What is it with the Chord camp followers? Is it that they like a particular sound?

I think many of them come from affordable dap or dac/amp and are impressed by the level of detail and instrument separation. I did compare against my FIIO X3 or my E17 and the Hugo destroyed them. Then, without any serious experience of 1800$ desktop rig , they all claimed their toy was the Eight marvel...  i really think that against a lot of portable stuff, the Hugo does not sound so bad. when I reviewed it, I hadn't any other luxury dap ou dac/amp under hands and I'm not experienced with all that luxury crap ( AK dap, Hi end Hifiman DAP , Calyx .. blablabla) . maybe this kind of sound is the norm ?

What makes me cringe is that some people claim it competes as desktop dac and/or amp. that's where's the misunderstanding IMO. i can list a whole bunch of affordable dac or amp that sounds way better with open headphones.  I really can't understand how some people like this crap as their main dac in a home rig or even that this Hugo could replace their full headphone rig.   I plugged the HD800 and 10s later I said to Marv that it's one the worst association I heard with my HD800 ( left/right presentation, lack of depth, lack of focus, crappy treble) .. a friend of mine didn't take more than a few secondes to give me same conclusions with a LCD3. We tried as dac alone with a 727/SR007 mkII and the Hugo didn't last more than a few minutes.

In my opinion it's not sound that "bad" ... it sounds definitely "wrong" : it impresses suckers with apparent clarity and detailed sound sig but by no means I could listen to music with this POS and a good headphone.  I can't understand how some experienced audiophiles can praise this thing. if it was priced around 2/300€. why not ? but 1800€ ? WTF ? WTF!!

As I've written, besides the sound issues and from an ergonomic point of of view, this thing is an aberration. At 1800€ .. its just crazy.

Hope that make more sense for you but it seems my opinion is really in minority so maybe I'm just deaf or crazy myself. YMMV

Hope that make more sense for you but it seems my opinion is really in minority so maybe I'm just deaf or crazy myself. YMMV

Your not in the minority there is just a lot of confirmation bias around the hugo.  People say that there is confermation bias around the ak240 butba least that serves a purpose and sounds good (not $2500 good but still good).

Not to mention thanks to the chord marketing this DAC fronts a lot of really good gear.  In one meet I heard it front a DNA Strauss/hd800, cavalli LG/lcdx, electrostatic rig. Hell I was about to change my opinion about the damn thing.