https://www.whathifi.com/chord/hugo-2/review#wEmHhZXWbXKIwZbs.99```

@bentech i bet it's measurably, objectively no better within human hearing range than whatever reasonably-recent $50 dac you could compare it to

yea but who cares about measurements when all my hi fi blogs tell me it's godo

it does look good tbh

as in physical apperance

lol

disagree there too, looks like a star trek TOS prop

not even tng

```Even so, the Hugo 2 provides supreme sound quality that threatens DACs many times its price point with a capable headphone amplifier to boot.

```

there's an easy, easy way to tell if a dac is actually worth more than $50

@maito received a pair of the Xiaomi ANC yesterday. Coming from Piston 2s I'm not impressed

after that price point they stop calling them dacs

and start calling them AFEs

afe?

er, wait, got my acronym backwards'd, analog frontend is the adc worth past that price point

aw fuck what was the opposite direction of those called

The Xiaomi ANC has way too little bass, although droidbot told me yesterday there's a mod to help that. Feel like the soundstage is extremely narrow

it has a special "this is for special science shit, not your stereo" name too

Although the noise cancellation is really cool

basically you've got jellybean audio ICs and then v expensive instrumentation stuff

i guess if u are real musician its ok to spend a lot in stuff like that

lol a real musician wouldnt use this

yeah nah

actual studio gear uses cheap jellybean ics

i mean the dac

or something

idk

what they use

anyone got cheap (lapel) mics to recommend?

@Lefteris the oens on a budget go for whatever cheap pcm290* box they get recommended, then the price goes up as you gte into interfaces with more channels

digital monitors are becomming more common now as well

as in speakers you just plug a digital source straight into

cos they use tons of dsp

ye

like, $2400 for some shitty stereo audio dac, or a clarett 8prex for $1100

26 in/28 out, 24/192, phantom power for the inputs

for less than half the price of the audiophool dac

it's that cheap damn

but dude