New Mojo Mystique X

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.

glad you chimed in benjamin

cheers

A bit more about the EVO...

Our current EVOs use the same circuit boards as our original EVO sold from 2019-2021. The chassis is new but the guts are identical.

It was only because of delivery issues with our former chassis manufacturer that we made this product change.

Hopefully we’ll have actual photos of the new chassis on our website in the next week. We’ve been so busy getting out EVO back orders we’ve not had a spare DAC to photograph.

We will have some trickle-down technology from our new top-of-the-line DAC in 2022 that can upgrade any 2019-2021 EVOs.

Boards with our new S/PDIF upgrades, power supply upgrades, and the PCM63 DAC chip, will be available for your EVO mid to late 2022.

During the upgrade we’ll completely remove and replace your current boards with these new boards.

If USB is your high-performance digital input, there would be no benefit from the new digital input board. The only advantage would be if your reference digital source is a high-end CD transport.

The new analog board will include the PCM63 DAC chip and power supply upgrades. This will be an excellent upgrade to any 2019-2021 EVO.

These upgrades will be an excellent high-value upgrade option for customers who are not trading in their EVO toward one of our new top-of-the-line 2022 DACs.