Six DAC Comparison

WOW!

That's quite a review :^P

To put my 2 cents in...

I've had both our X and Y DACs in a variety of systems playing a variety of music.

Depending on the specific system and the specific recording would depend on which one I prefer. 

And given the same chokes (ferrous, amorphous, or nano crystal core), depending on what cables you use, you could make each sound quite similar to the other.

That only makes sense considering they are almost identical in circuit, power supplies, and parts quality, aside from the DAC chips.

For those of you who are interested, we hope to release our new Mystique Z DAC sometime this summer. 

It will use the same 3" high chassis as our Mystique Y and will have 3 inputs (USB, coaxial, and optical). The Z will be built around the famous PCM58 DAC chip.

Aside from the DAC chips, nearly all of the parts in our new Z will be identical to our X and Y DACs.

But since we've made quite a few upgrades to all of the power supplies, expect an even lower noise floor, even darker background, even more transparency, and even more micro-details and micro-dynamics.

Prices will range from $7,000-$11,000 depending on what options you get. 

Because we've had so many requests for pre-orders, we've decided to offer the first production run exclusively to existing Mojo customers who are trading in and upgrading their current DACs. 

If you're considering upgrading before the fall let us know ASAP so we can put you on the waiting list.

Tim is going to get one of the first Mystique Z DACs to review...around the same time Tim gets a Z DAC to review we'll be shipping our first back orders. 

With our current number of back orders new customers may want to get on a waiting list if they are hoping to have delivery in early fall. 

One more thing...

Single-ended vs balanced outputs is quite system dependent. 

Our balanced output is an additional stage following the single-ended output, so all things being equal, the single-ended output should sound better.

But when are all things ever equal?!?!?!?

As it states in our user manual, we suggest that you try both outputs in your system and decide for yourself. 

Generally speaking, our single-ended output will sound sweeter, will have better musical flow, better harmonic coherency, and have more emotional content. 

Generally speaking, our balanced output will have more intensity, dynamics, and gestalt.  

But as I mentioned, that is VERY system dependent. 

We have quite a few customers with fully balanced amplification who prefer our single-ended output and others who tell us our single-ended output sounds too soft and vague. 

In my personal experience some balanced amps don't do single-ended as well as balanced.

@fuzzbutt17 Are you stepping away from the R2R DAC's with the PCM58 DAC chip.  This is a Delta Sigma chip correct?  How many PCM58 DAC chips are you going to use in the new Z DAC?  I am excited to see what you have.

@brbrock Read this on line…“The PCM58 DAC chip is a true multi-bit R2R (Resistor Ladder) DAC and not a Delta-Sigma DAC”

@brbrock 

We're never switching from R-2R to Delta Sigma.

(I think I threw up a little in my mouth).

The PCM58 is a 40-year-old Burr-Brown 18-bit R-2R DAC chip that was marketed as a direct competitor to the Analog Devices AD1865.

It sounds and looks almost identical to the famous 20-bit PCM63.

Both the PCM58 and PCM63 are about 4X the size of the AD1862 which I assume accounts for their higher level of performance. 

Not only are they significantly larger and sound slightly better than the Analog Devices DAC chips, the PCM58 potentially has 4X the number of linearity/distortion fine-tune adjustments. 

Where as the AD1862 and AD1865 each have one adjustment for the MSB (most significant bit) to optimize linearity and minimize distortion for each channel, the PCM58 has an adjustment for MSB, 2nd bit, 3rd bit, and 4th bit.

No small difference. 

We've had quite a number of PCM58 and PCM63 DAC chips stashed away for over a decade.

The reason we haven't designed a DAC with them is that in order to fine-tune linearity and minimize distortion you need to use a very sensitive and very expensive distortion analyzer which we didn't have at the time. 

We've even had our friend Brial Lowe, the genius behind Belleson regulators, design a custom low-noise amplifier and notch filter for us to assure that even the most subtle noise that could get through to the distortion analyzer from AC mains and RF would be eliminated allowing us to truly optimize these DAC chips to 20-bits of resolution.

Here's the kicker..

Among other differences, the entry-level Mystique Z DAC will have only the fine-tune adjustment for the MSB, the middle-level Mystique Z will have the MSB and 2nd bit fine-tuned, and our top-of-the-line Mystique Z will have MSB, 2nd bit, 3rd bit, and 4th bit all fine-tuned.

So rather than expecting that Mojo Audio is switching from R-2R to Delta-Sigma expect a level of R-2R performance from our Mystique Z unlike any company has ever offered.

And expect a new version of our famous EVO DAC for around $17,000 to be released in 2027 built around Burr-Brown's famous PCM63 DAC chip.