CHORD Mojo & Poly = HighRes to go?
So, today arrived my Poly. I charged it for 6 Hours as they recommend and tried for 2 Hours to connect to it to load the Network-Settings to the Poly.
But it simply didn’t work, the network-settings simply didn’t get saved. In such a case it’s good to have a great Dealer. A Support call later and i got the Solution: The Chord Poly didn’t accept Special Chars in the Network-Settings. So i changed my Network-Password to chars/numbers only and finally could connet to the Mojo.CHORD is aware of this Problem and works on a Solution. Now onto the Roon-Setup. There are two Possible Network Settings for the Poly:
- ROON
- Other (Airplay, MPD, UPnP)
To switch between this 2 Settings you have to use a Tool which looks like a SIM-Card-Removal Tool to point into a small hole and hold the so enabled switch for 5 Seconds. After that, the unsafe Network of the Poly gets engaged and you must Connect to this via the Network-Settings in your iDevice or Computer to reach the Page where you can Switch between this 2 possible Network-Settings. This is awkward, to say the least, i hope they come up with a better solution to this problem in an upgrade, especially when i think about the price for this otherwise powerful Mojo-Extension. I would like to have a First come first serve solution comparable to the RasPi Solutions so that i can use Airplay and later simply fire up Roon and the Poly switches automatically to Roon via Software without fiddeling with SIM-Removal-Tools to switch to settings. CHORD even goes so far to recommend to add the sim-removal tool to you’re keyring so that you can always change network-settings while on the go.
In the Roon Audio Setting youre Mojo-Poly Device gets recognized and you can choose it as your Audio-Device. While we can choose it in Roon, it is marked with a red “Uncertified”, like this:
The Audio-Settings of the CHORD Poly in ROON are somewhat castrated and looks different then the usual Audio Settings. For example you cannot see which Sample-Rates the Device supports. One has to keep in Mind that CHORD has choosen to connect the Poly via 2,4 GHz WLAN to get a more stable connection then with 5GHz. So what Sample Rates are possible over a 2,4GHz Connection? I choosed to throw a DSD 256 File at the Mojo-Poly Combo. While it sounds great i could see in the play-settings that my small sample-rate Point was blueish, the DSD 256 gets converted to a 352 Khz PCM File.
Mojo only supports DSD over PCM. I didn’t try the DSP-Engine with the combo yet. But hey: the Sound is great!
Another great usage-scenario for the poly is to add a big micro sd-card with 256 or 400 GB. So you can have a lot of Highres music on the go, unthetered from you’re Smartphone or Tablet or network/NAS. But to control the music you need to use a Phone/Tablet, Computer anyway, so why not use a Lightning cable to the usb of the Mojo in the first place? 500 to 600 Euros are without question alot of money to just cut the chord between smartphone and Mojo.
OK, there is the Micro-SD Card thing and the added possibility to use Airplay and/or UpnP. In my case, i use the Mojo Poly combo as a more convenient solution for running around the house with Headphones and i too will connect the combo to my Amp. But the unconvenience to switch between Roon and Airplay bites me hard.
