Musical Fidelity M8x DAC – First Look
All Image Credit: Musical Fidelity
Musical Fidelity has unveiled the M8x DAC, a high-end digital-to-analogue converter designed to deliver excellent sound quality with cutting-edge processing, and fully discrete and fully balanced circuitry. The design has eliminated several sources of potential interference by eliminating the display, and not including any Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, thus preventing RF radiation. Its solid aluminum chassis acts as a Faraday cage, shielding internal components from unwanted external RF interference and mechanical vibrations. The shielded toroidal linear power supply provides two fully-regulated low-noise power sources, one for each channel, with separated analog and digital supplies, and together with the very low stray magnetic field from the toroid, that is fed by an industrial-grade power socket with EMI filters, ensures minimal noise, interference and transformer hum.
At the heart of the M8x DAC, Musical Fidelity employs dual ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M chips in a fully balanced, dual-differential configuration. The company claims this allows for extreme precision, ultra-low noise, and an enhanced dynamic range, giving music more space and realism. It supports PCM up to 768kHz, DSD512 (native via USB) and full MQA decoding up to 384KHz, ensuring compatibility with the highest-resolution digital formats. The M8x DAC also sets itself apart with a fully discrete and fully balanced analogue output stage opting for individual transistors, resistors, and capacitors, avoiding the constraints of integrated circuits.
The advanced reclocking and upsampling technologies ensure accuracy and are designed to minimize jitter and distortion, with clock jitter being below 100 femtoseconds. The oversampling bypass mode also allows the DAC to process native high-resolution signals with minimal digital intervention.
Headphone listeners have been catered for with a reference-grade, fully discrete and balanced headphone amplifier that supports both balanced 4-pin XLR and unbalanced 6.3mm outputs on the front panel. Its Class A amplifier provides up to 3.9W into 8 ohms and are claimed to be able to provide full power into 30 ohm loads. With peaks of >10 watts, good headroom is provided for both low or high impedance headphones.
Control is available using the front panel aluminum rotary knobs and buttons with status displayed by various LED’s, or via the small included IR remote that provides selection of inputs, volume level, filters and upsampling.
Features At A Glance:
- DAC Circuit: 32 bit Hyperstream II
- DAC Chip: 2x ES9038Q2M (dual differential)
- Discrete balanced output stage
- High-power balanced & discrete headphone amp
- Balanced XLR headphone output
- Drives power hungry and low impedance headphones down to 8 ohms with ease
- 16-core XMOS and CPLD MAX II Altera processors
- Switchable Advanced Reclocking
- Switchable Upsampling
- Selectable Digital Filters
- Oversampling Bypass
- Full Hardware MQA Decoding for USB and SPDIF inputs
- Roon Tested
- Super Silent Power Transformer
- Discrete input power filtering and DC blocking circuitry
- 1x Asynchronous USB: up to 768kHz
- USB: DSD 256 (stereo DoP), DSD512 (stereo native)
- 1x coaxial, 3x optical SPDIF; 1x AES/EBU: up to 24bit/192kHz
- 1x I2S for new Musical Fidelity CD Players
- 1x RCA, 1x balanced XLR outputs: variable/fixed switchable
- Trigger In/Out
- Uncompromisingly rigid mechanical construction
- Front/side/top panels from extruded aluminum profile
- No display enables excellent shielding against outer electromagnetic fields and timeless looks
- Full aluminum buttons and control wheels
Specifications:
- DAC chip: 2x ES9038Q2M (dual mono) with 8x digital filter
- Frequency response: < -0,1dB at 10Hz -20kHz
- Total correlated jitter: <100 femtoseconds peak to peak
- Linearity: <0.1dB down to -130dB
- Channel separation: <-114dB at 10kHz @ 0dBFS
- SNR: > 100dB „A“-wt. at 1kHz @ 0dBFS
- THD+N: < 0,001% at 1kHz @ 0dBFS
- Output, digital 0dB level: RCA 2V RMS, XLR 4V RMS
- Output impedance: < 100 ohms
- Headphone:
- Outputs: 6.3mm stereo JACK unbalanced; 4-pin XLR balanced
- Power (balanced output): 3.9W / 8 ohms; 3.2W / 32 ohms; 400mW / 300 ohms
- Output impedance: < 5 ohms
- Frequency response: < ±0,1dB at 20Hz-20kHz
- THD: < 0.005% at 1kHz @ -6dBFS
- SNR: > 96dB, A-wt. at 1kHz @ 0dBFS
- Digital Inputs:
- 1x USB input: USB Audio Class 2 requires USB 2.0 or higher on computer
- USB PCM sample rates: up to 768kHz
- USB DSD support: up to DSD256 via DoP and native DSD512
- MQA support: full MQA decoding by hardware
- 3x Optical input: up to 24bit / PCM 192kHz, MQA 384kHz, DoP DSD 64
- 1x Coaxial input: up to 24bit / PCM 192kHz, MQA 384kHz, DoP DSD 64
- 1x AES/EBU input: 1x up to 24bit / PCM 192kHz, MQA 384kHz, DoP DSD 64
- 1x CD I2S (MCLK out 16,9344MHz)
- 1x USB input: USB Audio Class 2 requires USB 2.0 or higher on computer
- Analogue Outputs:
- 1 pair line level RCA fix/var @ 2V RMS at 0dBFS
- 1 pair line level XLR fix/var @ 4V RMS at 0dBFS
- Power requirement:
- Mains voltages: 115/230VAC 50/60Hz (factory pre-set); 100VAC 50/60Hz (alternative)
- Consumption: 70 Watts maximum, <0.5 W in standby
- General Information:
- Trigger In/Out
- Dimensions (WxHxD): 483 x 102 x 381 mm
- Weight: 10,6 Kg net
MSRP:
- US: $3,999.00
- UK: £3,599.00
For more information visit the Musical Fidelity web site.
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