New Mojo Mystique X

@fuzzbutt17 When will the dealer listing become available? I'd love to listen, but an in-home demo could get pricey with round-trip shipping (these are heavy DACs), so working with a dealer probably makes more sense for me. Thanks.

@branislav To answer your question, I didn’t feel that the Mystique Mojo made everything mushy or syrupy, it had okay speed and transients, but it homogenized the music, like applying a certain kind of filter to photos and videos, it gives every song a certain type of flavor. It worked well for some genres, like acoustic music, but it didn’t work well for other types of music, like in-organic modern music. Like I said, it can be a good dac for you depending on your musical taste, but you would always be aware that you are listening to all your music through this DAC.

I categorically disagree with @fuzzbutt17 ’s assertion that there are somehow these two distinct groups of audiophiles who are either "music lover" or "audiophile". In reality it’s a sliding spectrum with most of us with a foot firmly in each camp. To insinuate anyone who has critical feedback for a certain gear is somehow not a "music lover" is pretty odd and frankly doesn't exude a lot of confidence. One does not need to forsake the love of music or "harmonic coherency" to appreciate transparency, speed, dynamics and imaging. What’s ironic is that it is exactly the accurate reproduction of harmonic structure with proper timing that unmasks real resolution and detail while avoiding the smear that many designer will rebrand as "natrualness" or "organicness".

There are DACs on the market that can do both sides of the spectrum really really well, example on the high end there is MSB, on the low end there is Holo May KTE.

@Metaldetektor

We are in the process identifying and contacting retail distributors.

Between now and the first of the year we are literally tripling our production capacity.

Even then, there is no way, at least not in 2022, that we will be able to meet the demand for our Mystique X if we had several dozen distributors. Let alone resellers like Crutchfield who have contacted us.

So we have to be very picky with who our first distributors are and we have to be very careful not to bite off more than we can chew so to speak.

We're going to start with the big cities, like NY, LA, Miami, Huston, Philly, DC, and Chicago, and branch out from there. We already have distributors lined up for Europe, Australia, and some parts of Asia.

So if any of you have a recommendations on high-end retailers in your area, please email me :^)

@Divertiti

I agree with you about "audiophiles" vs "music lovers" is a gross over simplification. Most of us are going through a perpetual evolution as we learn and experience more.

At the same time, there are types of music and types of systems which are not capable of discerning the subtlety and nuance our DACs are able to deliver.

And the people who listen to those types of music and who own those types of systems would likely not be our best customers.

What you are calling "homogenized" is what I am calling "harmonically coherent." The more naturally the harmonic structure of the music is, the more the sounds blend. That's what the musicians are trying to do when they play together.

Much of what you are preferring (and you certainly have the right to prefer it) is actually off time and off tune which give a more separated, layered, and distinct effect.

My guess is you have multi-way speakers and sub woofers, right?

Well even though you get excellent extension and smoother/flatter frequency response you have sacrificed phase and time coherency. Simply the nature of cross overs and the comb effect and cancellation and reinforcement of multiple drivers.

It doesn't make a difference if we talk about an expensive Wilson, Magico, or Focal. This is the nature of cross overs and the nature of multiple drivers. You can't get around the physics. They do some things better and others worse.

Personally I can only listen to full frequency transducers. Single driver speakers...electrostatic speakers...planer-magnetic headphones. I'm willing to give up extension and penetration for time, tune, and coherency.

And personally I don't expect recorded music to sound like live music. How can it? First you have the inertia of the microphone diaphragm...then all the mediocre pro audio cables...then all the mixing and mastering stuff such as dynamic compression.

Did you know that your average good recording is compressed down to less than 40dB dynamic range?!?!?!? Most pop music is compressed down to 20dB dynamic range because it is engineered to sound best on Bluetooth headphones and car stereos. The best of recordings are 70dB dynamic range at most..very few of those around. All quite far from the 120dB dynamic range of live music.

When people try to compensate for the compression and other things lacking in their recordings with what I call "attractive distortions" there is always a price to pay. You gain in one area and lose in another.

This is why my personal philosophy is to do none of this in our DACs. Because once you've lost time, tune, or harmonic coherency, there is no way to regain them farther down the signal path.

You can always find some way to add "excitement" farther down the signal path.

Think about it.

We finally received the chassis which had been holding up production of our new Mystique X DAC. Currently those parts are being powder coated awaiting laser etching.

Now that we have everything in-house we are expecting to begin shipping back orders the middle of May and begin shipping new orders, dealer demos, and reviewer demos the end of May or beginning of June.

Photos of the prototype Mystique X we took to AXPONA and updated information are now on our website.

Even though the Mystique X uses the identical circuit and nearly identical parts to our Mystique EVO, due to the new chassis typology, shielding, and anti-resonance, the Mystique X has a notably lower noise floor than any DAC we've ever offered.

As you lower noise floor you not only reveal low-level details which were formerly masked by noise, you expand dynamic range. The Mystique X has insane micro-dynamics.

The bad news is that the cost of our component parts and chassis have gone up significantly in the past year. 

On June 1st Mojo Audio will officially be selling through retail distributors, all sale prices will end (we can't undercut our distributors), and prices will be going up by +$3,000 on the Mystique X and +$4,000 on the Mystique X SE.

In May we expect to have inventory of DACs on the shelf for the first time since 2017. The bad news is that once our retail distributors get their demos we're expecting to have to return to a waiting list once more.

As for additional DAC models, we have a few in prototyping which are more advanced than the Mystique X, but we won't be releasing any new models of DACs until we are certain we can keep up with demand for our new Mystique X.

No point in having waiting lists for multiple products with component part delays.