Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Chord Mojo 2

Picked up a Chord Mojo 2. Decided the bottleneck in my 2ch system was bluetooth and needed to switch to network streaming. Working in the garage with a Chromecast ultra feeding studio monitors I thought I was hearing deeper into tracks than with hluetooth.

The Arcam rBlink I was using was great, but I noticed details in music not present when I switched to a Chromecast Audio. Hmmmmm….

The Mojo 2 requires a mini toslink connection and wouldnt you know it none are available locally… Doh! Will report when cables arrive. New toys are always fun.

I wouldn't have thought the answer to needing network streaming was get a DAC. Why did you go that route instead of one of the many network streamers, say Bluesound Node or Cambridge Audio CXN? (I use a Yamaha WXC-50, so I'm very interested in your thought process.)

Ahhh, yes. My first post was perhaps cryptic.

My 2ch setup was

ipad—> Arcam rBlink (bluetooth DAC) —> Integrated amp —> M5s

Bottleneck here was throwing music to the stereo via bluetooth from the Ipad. I use spotify 90% of the time. I noticed when in the garage listening to that setup (spotify to chromecast TV) details were better in tracks I was familiar with and guessed it was due to lack of bluetooth. I hooked up an old chromecast audio (forgotten in a drawer from old garage setup lol) to my 2ch setup and yep…. it spanked the fancy bluetooth Dac. $40 chromecast lol.

New 2ch setup will be

ipad (as casting device) —> google chromecast audio —> chord Mojo 2 via optical from chromecast —> Integrated amp —> M5s

Benefit to this change is the chromecast audio pulls content directly from spotify and serves it to the Chord Mojo 2 for unpacking. Chromecast only acts as portal to content and does no decoding. Ipad is only a controller now and music wont gap out if I move about the house with the ipad. Sometimes during cooking in kitchen 25 feet away I get bluetooth dropouts. Drives me nuts.

The hope is I will get closer to CD quality audio than before and once spotify goes lossless I should be all set.

Lesson here is go through your AV junk drawer every now and then. Ha!

I used to use my iPad to stream music to my Kanto Yumi wireless speakers and my headphones. One day, I noticed the music felt...off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was lifeless, dull and flat. I checked to see if I accidentally turned on Apple's EQ settings, but it was disabled.

I thought it was the speakers, so I reset everything back to factory settings. Then I listened over EarPods and Dirac HD Player, and it was also dull.

Finally, after a month of this, I dug through the iPad's menus. I had inadvertently turned music playback to mono! So I'm satisfied with leaving my setup alone, lest I ruin it with tweaking.

I get you now Trevor. And you're using the iPad for control and not broadcasting which is what I waving my hands at without actually saying. I need to add though that by using one of those other devices I mentioned you'd reduce your device chain by one (Chromecast->Chord becomes just network streamer) and you'd be using ethernet instead of bluetooth (iPad to device) so range would tend to be less of a problem, if that's a concern.

<Audible gasp from the crowd!>

The Mojo 2 was something I took a leap on because all the unanamous reviews that say its “reference.” Objectivists and subjectivists agree. Freak product. Dan Clark’s (uber headphone designer) comments on ASR made me fairly assured it was a slam dunk. He uses it in his workflow during design. Sounds like “nothing” yet reportedly you can hear “everything.”

All the other all in one streamer solutions I researched came with a “but”….. Topping is a no go for me. Bluesound is fine, but I’ve worked with them and too “meh” for my setup. Didnt want anything that needed new account setups/passwords etc so Sonos is out. And other streamers just seemed too pricey and functionally my wife is already comfy with casting.

Need to endgame it I figured and pull the trigger.

As an aside, the DSP might make it more future proof for me. I can see it being useful for other adventures down the road. When I get the urge to chance ruin. Ha!

Cables are here tomorrow so can report then.

Okay, if it's that good I'm sold! I'll be looking forward to hearing your assessment.

I think that's a standard occurrence when looking at literally anything. Home renos, repairs, car parts, etc. It seems that nothing is ever a perfect solution. Always pluses and minuses.

I am curious about the bluetooth issue with sound quality. Almost wonder if the phone was processing sound instead of your Arcam. Which one might be better?
I've never been one to be onboard the idea that modern DACs can sound so different, but when you start to mix in the streaming components or multiple components (e.g. phone to DAC), i start to wonder how the signal gets tweaked or changed in some manner with each connection.

I think if push comes to shove, Blusound will be my next stop over replacing Sonos with newer Sonos. I don't like the direction they've taken with the login crap either.

Well, its up and running. Initial impressions positive. Will let it sink in a few more listening sessions before feedback.

Listening low levels before house is awake. Nothing is missing at 65dba except the bass impact I usually experience at normal levels (for me) of 85dba or so. This is with M5s that usually come alive with more power. My listening room is treated for higher volumes, so I’m not getting the envelope around me at low levels however. As expected.

If dbc makes more sense to you add 10 to my numbers to correlate the two weights approx.

More to follow after more listening. Need to put more time in around 85dba.

Not sure about the folks who cant hear a change when using this dac as reported in other forums. They must have had a pretty incredible one already or another bottleneck somewhere. Pretty obvious change in my setup. Maybe my old dac was was terrible (by comparison) Good thing is it verifies the M5s are at a high enough level to showcase everything upstream from them.

Old Bluetooth Dac ( I fed it with AAC from ipad via bluetooth)

https://www.stereophile.com/content/arcam-rblink-bluetooth-da-processor