Wayback Wednesday: Chord Mojo

Disclaimer: This article about how to make a headphone cable is part of the Wayback Wednesday series.  Check out the other Wayback Wednesday articles HERE. 

Chord’s Mojo is as full of Mojo as Arthur Clarke’s monolith is full of stars. Mojo is in its name. Mojo is in its shape. Mojo is in its performance. Mojo is in and out of its DAC section whose inputs and outputs rival those of a good desktop system. Mojo is in its low noise floor.

Mojo is mojo.

And then there’s its physical UI, which is equal parts dot-matrix printer and Trouble (board game). Chord Mojo is easy, but tedious to use, and its user feedback requires mnemonics. As mine are under par, I opted for the 80 GB version, 160GB when stacked.

Every earphone and almost every headphone I’ve plugged in effects the smallest of loads. And apart from a few headphones, Mojo supplies enough current to keep high quality signals into crazy voltage levels. As impressive as Mojo is, I’m an earphone guy. I don’t need that much power. And recent DAPs and smartphones do a damn good job between the 80-90dB at which I play my music. And, I like my rig to stay small, and when possible, out of sight.

Behind an iMac, Mojo disappears. It looks handsome next to a MacBook Pro. But it dwarfs an iPhone or iPod touch, and is about 3x as thick as an iPad. Viz., despite lots of love from me, I don’t take it on trips. I take it out of its iPod sock when I get home, where it sits on top of my Lynx HILO. Coincidentally, it outperforms HILO by a large margin. (See below:)

RMAA: Chord Mojo 24-bit
RMAA: MST Audio Chord Mojo Kai 24-bit
RMAA: Lynx HILO 24-bit

One thing I never understood about Mojo was its secondary output. The old me would have understood it. I started a thread at Head-fi sometime around 2008 or 2008 just prior to or after getting married. It was about sharing transducers with your significant other. It was sweet in a head-fi sort of way. And, I can’t find it.

But today, my wife and I keep at least two ears open. Is our daughter crying? Have I left the sprinkler on? Is the washing finished? We no longer intimately share music. Sometimes we listen through speakers, or in the car. That’s it. It’s a sad finish to a romantic idea. Which meant that only one side of my Mojo got used.

However, that secondary output left options. Naturally, I’m speaking of Ryuzoh’s Mojo Kai mod, which turns one of the 3,5mm stereo outs into a 2,5mm balanced out. Across the measurable board, his mod improves the Chord Mojo (see results above), which is no small thing. As you can see, most of these gains are in the balanced domain as the mod’s single ended output only barely bests a stock Mojo.

Everything about the Chord Mojo is obscene. It’s precious, sure, but not so precious that it will bankrupt you. And, like a 2000s Honda Civic, a little post-hoc tooling takes it a long way. While I don’t use it on a day to day basis, when I do use it, I use the hell out of it. It is one of the best audio purchases I’ve made.

Which is to say: the answer to the question do you still use Mojo? YES.

Read more about the Chord Mojo in these 2 reviews