alubis

Yes I think there's a good legacy dac out there, I bought Sonic Frontiers SFD 2 mk2 back in Nov last year and to my ears, it sounds better than Chord Hugo TT and Chord Hugo (I own both). It sounds more dynamic and raw compare to both Hugo. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

Sonic Frontiers preamp is very nice. I recently bought a used Sonic Frontiers Sfd-2 dac and it's excellent.

Have you try to compare thumbdrive to Esoteric N-05 dac vs Esoteric K-01 as CD transport only to Esoteric N-05 dac? I don't have Esoteric dac, but I'm just curious since I usually prefer the sound of cd transport rather than anything via usb to my dac.

I have tried upsampling using hq player both for Chord Hugo and Hugo TT, and prefer not to upsample as well. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

The replacement batteries can only be found from UK sellers and they can't ship the batteries worldwide. If you know a seller that can ship the batteries worldwide, please let me know (my Hugo is out of warranty). There is no volume bypass mode in Hugo, the manual is misleading and Rob Watts has discussed this in great length at Head Fi forum. In fact, the reason the setting is 3Vrms is because Rob requirements during Hugo design. There is a table provided by Chord in Head Fi that shows the voltage output for each volume colors.

I would go with chord mojo (dac) and dynaudio lyd (speaker). http://www.dynaudio.com/professional-audio/lyd/ Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

I also find valuable information on this forum http://atcforums.co.uk. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

I'm currently using the latest passive version of ATC SCM40, but if I live in the US, I would sell those and get this instead http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SCM20ASL. What a great price and no need to worry about amp. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

New Melco firmware Ver. 3.10 [27.July.2016] -New Firmware Notification -If N1 connect to Internet, new firmware notification will show up on the display. -Notification can be off on the setting menu. -Improvement of Media Server -Navigation tree update -N1 is now able to show information of “Artist” as “Album Artist”. -“Track Artist” will be shown under “Track” folder after Artist, Artist Index or Genre. -Improvement of CD drives support -Day and time will be the album name in case N1 cannot obtain Meta Date of the CD because of lack of information on database or off-line of Internet. -Add variation of tag information for FLAC -Add offset sampling menu -CD transport -N1 can play CD when the CD drive and USB-DAC are connected. -Play all tracks of CD and repeat the album. (No track repeat) -Track control on the front display Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

The Melco N1A is capable to stream Qobuz using Bubbleupnp app, so you don't need the Auralic Aries. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

Hifi News did measurements when reviewing the Melco and the Aurender units and showed improvements on the a weighted s/n ratio and jitter on the dacs attached to these units. Maybe that's a good start for measurement wise. Sent from my LG-D802 using Computer Audiophile mobile app

I have ATC SCM40 v2 passive speakers, and currently using Musical Fidelity M6i as power amp only with Chord Hugo TT as preamp. If I were to upgrade, I'll go with active ATC or Hypex amp such as this one http://www.iqspeakers.co.uk/hypex-amps. Sent from my SM-G930F using Computer Audiophile mobile app

So back to the main topic, how much further can gbp go down.

In my case, yes. I read measurements in stereophile and hifi news before buying Chord Hugo TT. I'm hoping more measurements showed up in this forum.

I'm using Melco N1A as transport Chord Hugo TT as preamp/dac and Musical Fidelity as power amp.