I am not an audiophile. I am every bit a regular consumer like so many people out there. I have no desire to pursue “the best” audio product. I am a sensible calculative shopper that makes sure the money I spend is worth the justification. If I spend $3000 on an audio gear, I expect it to be significantly better than the $1000 alternative, and not just “a little bit” better. Finally, there is the litmus test of “can I live without it”.
If you own a basic smartphone or an entry-level digital audio player (DAP), and you want to listen to headphones that demand higher power, you need to plug a separate digital-to-analog converter (DAC) so that the headphones do not struggle with delivering the audio signals coming from the source. There are several tell-tale signs:
- You need to turn up the volume to the maximum with no more room to go louder.
- The music does not sound articulated, musically no impact, lacking in punch.
- The audio quality is harsh, relatively lacking in bass response.
I have owned the Chord Mojo for 4 years. I bought it the next day after an interview with Rob Watts at CanJam Singapore 2018 and I have since used it only on occasions when I needed to compare the audio quality of review units. Personally, I am not hard-up for audio purity or perfection, because life is full of distractions that it is not easy to find time to completely immerse in audio, so most of the time, I would be listening to music during my commute (which means fighting with ambient noise) and as companion while working, which means I’m not really focused on the musical details.
But I consider the Chord Mojo as an essential accessory to review audio products. It is able to drive most headphones and comes with two 3.5mm output connectors to do A-B comparison. It runs on battery and is compact so I can bring on-location to test audio products. Compared to the normal DACs on your smartphones, laptops or even dongles, the Chord Mojo elevates the sound with effortless transparency and spatial staging for improved presentation of instrumentation. In my interview with Rob, he mentioned that he was glad to come up with the Mojo which achieved massive success in sales thanks to its relative affordability. Indeed, the Mojo offers an excellent sample to the rest of the Chord audio products that are priced several times more.
The new Chord Mojo 2 is an improvement of this sound signature that Rob Watts designed and developed over the years. It also introduces some impressive features almost unheard of in portable DAC. First of all, you can apply EQ adjustment across four bands – lower bass, mid bass, lower treble, high treble. For each band, you can adjust from -9dB to +9dB. Each dB level is indicated by the LED colour, from pale red to pale blue and white. People who uses Chord products will be familiar with the coloured buttons to indicate the mode or the selection level. This does require knowledge of what the colour means, but it is a fool-proof way in the absence of a display screen.
The other new feature is the ability to adjust crossfeed in three levels. Crossfeed basically creates a speaker-like sound-stage to improve spatial effects. The effect is subtle and not like those found in consumer “surround sound” systems, but it offers different listening preferences.
A few other new functions include:
- Mute by pressing both volume buttons together
- Battery charging current indicator
- Intelligent Desktop mode to prevent over-charging when plugged to computer
- Lockdown mode to lock all buttons and prevent accidental triggers.
Physically, the Mojo 2 has the same dimensions as Mojo so that it can continue to connect with Chord Poly, a wireless streamer. Because of this, all the connectors are also at the same position. But Chord cleverly fitted a USB-C connector below the existing Micro USB port. Now with an additional menu button, the Mojo 2 buttons have to be resized to be smaller than Mojo. The chassis remains the same solid metal casing with matt black coating. Also, both DACs have identical amplification levels, meaning the LED colour volume indicator are the same when I am doing A-B testing.
Remember I mentioned I am not an audiophile? Well, it shows during my lengthy comparison between the Mojo and Mojo 2. Tested with Sennheiser HD 800 S, I almost could not hear any difference between the two. Well, actually, I do. I just I had to choose the right music to discern the differences. One thing I feel strongly about audio is that different people have different preferences. As much as what you see online claiming this or that is “the best”, it means nothing if you do not like it. The newer or more expensive product is not necessary the one that you might like.
The biggest audio character difference I find between the Mojo and Mojo 2 is that the new Mojo sounds more “quiet”, cleaner. The instruments have clearer imaging, less dispersed. I’m not talking about the brightness or the bassiness or the tuning, but about how the sound is formed and presented. These character can only be heard when auditioning acoustic tracks with slow instrumental movements – like Billie Eilish “No Time To Die”. This is why I could not really tell much difference when testing fast-tempo tracks like Hiromi “The Player”. Listening to “No Time To Die”, haunting brass motif lingers with more accurate imaging that you could pinpoint the audio source better. This fundamental distinction cascades down to all other aspects of how these two versions sound different. The Mojo 2 presents music in a cleaner fashion, fewer distractions from the echo-effect delays or hiss. While the first Mojo achieves great transparency , the Mojo 2 continues to be better at the transparency, not at making the sound brighter, but delivering better articulated music.
Verdict
The new Mojo 2 brings additional functional benefits other than just improving the sonic delivery, and that makes the second-generation portable DAC a great value upgrade. I like the ability to manually adjust EQ, which is an uncommon feature for portable DAC. More importantly, I like how they refined the audio to make them sound very cohesive, clean, bright without harshness. It’s distributed in Singapore by AV One retailing at S$899, and available at good audio outlets.
