Musical Fidelity MX-DAC Review (Balanced DAC)

[DSJR]

UK price is £549 and to be honest, I'm stunned it's still available after SIX YEARS in a fast moving market.

I'd still say it's transparent enough sonically, but the price isn't good. Haven't they changed hands during this product's life?

One final thing as regards price I think you've all missed. It's sold via retailers!!! All 'our' favourites here come direct I think, so the thick end of the selling price of this unit would go to he dealer and US distributor. Sold direct from the factory or a high sales volume supplier as per Topping or Schiit for instance, it'd be a quarter to a third of the retail price and that would make it fair value for a 2014 design I reckon.

 

[amirm]

If the input signal is DSD there is an audible difference between the two filters, can you test that please?

I don't have any DSD test signals to do that.

 

[F1308]

One says "mellow" and the other "lively?" How can it be both?

This one is pretty easy: the one saying "mellow" was hearing Love Me Tender; and the one saying "lively" was taking cover as Tchaikovsky's 1812 canyons were doing its job thanks to Telarc.

 

[JJB70]

UK price is £549 and to be honest, I'm stunned it's still available after SIX YEARS in a fast moving market.

I'd still say it's transparent enough sonically, but the price isn't good. Haven't they changed hands during this product's life?

One final thing as regards price I think you've all missed. It's sold via retailers!!! All 'our' favourites here come direct I think, so the thick end of the selling price of this unit would go to he dealer and US distributor. Sold direct from the factory or a high sales volume supplier as per Topping or Schiit for instance, it'd be a quarter to a third of the retail price and that would make it fair value for a 2014 design I reckon.

Something which is important for a UK buyer is that if you buy from a UK retailer you have all the consumer protection that goes with that. If the manufacturer tried to duck out of taking responsibility for a bad unit your statutory rights are with the seller and last longer than most manufacturer warranties anyway. Not saying that justifies this product and its price (personally I have no real interest in DACs and find those built into devices to be fine) but it's why if buying more than a throwaway purchase I tended to buy from UK sellers when I was in the UK even if there was a price premium.

 

[DSJR]

Something which is important for a UK buyer is that if you buy from a UK retailer you have all the consumer protection that goes with that. If the manufacturer tried to duck out of taking responsibility for a bad unit your statutory rights are with the seller and last longer than most manufacturer warranties anyway. Not saying that justifies this product and its price (personally I have no real interest in DACs and find those built into devices to be fine) but it's why if buying more than a throwaway purchase I tended to buy from UK sellers when I was in the UK even if there was a price premium.

You're quite right, but in the kind of UK chain retailers MF ended up in (in the distant past, many independent dealers were 'upset' by this company), the expected dealer margins were rather high and the higher they were, the more commission the sales people earned. Lower margins and th einterest wasn't there. I was lucky in my career, I never worked on commission as such except in the early days, our store base salaries accounted for 80% of our expected earnings, any store 'bonus' was then split equally between us as we all had different sub-duties in said store, some making up speaker cables, setting up turntables and so on, plus a resident repair tech hidden in the basement who never saw clients at all...

 

[respice finem]

I bought this DAC some years ago at half the price, without any listening (what for?), just saw the offer and went for it after reading some reviews and see the specs (the webstite ones). Now, after this review I'm quite angry for two reasons:

• I feel scammed because of the performance, specially this "typo" on the website. "state of the art...." they say... it's worst than their cheaper model, the V90! A headless CEO would have been better.
• Before this review I was panning to sell this to make some money to buy an RME. Now it's clear I have to do it, the problem is that I'm going to get less money than expected.... Now I start to understand why some people don't like this forum, it's taking down the business xDD.

Many thanks D ) to @amirm and to whoever send it to him.

I feel your pain... That said, you don't have to do anything, if you don't hear the "sins" of it.
We are people, not audio analyzers, no one can hear everything. Believing the opposite is one of the main reasons of endless "upgradeitis".

 

[xerxesro]

Did you forget to add your listening impressions? Or did you just measurebate it?

 

[KSTR]

Linearity is some of the worst I have seen:

Very interesting. While a slight droop**) of output level at -120dBFS or thereabouts is seen many times with DACs, this plot would indicate at -120dBFS the level of the first channel is only half of what it should be. The channel mismatch is strange as well.

I've seen large fluctuations like that only when the the setup was problematic, notably when the test frequency is very close to the mains frequency or its harmonics, or any other idle tones. Then we get beating (up to outright cancelling) and depending on filter choice (analog or digital bandpass) as well as general settling and averaging settings strange (and incorrect) results are displayed. I'm not implying this is the case here, but I'd like to see a double-check.

**) As of now I have no explanation for this effect. Below a comparison of an SMSL SD1955+ and an RME ADI-2 Pro FS R with the exact same settings and conditions for the measurement, using the analog bandpass. Test frequency was 725Hz to allow maximum clearance to both mains hum/buzz and the idle tones of the SMSL (coming from the charge-pump generating the negative opamp supply rail).

Note that at least for the RME the plot is noise-limited, partly induced by the setup (it gets a bit better with the steeper digital bandpass). For the RME I've found, in a more elaborate, not noise-limited measurement, that it does what any D/S-DAC is supposed to do: linearity 100% nailed down to bit 24!


I agree with various other posters that the "broken" tag is definitely not justified. This is still a fine DAC, given its age.
Price/Performance ratios I consider moot anyway as they automatically favor those manufacturers who mass-produce in the far east or are large enough that they can afford subsidizing some of their products.
An Effort/Performance ratio would be much more meaningful, IHMO.

 

[Helicopter]

It is an external DAC. It doesn't have a difficult life like a power amp, and its only job is the faithful reproduction of a digital track analog. Sure 90dB SINAD is more than you need, but I don't see any point in a seperate device if you can't clear 110dB.

I might as well use an internal DAC or dongle for this level of performance. You can get 110dB SINAD for $100-200. Good AVRs and dongles do better than this DAC. It is a waste of shelf space and money.

It doesn't even come close to the outlandish claims on the website. This thing is worse than a dollar store hammer for $100, because in this case, good chance your internal DAC is a better choice; i.e., you don't actually need or want a hammer for the job.

 

[Human Bass]

I mean, it's not an awful dac, no big flaws,
just mediocre and extremely overpriced. It would be a good product 7 years ago I guess.

 

[milosz]

Musical Fidelity had some pretty decent cheap DACs back 12 years ago, like the VDAC, which was pretty good for the money at the time. Not compared to today's DACs of course, but compared to other low-cost DACs of the era it was good.

Times have changed.

 

[restorer-john]

I've seen large fluctuations like that only when the the setup was problematic, notably when the test frequency is very close to the mains frequency or its harmonics, or any other idle tones. Then we get beating (up to outright cancelling) and depending on filter choice (analog or digital bandpass) as well as general settling and averaging settings strange (and incorrect) results are displayed. I'm not implying this is the case here, but I'd like to see a double-check.

Amir says the frequency used is 200Hz and his testing is consistent across all his DACs.

Whatever happened to the opposite- dithered tone, fade to noise test? Was it flawed in any way? And what about the staircase linearity test- LSB to 10 bits higher?

 

[Helicopter]

The price of this makes no sense. There is nothing here to differentiate from other products, except perhaps the price itself.

It is like a 2 pound block of medium Wisconsin cheddar for $75.

A few people will think it is really good because it is $900, but they should have just bought something with actual differentiation or for a fraction of the price.

 

[restorer-john]

It is like a 2 pound block of medium Wisconsin cheddar for $75

Wisconsin cheddar is good? Mmm, cheese.

 

[xaviescacs]

Musical Fidelity had some pretty decent cheap DACs back 12 years ago, like the VDAC, which was pretty good for the money at the time. Not compared to today's DACs of course, but compared to other low-cost DACs of the era it was good.

Times have changed.

The V90 reviewed also here performs better by third the price... that may be an indicator that they don't care how their products really perform. Scam...

 

[pma]

This DAC has been on the market at least in 2015 and maybe earlier. The progress in digital audio is very fast. I do not know why you guys who complain on its parameters do not complain in the same way about many current power amplifiers that are worse or much worse in parameters than average units 20 - 30 years ago? Shall I write the names and links? Just because DAC parameter's race is now popular the older unit is crucified? So let's wait another 2 years and see .

 

[restorer-john]

This DAC has been on the market at least in 2015 and maybe earlier. The progress in digital audio is very fast. I do not know why you guys who complain on its parameters do not complain in the same way about many current power amplifiers that are worse or much worse in parameters than average units 20 - 30 years ago? Shall I write the names and links? Just because DAC parameter's race is now popular the older unit is crucified? So let's wait another 2 years and see .

Do you remember back in the early 1980s when Philips was fighting against the Japanese CD player manufacturers? They printed leaflets, fact sheets and cards to show how their dodgy 14 bit D/A converters with O/S filters were as good as genuine 16 bit converters.* They weren't.

Then came 2x, 4,x 8x O/S converters and 16, 18, 20 bit converters. Then parallel, differential and paralleled differential.

Same with amplifiers Pavel. What is old, is new again.

* I still have some of those original Philips "fact" sheets.

 

[sarumbear]

Headless is a bit harsh IMO, it’s not terribly broken.

Broken is a word that does not require an adjective.

 

[sarumbear]

So that’s a good reason to not recommend it, but not to say it’s broken. ASR attracts plenty of invalid criticism we can be proud to argue against, but if objective measurements are to have any persuasive power, this is not defensible.

You do realise that the panther rank is subjective, don't you? In an objective world you decide what you think about a device by reading the measurements. The panthers are @amirm's jolly subjective opinion; the human element. You are not expected to agree.

 

[sarumbear]

I agree with various other posters that the "broken" tag is definitely not justified.

Where do you see that "tag"?