Review: Chord Mojo 2

Last year I messed around and bought a FiiO Q7, barely listened to it, then sold it.

Honestly I can’t be bothered with this portable DAC business anymore, but then I noticed the Chord Mojo 2 had come out, and the price had dropped quite a bit, so I got tempted again.

I have a deep fondness for the Mojo series, mainly because I think it’s a DAC made from an FPGA design, fundamentally different from the traditional parts-stacking of domestic “DAC+AMP” units. After all, FPGA counts as “hardware simulation,” and in theory it has far more unlimited potential.

Don’t you think that’s cool? As a loser guy, I think this is way too cool, perfectly in line with my imagination of future life, technology with a bit of fun.

Actually some people have pointed out that this Mojo 2’s FPGA section is no different at all from the Mojo 1, meaning the sound presentation should be identical. The new version only updated the hardware’s analog circuitry and power supply, and also added independent buttons and more functions.

The biggest highlights of the Mojo 2 over the previous generation are lower power consumption and EQ adjustment integrated at the hardware level. Of course, my favorite new Type-C port is also there.

But the position of this port is a bit awkward, like it was carved out separately, and the original MicroUSB wasn’t removed either. Even more awkward, the charging port is still MicroUSB. According to the official explanation, it’s to stay compatible with that Bluetooth expansion module called Poly, so the port position is an ancestral law that cannot be changed.

I can’t really say how the Mojo 2’s sound has changed compared to the previous generation, because I sold the previous one a long time ago. I can only say that for a DAC built on FPGA, the Mojo 2 also theoretically has more ways to play and more possibilities. Maybe by updating the internal analog circuitry, the second generation could be upgraded directly to the next generation, who knows.

Of course, dream on. For me, getting the Mojo 2 is like welcoming back an old friend. I probably won’t listen to it often, but even just taking it out to fiddle with it gives a familiar sense of closeness.

By the way, you can hardly find any decent leather case for this thing on Taobao. You can buy one on Amazon Japan, and even with shipping it’s cheaper than Taobao.