MQA….such a disappointment.
Canor is making some very nice equipment. So few dealers though.
Musical Fidelity MX-Stream first listen
Okay...so an oddity out of me. I normally write up stuff that tends to be much pricier than this but I order a few of these the second they came out. The Musical Fidelity MX Stream is $1099 streamer. It is manufactured for Musical Fidelity in Slovakia by Canor. This is a slick black box with no display. It offers a USB output. It directly supports Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify, is Roon Ready and you can connect via Bluetooth and via Airplay.
The setup was annoying. The manual is okay. I found it moderately helpful but it would be ideal to buy from a dealer who has actually set it up and can help your through it. The menu requires you to double tap on your phone to save things and a few other subtleties make it frustrating. Once setup though, Roon is working flawlessly as is Tidal.
Regarding sound, the best comparison I have on hand is the Cord 2Go/2Yu and am using it as a Roon Endpoint with the Antipodes K50 serving as the network server via Wireless. This is optimal since both have wireless and wired options.
Initial impression (first two hours) is that they are similar wirelessly and the Chord has the edge wired via Roon. Both devices are clean and clear but there is the very tiniest bit of congestion in the treble wireless.. This does not seem to change based on distance from the wireless router so long as you have a good signal. They are shockingly similar suggesting my netgear router is the bottleneck.
Wired, I thought the Chord was a touch more even and open as it had a slight advantage in bass and midrange detail. At more than twice the price of the MF, the Chord better sound better. This showed up in the air around acoustic guitar notes. This may change as the unit breaks in.
Initial impression is very positive. If you are looking for a step up from the Bluesound Node without going crazy, this seems like a great device. I am curious about software stability through time and I need to do serious comparison between the device as a Roon endpoint vs. Streamer. Any time someone introduces software for a device I am always wary. That said, MF has had software for a long time for the Encore series of devices they make.
I am thinking that I am going to ask the distributor if I can bundle this with the first rate Canor DAC 2.10 as Tidal support will allow full decoding of MQA and this is an ideal compliment to a $4K DAC.
@jerryg123 I am working on more dealers for CANOR. Last year it was just me. Now we have 4 total. Will add more through time |