Musical Fidelity A324 DAC, Is this a ??


Is this a smooth sounding DAC?
Warm and detailed or very detailed and forward sounding?

Any opinions would be appreciated

Thanks

rapogee
rapogee
After the Tellig-Stereophile review, where, of course, any MF stuff portends new audio enlightenment I borrowed one from my dealer.
Utterly nondescript - when using a Denon changer into a Sunfire preamp, there was no significant change between using the MF, and not using, and I A-B'd in real time by using different inputs to the pre.
Useless in my experience. Another Stereophile/MF hype job. Don't waste your money. I eventually used an old EAD 7000 DAC, where there was a reasonable change for the better.
What's it sound like - mid fi.
I owned one for a while, before taking advantage of the upgrade to the tri-vista dac. I totally disagree with snofun3, I found it to be a big improvement over the redbook on my sony c555es, a highly regarded sacd/cdp. If you do not trust Sam’s opinions, look at the follow up measurements in stereophile….they are uniformly excellent. As to your question, the tri-vista is better, it delivers more detail…but the A324 is I would say slightly more one the detail side than the warmth side
In my small tube system , (cayin TA-30)it is excellent, I am useing a phillips cd80 for a transport through a monarchy dip,
odyssey epiphany speakers. I'm not familiar with the denon changers but it may be transport or system /cable dependent. Best bet is to see if you could borrow one and try it in your system. TG
I own a rotel RCD855. Used the dac your looking at. Not that dig a deal. Not a day and night diffrence that stereophile would make you think but they really didnt give that great of a review if you read. " It added more air then the jupider refrence player, your results may be better..." If I were you id spend some more $$ You will grow tired of it quick . The guy I sold mine to resold it in 2 months. I had it for 2 weeks... not trying to put it down just saving you some time.
Go to eCoustics.com. You can find reviews of the MF there. One does a comprison between the 3.24 and a Bel Canto DAC.

From what the reviews say it leans toward the warm side.