Introduction

I'm not really the guy to go to if you want a detailed comparison of the Schiit Yggdrasil versus something from TotalDAC or MSB, or if you want to know how I think the SR-009 stacks up against the HE-1000 or AB-1266, or if I think a coat hanger is the ultimate cable. I have far more pedestrian budgets and tastes. My experience with high-end audio is limited to a handful of portable sources, a few headphones, and a couple of misadventures with ASUS sound cards before I learned enough to realize they were ripoffs. I started out looking for a way to get ahead in games and my interest in audio equipment for other purposes, like music, just slowly evolved out of that. For headphones, I started with a Steelseries 7H USB headset, then moved up to an Audio Technica ATH-AD700, then some Chinese production run K702s, and now I use grill-modded HiFiMan HE-560s. For sources, I started with a lowly ASUS Xonar U3, then upgraded to a Republic of Gamers series Xonar Phoebus, then a FiiO X5, and now, at long last, I have acquired arguably my first "serious" source in the Chord Mojo. I have, at least, heard a number of other headphones, including T90s and T70Ps, and a Grado SR80, probably an SR80i. I have also seen the (former) top of the portable audio mountain when I listened to an Astell & Kern AK240. So I've made my share of mistakes, learned from them, done a lot of reading and looked at a lot of comparisons. Most of my audio source files are 44.1 or 48 KHz FLACs or 320 KBPS MP3s, although I've tried sample DSDs before and found very small improvements with them. My preferred music player is, of course, Foobar2000. I hope that is sufficient for this review.


Build Quality

So, to me, the most striking thing about the Chord Mojo is it's built like it could survive a confrontation with a tank. Like all other Chord products I know of, its case is machined from a solid block of aircraft-grade aluminum, so I feel like I could bash someone's skull in with it, wipe the blood off, then listen to Beethoven while flicking a used smoke onto the corpse. It's about twice as heavy as it looks, and the frame is so no-******** it won't even retain your fingerprints, which makes it harder to trace back to you after the deed is done. Only issue is the weird-looking balls are frosted glass, which kinda means you can't use that side to do it without risking damage to the device, although shattering the glass would at least cut up the victim some, so props for that. Still, they look really cool in the dark, kinda like Splinter Cell goggles, staring at you out of the blackness. (Then again, when it warms up with use, it probably shows up on thermal imaging, so that's a bit of a drag.)

9/10, great stealth action murder weapon, slightly handicapped by pretty glowballs.


Ease of Use

The Mojo's color-coded control setup takes some getting used to, and the fact that you have to either leave it plugged into a power source or constantly recharge it every few hours at all times in a stationary rig because it won't recharge over the data input cable is very annoying. However, it's driverless anywhere outside of Windows and supports both USB OTG and S/PDIF over coaxial or optical, giving you a wide range of options. It also auto-adjusts to different file formats and changes colors to indicate which sample rate the file it's playing is, although I'm finding this particular feature is a little picky about when it wants to work on Windows 8, at least with Foobar2000. You need to configure FB2K properly. But okay, fine, I won't hold that against Chord, it's an issue with Foobar. Don't take this the wrong way: The device works fine, it just needs jiggering to reach peak performance, and it still sounds great without optimization, and is pretty plug-and-play aside from these quibbles, which are nothing people who want the advanced features aren't familiar with anyway. Also: If you need to keep this thing seated on your desk, it has some small rubber feet to stop it from sliding around, unlike some other portable DAC/amps.

8/10, serves as a good backup for an AK-47 if you've lost your Glock.


Performance

Sound quality? Well...it sounds better than my FiiO X5 Gen I, I guess? Captain Obvious to the rescue. I don't really have anything around the same price range to compare it to, but I have K702s and grill-modded HE-560s on hand to test it out. It drives the HE-560s nicely, which the X5 didn't really do all that well, and there's a bit more detail. I won't dazzle people here with starry eyes and flowing praises of the Mojo's audio quality, likening it to a level of audio nirvana as though the universe itself opened up to reveal its inner workings to me: It's an incremental improvement over a device which costs about a third as much these days and works on its own. But the improvements ARE still nice. It's surprisingly inoffensive for being as detailed as it is, and the sound is more "fluid." For instance, when the recording has sounds that move around the head, they don't "jump" from point to point, but rather "flow" there, which is very nice. There's more rumble and impact at the low end, too. Definitely doesn't strike me as a bass-light/clinical source like some say the Hugo is. The sound is "thicker" than the X5 in a pleasing way, which is probably why people say these things sound somewhat tubey. Again: Not enough experience to elaborate on that. Even the K702s, often criticized for being overly analytical and a bit piercing, sound inoffensive and pleasant on these without losing any detail. (I am still trying to figure out how it sounds during the process of skull-crushing. Will have to get back to you on that later.) I ran it through "The Passing" in L4D2 with my K702s to test its soundstage width and imaging and found it to be comparable to the X5 it replaced, but with a better sense of verticality, which is very important in a game like L4D2.

Also of note here is the amplifier, which is insanely powerful for a portable device. It drives the HE-560s to my normal (Admittedly somewhat low) listening levels at its "orange" gain setting, with volume/amplification being, in order: Red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, darker blue, blue, violet, pink-purple, salmon pink, all at about two steps each, and then a bunch of extra multicolored one-step gain settings above it for absolute max volume. At that setting, I don't need to have the HE-560s on my head to hear them clearly. They're LOUD at about a foot away. HE-560s. Planar magnetics. Not even one of the most efficient planars, either. I'm actually afraid that gain setting will destroy the headphones if used. That's nuts. Maybe there are better amps out there but anyone telling you the Mojo's amp is "weak" in general is completely bonkers, so use the Mojo for one of its obvious intended purposes and give 'em some more bonks on the head to make a clean break of things.

9/10, lives up to its reputation as long as you have realistic expectations and a body bag or two.


Value

I've heard the vaunted $2,500 AK240 before and came away with about the same general impression of it being an incremental improvement over a much cheaper player, except I would never spend over two grand extra to get that additional layer of detail. These sound clearer and more well-rounded for considerably less, and some reviews I've seen rate this thing as better-sounding than even the $3,500 AK380, so when put into that context, the Mojo is definitely a bargain. (Some other people seem to prefer the AK380, though, so the differences between them obviously aren't huge, but...the differences between them aren't huge. It's just one is $600 and the other is the price of a used car.) I would rate what I remember of the AK240 as around a 5-15% improvement in clarity, and the Mojo around a 10-20% improvement in clarity and a 20-30% improvement in "fluidity" and richness. So I wouldn't really say the incremental improvement in detail from the X5 is so much a knock on the Mojo as it is a feather in FiiO's cap: They make good ****. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming dual-AK4490-based Q5 delivers a lot of the performance of the Mojo or AK380 at a considerably lower price point, just because if anyone can do it, FiiO can. That being said, the FiiO X5 feels like a toy compared to this thing, and it's NOT a toy, it's pretty sturdy. Chord clearly has an edge in manufacturing quality and likely long-term durability which is worth factoring into the price as well. On top of that, the FPGA chip in this DAC/amp can have its functionality altered over time and already supports placebo-level sample rates in both PCM and DSD formats, so it's got long legs if you don't suffer from upgraditus. (Arguably, if you have it, purchasing this thing can CURE it, so contact an audiophile medical specialist near you for more details.) All in all, I don't regret getting the Mojo. I don't see myself replacing it for the foreseeable future, either for a stationary OR portable setup. It does everything very well and it doesn't require you to bankrupt half of a Third World country to afford it, either, although you could probably use it to defend yourself in one. Combined with a cheap data carrier such as the FiiO X5 or X5 Gen II via coax, the Mojo offers at the very least Astell & Kern flagship performance and storage capacity at a sub-megabuck price point.

10/10, would bludgeon Astell & Kern DAPs to death from the shadows again.


Verdict

The key to understanding the meaning of life it ain't, but most people would be hard-pressed to justify getting anything more expensive as a portable DAC/amp. With the recent trend towards cheaper, more convenient portable audio sources, I expect that something which rivals the Mojo at a lower price isn't too far off, but I'm pretty sure the Mojo will stay relevant quite a bit longer, especially since muggers who want it will get it...right in the face.

9/10, a versatile DAC/amp/weapon which has some annoying quirks but offers noticeable gains over anything cheaper and embarrasses a lot of more expensive portable audio sources.