Hi all. First post.
I received mine from Amazon 24 hours ago. So far I am very impressed. I am not an audiophile, just a guy who has been seriously listening to music for over 40 years on all sorts of devices.
First time I have had a desktop amp that does well on *both* headphones and speakers. For the last 3 years I have been using a SMSL AD18 - which the MX5 has just replaced. I was never impressed with the USB DAC on the AD18... It did a fine job of amplifying analogue signals but I found it quite poor when decoding audio from USB at any resolution. The real killer was I had begun experiencing loud random white noise episodes at 96Khz. I thought this may be an issue with my new laptop and/or Windows 11 but apparently it is known thing with the AD18 on prior versions of Windows too. Guess I had not used the USB interface at high resolution much.
But back to the MX5, needless to say no white noise at hires bit rates. Right now I am listening to Amazon HD Music on Audio Technica AD700 open backs and everything sounds as it should for the first time in years. No EQ needed. No additional bass, its all there. No high frequency noise either. Not that I can hear anyway.
For desktop speakers, I have some very old Krix Brix (yes the originals from the 1990s) and this little box powers them in a a way I have never heard. My ears are only a metre away but at 70/100 (high gain) the bass is rich, the mids all there and the high end (well my 54 year old high end anyway) seems good to me. And these are really small, old speakers.
Remote works as expected. USB config is automatic on Windows 11, no drivers needed. I have mine configured for default at 192/24 but of course it goes way higher. Tidal adjusts the bit rate post MQA unfold as needed, Amazon music HD does not - but at least its lossless FLAC. Display shows briefly when the bit rate changes - nice touch. I have used a Chromecast Audio for testing the optical and it works as expected at 44.1 kHz. I got bluetooth working at 48KHz from my phone after a few tries. I have not tried the coax or balanced inputs. Its cool having treble and bass controls and 2 configs to save to. Its also cool the device can service headphones or speakers or both (and remembers the settings for both). Display is big and bright.
The only problem I have noticed is that the amp gives out *lots* of RFI over the speaker cables whenever they are in use. No problem when in headphone only mode. Surprisingly the big power supply seems OK. I am a ham radio operator and I could see so much RFI on 40m and 20m that I could actually hear the song being played in AM mode. Some hefty torriods on both speaker cables fixed that mostly. The carrier is still there but the modulation is all but gone so if I want serious DX I need the turn the amp off - or get more torroids.
Desktop audio nirvana? Maybe, just maybe... but nirvana does not come cheap in Australia at AU$469 delivered from Amazon. My son was happy to walk away with the hand me down AD18. It will find a good home with his TV.
Cheers
I received mine from Amazon 24 hours ago. So far I am very impressed. I am not an audiophile, just a guy who has been seriously listening to music for over 40 years on all sorts of devices.
First time I have had a desktop amp that does well on *both* headphones and speakers. For the last 3 years I have been using a SMSL AD18 - which the MX5 has just replaced. I was never impressed with the USB DAC on the AD18... It did a fine job of amplifying analogue signals but I found it quite poor when decoding audio from USB at any resolution. The real killer was I had begun experiencing loud random white noise episodes at 96Khz. I thought this may be an issue with my new laptop and/or Windows 11 but apparently it is known thing with the AD18 on prior versions of Windows too. Guess I had not used the USB interface at high resolution much.
But back to the MX5, needless to say no white noise at hires bit rates. Right now I am listening to Amazon HD Music on Audio Technica AD700 open backs and everything sounds as it should for the first time in years. No EQ needed. No additional bass, its all there. No high frequency noise either. Not that I can hear anyway.
For desktop speakers, I have some very old Krix Brix (yes the originals from the 1990s) and this little box powers them in a a way I have never heard. My ears are only a metre away but at 70/100 (high gain) the bass is rich, the mids all there and the high end (well my 54 year old high end anyway) seems good to me. And these are really small, old speakers.
Remote works as expected. USB config is automatic on Windows 11, no drivers needed. I have mine configured for default at 192/24 but of course it goes way higher. Tidal adjusts the bit rate post MQA unfold as needed, Amazon music HD does not - but at least its lossless FLAC. Display shows briefly when the bit rate changes - nice touch. I have used a Chromecast Audio for testing the optical and it works as expected at 44.1 kHz. I got bluetooth working at 48KHz from my phone after a few tries. I have not tried the coax or balanced inputs. Its cool having treble and bass controls and 2 configs to save to. Its also cool the device can service headphones or speakers or both (and remembers the settings for both). Display is big and bright.
The only problem I have noticed is that the amp gives out *lots* of RFI over the speaker cables whenever they are in use. No problem when in headphone only mode. Surprisingly the big power supply seems OK. I am a ham radio operator and I could see so much RFI on 40m and 20m that I could actually hear the song being played in AM mode. Some hefty torriods on both speaker cables fixed that mostly. The carrier is still there but the modulation is all but gone so if I want serious DX I need the turn the amp off - or get more torroids.
Desktop audio nirvana? Maybe, just maybe... but nirvana does not come cheap in Australia at AU$469 delivered from Amazon. My son was happy to walk away with the hand me down AD18. It will find a good home with his TV.
Cheers