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Chord ElectronicsHuei WINNER PHONO STAGE
The Chord Electronics Hueiis built to the sam e basicform factorasthe com pany’sQ utestDAC.It’s a smal rectangular box with the distinctive scaloped insets with com bination controls and indicators. The RIAA-only, externaly-powered, balanced and single-ended output Huei is m icroproces orcontroled,so switching between M M and M C, and im pedance and gain, are al controled bypush-butons. The load itselfis divided into individualgain and im pedance setings.Hueiincludestwelve setings for im pedance m atching,including 47k ohm for M M and 30 ohm to 47kohm forM C,and there are eightsetingsforgain(M M from 25dB to 35dB and M C from 48dB to 70dB).There’s also a subsonic ‘rum ble’ filterat-24dB peroctave below 50Hz, using a Rausch Slope pro le. The use of polychrom aticcontrolsdoesm ake set-up easyand fastcom pared to peering inside orunderneath a product and adjusting tiny switches with a toothpick.
In ourtest,Alan Sircom feltthat,“The Hueiis al aboutthe excitem ent,butwithoutbeing eitherso brightlylitorso overlyexcitable and detailed thatit leaves you cold.” Adding that, “Basicaly, unles yourcolection ofm usic cam e outofan elevator, there isusualysom e creative force atworkwanting to convey a them e ortwo they considerexciting, and the Hueiis perfectly optim ised to extractthat energy from the groove.” He also praised itsdetail levels, saying, “it’s hard not to be captivated. If knowledge is power,the Hueiis a sm al,colourful inform ation tank.” He concluded saying, “the Q utestand Hueilook to be the startofa range of verysm al,butim m enselystrong,com ponentsfrom Chord Electronics.It’salso nothard to see thatthis em erging colection of atainably priced, high perform ance audio products com ing to dom inate thatpartofthe audio world through the earlyyears ofthe 2020s.”
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