While playing around with the settings in roon, I noticed the following:
Device setup → show advanced → Max sample rate (PCM)
The Chord 2go is ‘only’ indicating a Max sample rate (PCM) Up to 384kHz but Chord Electronics has advertised 768kHz. However, the Chord Hugo 2, with the 2go detached, is indicating the full range Up to 768kHz as nominated by Chord Electronics.
Chord 2go - Max sample rate (PCM) of ‘only’ Up to 384kHz - please see below:
Because 2go is using 2ghz WiFi to stream to the DAC and likely struggles with higher rates over WiFi an likely Chord capped it. Its known to have less than stellar WiFi performance so makes sense. Roon will only use what it gets told the device supports.
768/24 will be around 36864 kbps which is pretty high for 2.4ghz to maintain reliably even with good WiFi let alone Chords less than good WiFi.
Your findings are correct, the Chord 2Go has a maximum sample rate of 384kHz.
It’s worth mentioning that Chord recommends against the use of external upsampling with Hugo2. As always with these sorts of things, your millage may vary.
Thank you everyone for your reply and input; very much appreciated.
@John
Could you please provide feedback to let me know whether my below Chord 2go and Chord Hugo2 (wired) setup is ‘correct’. If not, please provide suggestions for improvement:
There shouldn’t be a difference in audio quality when selecting The Hugo2 under “Audio Device”. You can just choose based on what icon you want to see.
Lucky you that you already got your Chord 2Yu delivered. I’ve ordered and paid my 2Yu last year in October and still got nothing delivered. Since then I’m sitting here with the 2Go without any use. Worst buy ever.
How do you setup your 2Go/2Yu? Ethernet into the 2Go and USB to your DAC?
You should ask Chord directly. My guess is that it is limited because there is no sound played trough the other outputs with sample rates above 384 kHz – and Roon Labs is all for playing and working without configuration (on default). Only Chord knows why they claim to downsample the input for outputs not supporting the rate but then chose to do it for the optical out and when playing 352.8 or 384 only.
I would think a limitation using RAAT with a 2Go I have a 2Go/Hugo2 for headphone listening and a 2Go/2Yu feeding a TT2 / BerTTi and some B&W 702’s as my main system. Both are limited in Roon to 384 kHz on a testing laptop. Using another player on my main MBP over UPnP I can upsample to 768 kHz without issue providing I use the Ethernet port. The 2.4 gHz wireless won’t cut it in my house… too much interference.
Chord Dac’s upsample in the 1st Stage WTA to 768 kHz anyway, the second and 3rd stages upsample/filter far beyond this so my question is why do it in Roon? Leave it to your Qutest which does not put a strain on your network especially with wireless. The 2.4 ghz in the 2Go over wireless is a fail in my house when upsampling to 768 pcm and needs a good low interference environment to stream DSD 256 (approximately similar PCM 384 rate) without issues. Ethernet however is fine with 768.
For me I leave it to my Chord DAC’s to do the upsampling. Less strain on the network results in fewer playback issues and a happier me! (I listen to the 2Go/Hugo2 combo via wireless and without upsampling playing 16/44.1 up to 24/192 and DSD64-256 files I get no playback issues)
Not sure to understand your point. Because RAAT is able to stream 784kHz and 2Yu/2Go is able to handle 768kHz as well. So I don’t understand where is the limitation.
I didn’t mention it but all is wired in my configuration.
I think they have chosen during testing for Roon Ready to limit it to 384 to ensure a reliable playback when using wireless. The 2.4 ghz WiFi in the 2Go will struggle to play 768 kHz streams unless the wireless environment is perfect. Both Roon & Chord would probably want to have a happy user base than a lot of people complaining of dropouts over wireless when upsampling.
There is a good You Tube video on the Chord site which explains the sound processing within your DAC. 1st stage is 16FS which would take a 44.1 file up to 705 kHz. The second/third stage is 256 FS which is an astonishing degree of oversampling. I believe if you upsample in Roon to 768 kHz it just bypasses the 1st stage 16FS in your Qutest.
I would add that seems to fit my experience. I can’t upsample to 768 kHz using the 2.4 GHz WiFi in the 2Go (using the 1gbps Ethernet port of course works fine). But if I optimise my WiFi 7 system by doing an interference detection/channel optimisation routine in the WiFi App it will play files up to DSD256 which is equivalent to a PCM 384 file (approximately).
Of course this is just my interpretation of why they have limited it to 384 kHz…….
I agree they should let the user have the choice to upsample to 768 if they desire as the 2Go is rated for it and does indeed do this flawlessly when the 2Go is connected to a router using Ethernet with other playback software.
As an aside, Chord do not recommend upsampling to their DAC’s as they obviously believe their FPGA offerings are far better at doing this (but then they would say that) but I do love the SQ I get from them. I have upsampled to 768 kHz using Audirvana’s R8 Brain and to be quite honest there was no significant difference in SQ so I stopped doing it to my Chord DAC’s to improve reliability in playback over WiFi.
.
