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Review and Measurements of Musiland MU2 Plus DAC & Amp

DosThou

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Oh looks like they just took that straight out of CS43130 specs. They managed to hit the limit of the chip's THD+N with MU2Plus though so who knows if they did it again. :D
 

JohnYang1997

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Oh looks like they just took that straight out of CS43130 specs. They managed to hit the limit of the chip's THD+N with MU2Plus though so who knows if they did it again. :D
It's cs43130M which is supposed to be a higher spec one more similar to cs43131. Whether it's true or not idk. But the spec of 0.0001% thd was never met.
 

JohnYang1997

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It's 0.0003% on the official page though http://www.musiland.cn/index.php?m=Product&a=show&id=31

Not sure where the guy got 0.0001% figures from, maybe a typo.
Idk maybe musiland just changed. As I bought mu2p. They apparently said 43130m as a customized chip and has thd of 0.0001%. The final product was also speced 0.0001%
Now even tho thd is corrected, the snr is obviously impossible to be 130db. 120db would be optimal.
 

JohnYang1997

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There was the original mu2(no p) version description.
Screenshot_20190715-182545.jpg

At least they corrected it so that's a plus....
 

sajunky

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It's 0.0003% on the official page though http://www.musiland.cn/index.php?m=Product&a=show&id=31

Not sure where the guy got 0.0001% figures from, maybe a typo.
When accessing Web page from South Africa I don't see THD+N figures, maybe Web proxies are not updated yet. Not a typo. I took 0.0001% from the attached picture captured on Aliexpress.
Idk maybe musiland just changed. As I bought mu2p. They apparently said 43130m as a customized chip and has thd of 0.0001%. The final product was also speced 0.0001%
Now even tho thd is corrected, the snr is obviously impossible to be 130db. 120db would be optimal.
It is a typical practice on Aliexpress. They mix specs from other sources to look better.

I am more concerned about 80-90% sound quality of MU2 and why. If it is because of removing voltage level switching, then fine. However there is no mention about deploying of SuperCLK100 anymore which raises my concern.
 

JohnYang1997

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When accessing Web page from South Africa I don't see THD+N figures, maybe Web proxies are not updated yet. Not a typo. I took 0.0001% from the attached picture captured on Aliexpress.

It is a typical practice on Aliexpress. They mix specs from other sources to look better.

I am more concerned about 80-90% sound quality of MU2 and why. If it is because of removing voltage level switching, then fine. However there is no mention about deploying of SuperCLK100 anymore which raises my concern.
No it has nothing to do with aliexpress. It's directly from musiland and also from official social media account. The screenshot was on taobao. I can find the original post from the official account if I want. I knew it the release from jun 2018.

And about superclk100. I'm confident that it's not there anymore. And there will be only traditional digital control as well. Which is not necessarily a bad thing as a dac. In portable use, sound quality doesn't mean anything, especially from the front end. Just get an eqed Bluetooth earphone. And how lack of superclk100 do to the sound, measurements will show.
 

DosThou

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Ah I see we've come to the extreme end of objective side of things with 'SQ doesn't matter, EQ everything to make it sound similar' now lol. If only it were that simple, oh how I wish it so.
 

JohnYang1997

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Ah I see we've come to the extreme end of objective side of things with 'SQ doesn't matter, EQ everything to make it sound similar' now lol. If only it were that simple, oh how I wish it so.
I meant portable specifically. You don't hear small details when there are noises in the environment. And I don't see any benefits using high performance audio on the road when there are other things that are more important.
If at home of course, everything is different. You want the best things possible as you don't know something can be audible.
This is indeed objective and also subjective but to the reality
 

August

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Although it over-hyped the parameters, the relative 43130 THD+N is only 108db, they have done the limit, and did not do the wrong design, this is also a comfort.
 

JohnYang1997

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Although it over-hyped the parameters, the relative 43130 THD+N is only 108db, they have done the limit, and did not do the wrong design, this is also a comfort.
They hype up the 43130M not 43130 and it's customized chip to perform better. And it's a lie. And that's the whole point.
 

sajunky

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There is something new that looks identical to MU2s for $35. There is no claim about low jitter clock nor special DSP chip. DAC is officially a better specs CS43131, but details are taken from CS43130 and as seen on the photo, any markings on the chips had been removed. Only a single oscilator chip is found, indicating PLL is deployed for 44.1/48kHz conversion.

Name (full): Meizu HiFi DAC Headphone Amplifier. The official website:
https://www.meizu.com/en/accessory/hifi.html

There are many sales and positive comments on Aliexpress, it is also found there:
$34 https://www.giztop.com/official-meizu-hi-fi-dac-headphone-adapter.html
 

sajunky

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Here are measurements of the MU2s and a comparison to the new MU2. http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100008599.htm
Looks like MU2 is the winner.
Please use Google Translate if you are not chinese.
Thanks for the link.

There is no mention of hardware differences, except of reducing power consumption on the expense of lower sound quality. On the other side MU2S has increased output voltage to the level of MU2 Plus that costs much more. It is important when you have high impedance headphones.

Excellent measuring results. They didn't say that measurements are inferior of any way, except of channel separation figure. Listening comparison is in favour of MU2, but not to a large degree. I din't expect the reviewer to make straight that more expensive product is not much better, anyway.

The reviewer confirm no popups, it is probably related to the discussion about Meizu, that Meizu do have popups. See user responses. They say, Meizu clock is not asynchronous and a DAC clock is different, not synchronised, it will produce popups. Interesting, such fundamental design omission after so many years?

This is what I do understand from the translation, to save your time.
 

falcon

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Hi all,

The MU2S looks good so far but how does it stack up to TempoTec/Hidizs Sonata HD? That should definitely be the next USB-C/3.5mm test.
 
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