@mitch2 - Great review, Mitch. I’m very intrigued by the Mojo Audio line of DACs now. It sounds they simply bring joy to the experience of listening to music. In my book, that’s mission number one. Will be curious to hear your thoughts on the LTA DAC next. Lots of people seem pretty excited by it, so will look forward to hearing what you think its strengths are.
Six DAC Comparison
I am in the middle of comparing the sound of six different DACs in my system. I own them all (I know weird) but one of them is still within a trial/return timeframe.
Not to share specific comparisons today, but a couple of observations so far are that first, they all definitely sound different from each other. On one hand, they all sound pretty good and play what is fed to them without significant flaws but on the other hand there are definite sonic differences that make it easy to understand how a person might like the sound of some of them while not liking others.
Second, raises the observation that most of them must be doing something to shape the sound in the manner the designer intended since one of the DACs, a Benchmark DAC3 HGA, was described by John Atkinson of Stereophile as providing "state-of-the-art measured performance." In the review, JA closed the measurements section by writing, "All I can say is "Wow!" I have also owned the Tambaqui (not in my current comparison), which also measured well ("The Mola Mola Tambaqui offers state-of-the-digital-art measured performance." - JA). The Benchmark reminds me sonically of the Tambaqui, both of which are excellent sounding DACs.
My point is that if the Benchmark is providing "state-of-the-art measured performance," then one could reasonably presume that the other five DACs, which sound different from the Benchmark, do not share similar ’state-of-the-art" measurements and are doing something to subtly or not so subtly alter the sound. Whether a person likes what they hear is a different issue.
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Benjamin from Mojo Audio again. I very much appreciate Mitch as a customer as well as Mitch's efforts in this incredibly detailed review. That being said, I wanted to offer a bit different perspective. When our Mystique X just was originally released we sent them out to dozens of our customers who owned Mystique EVO B4Bs and EVO Pros. After comparing the two DACs side-by-side in their own systems all but one of those people preferred the sound of our new Mystique X and paid thousands of dollars to upgrade their EVOs to our new X. And a few of those people were professional reviewers who owned our EVO Pro. You may want to check out the many raving reviews and awards our Mystique X received on our website. Everyone hears things a bit differently and every system has a bit different synergy with certain components. But I think it should be taken into account that Mitch is one of only two of our customers out of the several dozen who compared our Mystique EVO and our Mystique X side-by-side in their own systems who preferred the sound of our EVO. As for my personal opinion... We get a few Mystique EVOs sent in each year for upgrades and I get a chance to hear them on our test bench. To my ear they sound a bit slower, softer, and a bit vague when compared to our Mystique X. A large part of this has to do with our Mystique X having a notably lower noise floor than our EVO. Technically speaking the reason for this is that our Mystique EVO has a series of power and signal cables that run beneath the digital and analog circuit boards as well as wires between the circuit boards and the connectors on the rear panel. In addition, we upgraded a few parts in the power supplies, such as going from the fast recovery diodes used in our Mystique v3 and EVO to zero-recovery ultra-fast SiC Silcon Carbide Schottky diodes used in our newer X and Y series. We also went from using three off-the-shelf unshielded PCB mounted power transformers that were used in our Mystique v3 and EVO to a 100% custom multi-voltage fully shielded Toroidal power transformer mounted on a Sorbothane pad that is both electrically and mechanically isolated from all circuit boards in our newer Mystique X and Y DACs. And unlike our Mystique v3 and EVO DACs all of the input and output connectors in our newer X and Y series mount directly to the circuit boards without any wires. The result is a notably lower noise floor which translates to more transparency between notes, a more open soundstage, a darker background, more micro-details, and more micro-dynamics. Which explains why literally dozens of our customers upgraded their Mystique EVO to our newer Mystique X. Of course being the designer, I am obviously prejudice :^P |
@fuzzbutt17 Benjamin can you tell us if you have anything in the works for upcoming models? |
@ brbrock Yes. I'm working on a Mystique Z that will be built around the PCM58 DAC chip and will have an external power supply. The power supply upgrades will be plug-and-play so customers won't have to send their DAC in to us for upgrades. The entry-level power supply will have Hammond chokes (like our Mystique v3) and the top-of-the-line power supply will be dual-mono with LCLC dual stage nano crystal core chokes and will have no electrolytic capacitors. We're hoping we can sell the entry-level model for as low as $7,500 and we're expecting the top-of-the-line model will have to sell for over $15,000. But don't expect to see anything sooner than the end of 2025. We just purchased some new software and testing equipment that will be used in the R&D which I would expect to be a rather lengthy process. |
Benjamin brings up a very important point in that with any of this stuff, the subjective opinions of reviewers, manufacturers, equipment owners, and others are predicated by the personal experiences and preferences of the individuals providing their point of view, as well as their partnering equipment and music choices. I can only refer to the "Disclaimer" portion of my post from 9/14 at 10:38pm, where I said, in part,
I do not expect everyone else to view things the way I view them. However, keep in mind that I have twice owned the Mystique X SE DAC at the same time as I owned the Mystique EVO Pro DAC, and I currently own the top-of-the-line, flagship Mystique X SE NCZ version as well as the EVO Pro (with Z-chips) that was the subject of my write-up posted on 9/14. I am currently focused on the LTA Aero but, as I stated in this thread previously:
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