Has The Determination To Dig Deep And Hit Hard

FOR Detailed and transparent presentation; excellent features

AGAINST Multiple colours for functions are confusing

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Our infatuation with Chord’s remarkable Hugo DAC, which manifests itself in its multiple-Award winning status, is as strong as ever. We can overlook little foibles, such as its wilfully quirky design, the hard-to access input and output sockets, like an indulgent parent forgives an infant’s table-manners. We love its thrillingly detailed, effortlessly dynamic and neatly organised sound as much now as we did the first time we heard it. So for us, at least, Chord had no need to go fiddling.

But the Chord Hugo is no more. Instead, please welcome Hugo 2. A little smaller, a little sharper around the edges, significantly more expensive than the original, and – incredibly – slightly quirkier than before.

Multi-coloured spectrum

The casework is gratifyingly smooth and crisp-edged, the quality of construction is inarguable, and the laser-cut brand and model logos are particularly pleasing. There’s no confusing Hugo 2 for a product from any other brand.

Measuring 10 x 13cm, and just 2cm high, Hugo 2 is a touch more compact than its predecessor. It’s still a big box, though, and it’s a struggle to get behind Chord’s suggestion that Hugo 2 displays “obvious portability”. Sure, it’s portable in so much as you can pick it up (it’s only 450g, thanks in large part to its high-end aluminium construction), but don’t imagine it’ll sit comfortably in a pocket for on-the-go use.

Chord has tacitly acknowledged as much by including a remote control with this latest Hugo. It’s a functional handset where the Hugo 2 itself is wildly individual, but it suggests Chord knows full well Hugo 2 is as likely to end up as a DAC/pre-amp in a static system as it is to get out and about.