ЦАПы — Musical Fidelity MX-DAC

The MX-DAC is a compact converter from Musical Fidelity with coaxial, optical and USB inputs plus single-ended and balanced outputs. Every input is processed in the DSD domain, and the casing is built from mil-spec aluminium extrusions for both the front panel and the housing, and the maker describes the circuit as fully balanced.

Key specs that matter

Musical Fidelity specifies a PCM1795, a 32-bit 192 kHz multi-bit sigma-delta chip, preceded by an SRC4392 sample rate converter that upsamples to 192 kHz. In PCM the frequency response spans 2 Hz to 90 kHz at minus 3 dB. PCM THD is below 0.002% and THD plus noise below 0.003%, while for DSD the figures are below 0.003% and below 0.006%. Channel separation is quoted at 110 dB. The RCA output provides 2 V RMS and the XLR output 4 V RMS.

Engineering and use context

The input panel has two RCA coaxial and two TOSLINK optical S/PDIF sockets, each accepting 24-bit 192 kHz, while the asynchronous USB Type-B socket is handling up to 24-bit 192 kHz PCM plus DSD64 and DSD128. A single input select button steps through these five sources, and selectable filtering offers gradual and sharp roll-off options. The front panel shows power status, the incoming sample rate, the DSD rate, the chosen filter and the selected input. Analogue signals leave through a single RCA line-level pair and a male XLR balanced pair. The chassis is 220 mm wide, 53 mm high and 215 mm deep and it weighs 1.9 kg unpacked and 2.4 kg in its box. The box includes a 5 V 2 A external mains adaptor that works on 90 to 250 V AC at 50 to 60 Hz, a Windows driver CD and a user manual. Power demand is modest, with less than 1 W at maximum and under 0.25 W in standby. The MX-DAC belongs to the half-width MX series of Musical Fidelity, which also includes the MX-HPA headphone amplifier in a housing of the same width and height.

Pairing

An amplifier with balanced XLR inputs takes the higher balanced output, while an amplifier with only RCA inputs connects through the single-ended output. The MX-HPA headphone amplifier shares the same case size, allowing the pair to be stacked. The US list price was USD 999, and the model is now discontinued.

Alternatives

The Musical Fidelity M8x DAC is a full-width converter from the same brand with two ES9038Q2M chips, AES/EBU and I2S inputs and a built-in headphone amplifier.