Musical Fidelity - M1DAC - 192 KHz input problem?


I currently have a MF A3-24 which I like very much. I have been looking for a DAC which takes 192KHz input (A3-24 is limited to 96KHz), so looked into the new M1. It was reviewed well in the March Stereophile. In the new Stereophile (June) in the Follow-up section, John Adkinson notes that with 192KHz inputs, the output rolls off pretty much the same as with 96KHz - at just over 40 KHz. I would expect it to extend out to close to 1/2 the sampling freqency. He notes that, but does not make a big deal about it. But, it seems like MF increased the input sampling freqency up to 192KHz but did not update the D to A and/or output accordingly. So, although it takes in 192KHz, it does not seem to take advantage of it.

That also brings up the question as to whether other manufactures may be doing the same thing. Everyone wants to have 192KHz performance, but it seems they also need to change the D to A to take advantage of 192KHz, not just the input. I would just assume that they were doing so. But maybe not, especially at this low to mid level price point. Or am I missing something?

Thanks to John for pointing this out.
128x128dtc

Showing 2 responses by timlub

Do you know if they even tested beyond 48K to give results up to 96K? I have a hard time hearing up there.
DTC, I agree completely about sampling. I have been using an MHZS tubed cd player that has adjustable upsampling, I could clearly hear the difference playing cd's @ 192k. I have since abandonded the cd and have downloaded files to computer and am using an external dac. I have downloaded files that are 24/48, 24/88, 24/96, 24/176 and 24/192. I honestly don't have anything except a few cd's to compare with the high res files, but there is a clear difference playing a 24/96 vs cd. I've never compared 2 file types or sample rates against each other to comment past this. My earlier point was, do you know if MF even tested a signal past 40K to print documented output differences in frequency response within sample rate?