New Mojo Mystique X

All the magic...half the price. In order to keep up with the overwhelming demand for our DACs, the Mystique X has been engineered for robotic assembly and will be sold through an international network of retail distributors.

The specific changes from the Mystique EVO to the Mystique X were not clear to me from reading the website, but "All the magic...half the price," sort of implies buyers of the X get "all the magic" of the EVO at half the price.

One selling point explained to me when I purchased an EVO B4B last year was modularity and the ability to easily upgrade to avoid obsolescence.  Now I see, "The EVO Basic and B4B are being replaced by the Mystique X" and "There will never be another EVO," which sort of makes it sound as if the EVO is now obsolete - I hope not.

As said by @metaldetektor, I agree with the philosophy:

not a huge fan of the yearly update business model -- just make something great, keep making it, and when you've accumulated enough improvements to make a BIG difference...release your "mk. 2 model" or whatever.

However, Benjamin is sort of a tinkerer in that he is constantly improving on his designs which has resulted in a continuous pattern of changing/upgrading models. This is not totally unusual in the digital realm. The build quality of his products I have owned is very good but I get the feeling they could use a more consistent manufacturing process to keep up with demand. It may be that that the EVO DACs were built to a high standard that didn't allow for much profit, particularly considering they were hand built. This "X" model, "robotic assembly," and "international network of retail distributors" sound like an effort to improve on the manufacturing/delivery process, while offering a good sounding product at a lower price. Hopefully, improvements can still be implemented for EVO owners, if desired.

I hope this sorts out in a positive manner because one thing for sure, the Mystique v3 that I previously owned, and the EVO B4B that I currently own, both sound very good in my system. My current set-up, including the Deja Vu EVO Media Server and EVO B4B, sounds tonally rich, natural, dynamic and sufficiently detailed, and the server/DAC combo works very well together. I do not perceive any loss of detail compared to the Metrum Adagio, Metrum Pavane, or Ayre QB-9 DSD DACs I have previously owned and IMO the EVO B4B provides improved tone and sounds better (to my tastes) than all of those. Dynamics are no problem either as the system absolutely rocks out when called for, of course that front end is running through two powerful amplifiers, very dynamic speakers, and dual subs - so that may have something to do with it.

i have a mystique v3 coming in... will compare to my stalwarts chord, weiss, ank 4.1

Benjamin from Mojo Audio here to clear up any misconceptions. The Mystique X is not replacing the EVO. The EVO is still a current product and fully supported.

There are no plans to stop supporting the EVO and there will be a new EVO for 2022. The Mystique X is a new lower cost model which has better performance than our EVO Basic and very close performance to our current EVO Pro.

Now you know why we’ve been offering a 20% discount on our EVOs...we knew we were going to be releasing the lower priced X.

The X stands for "extruded chassis." Switching to a 9" wide x 4" tall x 16" deep extruded aluminum chassis with custom face and rear plates is one of the many cost saving compromises we made.

Because the X is so close in performance to our current EVO models, in 2022 our EVO is being totally redesigned and upgraded. The 2022 EVO will start at about $15K and go up to about $20K. The new X will start at only $7,777. This is where the "all the magic...half the price" stuff comes from.

Among the upgrades to the 2022 EVO will be things like dual mono power supplies, custom Lundahl amorphous core power transformers, and the PCM63 DAC chip. Since the new X is quite a tough act to follow, the new EVO won’t be available until mid year 2022.

But back to more info on our new X...

The circuit and most of the component parts in the X are identical to the EVO. There are a few almost inaudible compromises in the digital power supplies and 9 vs 16 Belleson regulators total. There are also some improvements made to all the power supplies which will offset the compromises.

For those of you who are purists like me, there are improvements to the S/PDIF inputs. The X will also have a USB input cut off switch that will remove all clocking from inside the chassis to improve S/PDIF performance even more.

Among the other cost saving compromises we made was going to all PC board mounted connectors...pretty much what most manufacturers do. There are almost no wires inside the X chassis. The compromise is that we are no longer able to suspend all the circuit boards on anti-resonant mounts. But the chassis itself has some new anti-resonant treatments. So overall switching to PC board mounted connectors is a net gain in performance.

In 2022 we are also evolving our manufacture from 100% hand built to robotically assembled. This is going to both lower our cost of manufacture and significantly increase our productivity. So for the first time in over 12 years in business Mojo Audio will be selling through an international network of retail distributors.

The Mystique X is the first of our manufactured vs hand built products which will sell through retailers.

Hopefully in a few days we’ll have engineering drawings of the new X chassis and full descriptions on our website.

I also want to clear up some comments I’ve read by people like Devertiti.

Mojo Audio DACs are engineered for natural, neutral, and harmonically coherent sound.

This will not appeal to everyone.

To over simplify, I divide high end audio customers in to two categories: the audiophile and the music lover.

Audiophiles will talk about things like bass extension and weight, high end extension and penetration, image, depth, and layering.

None of those things have anything to do with music. Those are what I call "special effects" and "attractive distortion."

Music lovers talk about things like time, tune, harmonic coherency, and the ways instruments and voices intermingle.

Time and tune: that’s music on the written page. The most basic components of all music.

Harmonic coherency is the mathematical alignment of all frequencies. When a note is struck it has harmonics at twice the frequency and half the amplitude going up to infinity. Alignment of the bass, mid, and high frequency harmonics is essential for music to have an organic character.

I’ve been told by customers "no matter how loud I play my Mojo Audio DAC it never sounds loud." This is because all the harmonics align perfectly.

This is also what gives Audiophiles the illusion (or rather delusion) that our DACs have less resolution than some of these other more impressively "voiced" DACs. When harmonics don’t align it gives a false sense of separation, layering, and resolution. Sort of like a black outline around animation. It makes things "pop" at the expense of no longer sounding natural and organic.

Those of you who actually listen to live acoustic music all know that the separation of instruments and pin point imaging that many audiophiles are looking for simply does not exist in the real world. It is a trick of the recording studio.

Let me finish by staying there is no right or wrong here. Everyone is entitled to have the sound they prefer.

If you’re looking for that "larger than life" sound that many audiophiles desire, then there are several DACs on the market with FPGAs, Delta-Sigma DAC chips, and impressively voiced output stages to choose from.

If you’re looking for a natural and neutral sound with correct time, tune, and harmonic coherency, I suggest you audition one of my DACs with our 45-day no-risk audition.