Chord’s Mojo 2 is an expensive gadget aimed toward bettering the sound of wired headphones

British audio producer Chord has introduced a successor to the glorious Mojo, a battery-powered accent that goals to enhance the sound of your wired headphones or audio system when paired together with your telephone, laptop computer, pill, or different digital media supply. New options for the Mojo 2 embrace a USB-C enter, higher battery life, and new tone controls that successfully work like an equalizer to customise the sound it places out.

The Mojo 2 retails for $725 (£449), which is hardly reasonably priced by any measure. Nonetheless, if it’s nearly as good as its predecessor, then this is likely to be a worth value paying to accompany a pair of suitably premium wired headphones or audio system. It’s obtainable globally beginning as we speak.

The Mojo 2, like the unique Mojo, is successfully a battery-powered digital-to-analog converter (aka a DAC) and headphone amplifier. Principally, something that may play digital audio sources and output them to a pair of headphones has a built-in DAC for turning digitally saved audio into an output analog sign. However the argument goes that lots of these inbuilt DACs are low-quality, and your audio will sound higher in case you use an honest exterior DAC just like the Mojo. You plug the Mojo into your telephone, laptop computer, or different units and your wired headphones into the Mojo’s 3.5mm jack.

Picture: Chord

Picture: Chord

Picture: Chord

Picture: Chord

A fourth management button gives new tone controls.

The large new characteristic with the Mojo 2 (and the rationale it has 4 buttons in comparison with the unique Mojo’s three) is its new tone management system. Very similar to the equalizers included in lots of items of software program, it allows you to regulate the relative volumes of a monitor’s totally different audio frequencies (on this case, its decrease bass, mid-bass, decrease treble, and excessive treble). Chord advertises that this course of is totally clear and doesn’t degrade the unique audio’s sign.

Different enhancements embrace a 9 p.c higher battery life for a complete in extra of eight hours, in addition to a USB-C enter in your audio information, which sits alongside the Mojo’s current micro USB, coaxial, and optical inputs. Sadly, you’ll nonetheless must cost the DAC over a separate Micro USB port. Chord has stored this outdated port round to take care of compatibility with the Chord Poly accent, which provides help for enjoying music off a microSD card to the Mojo or streaming over AirPlay, Bluetooth, or a DLNA server.

The mixture of ports results in a barely bizarre, crowded look on the digital enter finish of the Mojo 2. On the different finish, there are a pair of headphone outputs, that are designed to allow you to and a pal hear concurrently. Though the Mojo 2’s battery would possibly counsel it’s primarily meant as a conveyable accent, it’s additionally potential to depart the Mojo 2 completely related to an influence supply and have it bypass the battery solely.

Costing $725 and serving primarily wired headphones in an period the place wi-fi headphones at the moment are the norm, the Chord Mojo 2 is certainly a distinct segment product. However in case you’ve already invested in your dream pair of wired headphones and also you need to enhance the standard of no matter you’re plugging them into, then the Mojo 2 desires to be the accent for you.