New Mojo Mystique X

Very happy with my Mojo X SE purchased last November. It does so many things right. Spinning CD’s from a Sparkler s503 to Mojo XSE to ANK 4.1 preamp to ANK Interstage 300b Monos SE to Charney Audio Companions horns. The XSE has a wonderful natural “real” presentation. Instruments sound as they are supposed to as well as a musicians touch. ie Tommy Emmanuel and Frank Vignola “Just Between Frets” two highly regarded finger picker guitarists with slightly different approaches . Very easy to pick out who’s playing and who’s strumming along. Never got that from a multitude of other DACS I’ve had. Don’t want to list them all but there have been a lot! As noted by a few in this thread we are all looking for what pleases our ears the Mojo XSE does it for me.

Benjamin from Mojo Audio.

I wanted to clear up  a few things and update everyone as to the status of our DACs.

Originally we had planned to continue with our EVO series and to introduce our X series as a lower cost alternative with similar performance. The X had the potential for robotic assembly allowing us meet several times the demand for our DACs.

About that same time COVID hit and everything changed.

Of course we didn't know just how much COVID would change things or how long COVID would affect our business. Fact is that electronic parts availability is still significantly effected by COVID and everyone in related industries (appliance, automotive, home entertainment, etc) are still having problems sourcing certain parts. :

Back in 2021 several of the electronics parts we needed for our DACs were either in short supply or unavailable. So back in 2021 we purchased all the inventory we could find from several electronics wholesalers around the world. Back in 2021 they were predicting there would be no new inventory of these parts until the end of 2022. As of today many of these parts are still unavailable and now they are predicting to have new inventory late 2023. I'll believe it when I see it. 

So we could only find quantities in the dozens for many of these parts used in our EVO series. In order to continue production of our EVO we would have had to redesign circuit boards and chassis so that we could use a substitute part. This is not only time consuming and expensive, there is no guarantee that those substitute parts would continue to be available. 

At the same time in 2021 there was a serious shortage of aluminum as well as many of the machine shops we used to make our chassis were busy making chassis for medical tech due to COVID. We had to wait several months to get a chassis order that normally took only 4-6 weeks. Though no where near as bad, there are still shortages of aluminum and still significant production delays by machine shops. 

That is why we couldn't continue manufacturing our EVO series: we could only get dozens of certain parts, there were serious delays getting aluminum and getting chassis machined, and to adapt to substitute parts would require a total redesign of circuit boards and chassis.

So we manufactured the few dozen EVOs we had the parts for and discontinued production. We still support the EVO and you can still have us upgrade an EVO Basic to a B4B or Pro or a B4B to a Pro. So the EVO is still upgradable, just not beyond the last version of the EVO Pro.

We had plans to offer different digital input and different DAC chip upgrades for the EVO but since these required replacing the entire digital or digital-to-analog boards there were only a few customers who were interested in spending thousands of $$$ to yield such a subtle improvement in performance.

Combine that with our new X series having a notably lower noise floor and greater dynamic range than our EVO series and most customers who heard an X SE next to their EVO sold their EVO and upgraded to the X SE rather than considering paying a similar amount to upgrade their EVO.

At the same time we found that the prices went up significantly and availability went down significantly on the PCM-63 DAC chips we were planning on using. So the PCM-63 is no longer an option. We have a small inventory of PCM-63s that we're planning on using for a limited edition top-of-the-line DAC some time in the future, but no plans for a new DAC model or EVO upgrade that using the PCM-63. 

Now it brings us to our new X series...

When we engineered the X we utilized electronic parts which were more retally available. And aside from the chassis extrusion (which we purchase from Japan) the face and rear plates for the X series require less than 20% the amount of aluminum and less than 20% the machining time as our EVO. So all things being equal, we have the potential to manufacture roughly 5X the number of X series chassis as EVO chassis. And we've found the X series chassis sounds better and is significantly lower cost to manufacture. 

Higher performance, lower cost, greater availability, not to mention much smaller and lighter weight...we are already planning on using the same X series chassis for future DACs. 

But with electronic parts shortages there is no way we could convert over to robotic manufacture...we simply can't get the parts we need in quantities that make robotic assembly worth doing. So for the unforeseeable future the Mystique X will continue to be hand assembled. I seriously doubt anything will change until the end of 2023 and more likely not until 2024 based on what I'm hearing.

Now for the good news...new DACs for 2023 :^)

Considering over 80% of our customers only use computer audio servers and streamers as their digital source we are planning on a USB only single-input version of our X series. Because it won't require an input selection board, an S/PDIF receiver circuit, or a demultiplexing circuit, we can lower the cost of our Mystique X USB by about 25% over our current X series. We are predicting the X USB will start at about $6,000 and the X SE USB will sell for about $7,500.

We're hoping to have our new X series USB available by the summer of 2023.

We are also working on a new entry-level DAC we hope to be able to sell for around $3,000. It would be USB input only and single-ended output only but this would be ideal for over 80% of our customers. 

We're hoping to have our new entry-level DAC available by the fall of 2023. 

I hope this clears up many of the misconceptions in regards to our EVO series, current production of our new X series, and our plans for the immediate future.  

Thanks for the update, Ben.  Good to see the some of the business challenges and product planning that you deal with.  And congrats on the X series. 

I'm still loving my EVO B4B with a couple upgrades.  The Staccato op-amps you installed last summer brought it up a notch.

I'll be watching closely for the limited edition PCM-63.

Just a month or so ago, I moved the X SE into the rack in my main system but I am not ready to sell the EVO Pro just yet.  IMO, they have similarities but also two different presentations, sort of like two siblings that obviously share the same lineage, are both attractive, but have different attributes.  Both DACs have the natural/organic sound that Mojo Audio is known for, but the X SE offers more of the audiophile type qualities such as detail, incisiveness, controlled bass, drive, and spaciousness, while the EVO Pro counters with tonal density, infill, and bloom that some might find to be more like what you would hear in a small club.  A meal at a high end restaurant vs. southern comfort food, either can be very satisfying.

Regarding the PCM 63, I wouldn’t lose sleep over not having those in my DAC.  I fondly remember the sound of a Lector CDP I owned with that chip but so much of the sound depends on the power supply, shielding, and other aspects of the implementation that Mojo already does extremely well, plus the AD1862 DAC chip they currently use is among the best.

Whichever EVO or X DAC you are listening to is certainly among the best for the money, IMO of course.