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Chord Electronics has launched Mojo 2, the replacement for its original Mojo portable DAC/headphone amplifier (HFC 423), which features the first lossless DSP in the world. This UHD DSP, Chord claims: “is fully transparent, enabling comprehensive tone adjustments across the frequency range,without any degradation in sound quality. The new technology gives Mojo 2 compatibility with today’s wide-ranging choice of headphones, regardless of type and sonic signature, plus flexibility with different source components and digital file types.

“The UHD DSP enables fine-tuning across the full frequency range with 18 steps of adjustment per frequency banding: lower bass, mid-bass, lower treble and high treble. The volume control range has also been improved from +18dB to -108dB, and now benefits from two distinct operational ranges: low and high volume. A new four-setting crossfeed function – also DSP-controlled – brings speaker-like spatial effects for flexible headphone listening.”

Another new feature is the introduction of a menu system. Navigated via a new (fourth) control sphere, the menu brings a mute function, four-setting crossfeed adjustment, a button-lock feature for travelling, plus the fully lossless tone controls. Digital inputs have increased to four, with a new USB-C data input featured alongside optical, coaxial (including dual-data for the M Scaler) and Micro USB. Two 3.5mm mini-jack headphone outputs allow for up to two people to listen simultaneously.

The Mojo 2 benefits from improved battery management too via a new FPGA-based charging system. Chord says: “the tech brings much faster charging rates, coupled with a huge 75 percent reduction in power loss for cooler, more efficient charging. Capacity is up by 9 percent resulting in better efficiency and improved battery life, which is now better than eight hours.

The Mojo 2’s Intelligent Desktop Mode has also been improved, with an isolated battery and PSU redesign intended to support battery-free operation without any losses in sound quality, plus improved filtering and isolation.

The Mojo 2 is now DC-coupled with a digital DC servo and has a Watts Transient Aligned (WTA) filter, now offering 40,960 taps (the technical indicator of how complex the interpolation filter is), using 40 DSP cores. Additionally, a new noise-shaper offers greater depth and detail perception, plus Chord says improvements to the 4e Pulse Array DAC introduce lower distortion and out-of-band noise.

Handmade in the UK, the Mojo 2 boasts high-grade, bead-blasted aluminium casework, finished with a black anodise. Control is via Chord’s familiar polychromatic polycarbonate control spheres. It’s fully compatible with the Poly streamer/server, (HFC 431) enabling high-resolution streaming and up to 2TB of solid-state library storage and playback when using the microSD card slot.

Available to buy now for £450, you can find out more about the Mojo 2 here.