CHORD ELECTRONICS LAUNCH THE CHORD MOJO 2

Chord Electronics has launched Chord Mojo 2, the replacement for their original portable DAC/headphone amplifier, featuring lossless DSP.

The world of press launches has changed somewhat over the last couple of years so the new Chord Mojo 2 didn’t get quite the launch that the original Chord Mojo did at The Shard, London in 2015.

The new Chord Electronics Chord Mojo 2

Almost seven years after Chord Electronics created their Mojo high-end portable DAC/headphone amp, the company’s long-standing digital design consultant, Rob Watts, has revisited, reimagined and reengineered the original with new “ground-breaking, world-first technology”.

The colourful, illuminated, spherical buttons on the Mojo 2 now number four

CHORD MOJO 2

The new Chord Mojo 2 benefits from several new features, of which the main one is a lossless DSP, which Chord claims is the first of its kind in the world. The innovative new ‘UHD DSP’ is designed to be fully transparent, enabling comprehensive tone adjustments across the frequency range, without degradation in sound quality.

Chord Mojo 2

HEADPHONES

Chord says that the new technology gives the Chord Mojo 2 compatibility with today’s wide-ranging choice of headphones, regardless of type and sonic signature, plus flexibility with different source components and digital file types.

A further key feature is the introduction of a menu system. Navigated via a new (fourth) control sphere, the menu brings a mute function, four-setting crossfeed adjustment, a button-lock feature for travelling, plus the fully lossless tone controls.

Chord Mojo 2 with IEMs and tablet

NEW USB-C DATA INPUT

Digital inputs have increased to four, thanks to a new USB-C data input for greater flexibility. USB-C is featured alongside optical, coaxial (incl. dual-data for the M Scaler) and Micro USB. Two 3.5 mm mini-jack headphone outputs allow up to two people to listen simultaneously.

Chord Mojo 2 right and left ends

CHORD MOJO 2 IMPROVED BATTERY AND CHARGING

Chord Mojo 2 has much-improved battery management, thanks to a new FPGA-based battery-charging system. The tech brings much faster charging rates, coupled with a 75 % reduction in power loss for cooler, more efficient charging. Capacity is up by 9 %, resulting in better efficiency and improved battery life, which is now better than eight hours.

Top view with the four ‘sphere’ controls

Mojo 2’s established ‘Intelligent Desktop Mode’ technology has also been improved, with an isolated battery and PSU redesign to support battery-free operation without any losses in sound quality, plus improved filtering and isolation.

The new connection options on the Mojo 2

IMPROVED TRANSPARENCY

Chord Mojo 2 is now DC-coupled with a digital DC servo. It benefits from an improved WTA (Watts Transient Aligned) filter, now offering 40,960 taps (the technical indicator of how complex the interpolation filter is), using 40 DSP cores.

Additionally, Chord say an improved noise-shaper offers greater depth and detail perception, plus improvements to the 4e Pulse Array DAC introduce lower distortion and out-of-band noise. Greater neutrality has also been achieved, thanks to the elimination of coupling capacitors.

Desktop use with IEMs

UHD DSP

Chord Electronics says that the new Mojo 2 has the world’s first fully transparent ‘UHD DSP’. The proprietary technology uses a 104-bit custom DSP core running at 705/768 kHz: no other audio DSP offers the same accuracy. By using 104 bits plus extensive internal noise-shaping, Chord claims that the Mojo 2 can deliver complete transparency by preserving the filtering of ultra-small signals.

The unique UHD DSP enables fine-tuning across the full frequency range with 18 steps of adjustment per frequency banding: lower bass, mid-bass, lower treble and high treble. The volume control range has also been improved from +18 dB to -108 dB, and now benefits from two distinct operational ranges: low and high volume. A new four-setting crossfeed function, also DSP-controlled, brings speaker-like spatial effects for flexible headphone listening.

Chord Mojo 2 on the go with the Chord Poly

CHORD MOJO 2 BUILD QUALITY

The Chord Mojo 2 is designed, engineered and handmade in the UK. It benefits from high-grade, bead-blasted aluminium casework, with a high-quality black anodised finish. Control is via four polychromatic polycarbonate control spheres.

CHORD MOJO 2 AND CHORD POLY

Chord Mojo 2 is fully compatible with the Poly streamer/server, enabling high-resolution streaming and up to 2 TB of solid-state library storage and playback when using the microSD card slot. You can read our review of the original Chord Mojo and Poly here.

Chord Mojo 2 and Chord Poly

CHORD MOJO 2 PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

The Chord Electronics Mojo 2 is available now in black (only); UK SRP £449.

HiFi Pig Says: You will be able to read the HiFi Pig review of the new Chord Mojo 2 tomorrow.

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