DAC / AmpOverreview

Chord Mojo 2

A pocket DAC the measurement crowd and the listening crowd finally agree on — if you can learn the traffic lights.

12 sourcesUpdated
$650Typical US price

Score aggregates reviewer opinions across topics.

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Chord Mojo 2

The short version

What to know.

A pocket-sized DAC and headphone amp built on Chord's own FPGA conversion rather than an off-the-shelf chip. Sources agree unusually broadly on the important part: it measures well and it sounds clean and neutral, with the objective bench and the subjective reviewers arriving at the same verdict by different routes. Power is strong for its size — 600 mW into 30 ohms from a single-ended output, near-zero output impedance — and comfortably drives high-impedance dynamics, though hard planars are where reviewers start to disagree about the ceiling. The four-band lossless tone control and crossfeed are treated as genuinely useful rather than marketing. The consistent complaint is the colour-coded button interface, which nearly every reviewer says requires the manual. Opinion on the price leans favourable but a real minority calls it steep against desktop rivals.

About this product

The 2022 successor to the 2015 Mojo, well below the Hugo 2 in Chord's range. Sold since 2025 in a refreshed form (marketed variously as the Mojo 2 4.4 or Gen 2025) that trades one of the two 3.5 mm outputs for a 4.4 mm pseudo-balanced jack, adds per-output volume and DSP memory, and lets the USB-C port charge as well as carry data. Chord states the sound is unchanged between the two; the internal signal path is single-ended either way.

The original Mojo settled an argument. In 2015 a battery-powered box the size of a deck of cards turned out to convert digital audio about as well as a desk-bound component, and Chord Electronics — a Kent company that builds its own converters on programmable logic rather than buying DAC chips — spent the next six years selling the point. The Mojo 2 is the sequel, and it arrived in 2022 with the awkward job of improving something nobody was complaining about.

What Chord changed was mostly not the sound. It removed the coupling capacitors, lengthened the reconstruction filter, and then added the thing the original never had: a four-band tone control the company claims is lossless, alongside crossfeed and a proper desktop mode. What it did not change was the interface — four glowing spheres that communicate volume, sample rate, battery state and every menu setting entirely through colour. That decision shapes nearly every review written about it.

A good fit for

  • One box that has to be both a pocket rig and a desktop DAC — the desktop mode is built for permanent mains use
  • High-impedance dynamic headphones, which it drives comfortably from the single-ended output
  • Anyone who wants tone controls or crossfeed without the sonic penalty of ordinary EQ
  • Sources with a coaxial or optical output, which several reviewers prefer to USB here

Think twice if

  • You need to drive a Susvara, HEDDphone or Dan Clark Stealth — that class of planar is past its ceiling
  • You want Bluetooth, a screen, or genuinely balanced amplification (the 4.4 mm jack is a connector, not a topology)
  • Colour-only status readouts would frustrate you, or you find similar colours hard to tell apart
  • You mainly listen on ultra-sensitive in-ears and a faint noise floor would bother you
  • You want the lowest price for measured performance rather than the smallest package that delivers it

The reviewer consensus

Agreement &
disagreement.

1 / 7topics divide opinion
transparencypowerfeaturesergonomicsbuildvaluenoise
1 Strong agreement5 Mostly agree1 Divided opinions

Common ground6

  • Measures as a desktop-grade DAC and sounds like one — the bench and the listening reviews reach the same verdict for once
  • Clean, neutral voicing with no grain or hardness; a shade less warm than the original Mojo
  • Strong power for a pocket device, and untroubled by high-impedance dynamics like the HD 800 S and DT 1990 Pro

Points of contention4

  • Hiss with hyper-sensitive in-ears: the bench rates low-level noise middling for the class and warns about ultra-sensitive IEMs, while three reviewers on named hyper-sensitive monitors hear a black background
  • Where the power ceiling falls: fine on an HE6se v2 for one reviewer, not enough for the Susvara, HEDDphone or Dan Clark Stealth for others
  • Whether the interface is a learning curve you clear in a week or a permanent annoyance

A closer listen.

7 topics · 1 divided
Left: criticalRight: positiveTighter lines: more agreement

Power

Leans positiveMostly agree
Reviewer sentiment7 supporting sources
CriticalNeutralPositive

Band: opinion spread · Dot: weighted average

Strong for a pocket device and untroubled by high-impedance dynamics; the disagreement is about where the ceiling sits, and it tracks the load rather than taste. Hard planars are the boundary — one reviewer got a good result from an HE6se v2, others rejected the Susvara, HEDDphone and Dan Clark Stealth.

“In practice Mojo 2 drove every non-planar headphone I plugged into it, bar none”

Alberto Pittaluga, Audioreviews

“The Sennheiser HD800S and Mojo 2 combo is excellent.”

Lieven Vranken, Headfonia

“The power is good, though in 2022, not class-leading given some of iFi Audio's gear can hit 1W into 60Ω.”

Marcus, Headfonics

“Increasing it using the controls on Mojo 2 created static proportional to how much I cranked it up.”

Amir Majidimehr, Audio Science Review

Measured

Chord's published figures: 90 mW into 300 ohms (5.2 V RMS), 600 mW into 30 ohms (4.2 V RMS), 0.06 ohm output impedance, all from a single-ended output. On the bench Amir noted his desktop threshold is 100 mW into 300 ohms "and this is close" — desktop-class power from a battery, but without a balanced output's voltage swing.

vs. listeners — The numbers explain the split rather than settle it: 4.2 V RMS is plenty for 250-600 ohm dynamics but short of what a desktop amp swings into a low-sensitivity planar, so which headphone a reviewer reached for decided their verdict.

Link to this topic

The hardware

Specifications.

Checked

Design

Form factor
Portable
DAC
Custom FPGA (Chord WTA filter)
PCM
768 kHz
DSD
DSD256
Amplifier
Solid-state

Output

Output power
Single-ended: 600 mW @ 30 Ω · 90 mW @ 300 Ω
Output impedance
0.06 Ω SE
Signal-to-noise
123 dB
EQ
Tone controls

Connection

Digital inputs
Coaxial, Optical, Micro-USB, USB-C
Headphone outputs
3.5 mm, 4.4 mm
Power
Battery

Physical

Weight
185 g
Dimensions
83 × 62 × 22.9 mm

Manufacturer-published figures, not measurements · from chordelectronics.co.uk.

Follow the evidence

Sources 12

1–6 of 12 sources

Read with context

Limitations & method.

As of

What to keep in mind 6

  1. A read of where the reviews land as of September 2026. The Mojo 2 has been on sale since 2022 and the field of portable DAC/amps has filled in around it since.

  2. Two hardware versions are in circulation. The current one has a 4.4 mm output and charges over USB-C; Chord says the sound is identical, so listening notes from either version are treated as describing the same device.

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