Audiolab MDAC

It has convincingly exceeded and replaced my HRT Streamer II+, which in turn beat a Benchmark DAC1, MF V-DAC, NuForce HDP and Lavry DA10.

Have you owned all those DACs?

My MDAC arrived today. Running it with internal amp disabled (natch) into 202/200.

Still playing around with it and of course it is still warming up. First impressions are very favourable though.

Hi Guy - yes, I have owned all of those DACs over the last few years.

I use them in my second system (main system is Qute + NAP140) and have swapped around every few months so that I can properly evaluate them in my own environment.  I would probably have stuck with the Lavry as an all-in-one DAC and headphone amp if it just had a proper volume knob.  The toggle switch got annoying far too quickly and I'm afraid that the ergonomics vs. SQ balance was too far the wrong way for me.

Hi Nick,

What is your mpression on the Audiolab DAC comparing it to your earlier DAC's ?

Iver

Hi Iver,

That is a diificult question as I can only go by memory in most cases.  For the HRT however, I was able to make proper A/B comparisons by having both DACs plugged into my iMac and using the SoundSource app to switch outputs and the Rega Brio-R remote to simultaneously switch inputs.  This worked well and I could clearly hear improvements in the MDAC.  The were mostly in sound stage and clarity - everything sounds larger, wider, clearer and very well controlled.  I already liked the HRT a lot and so this has been a very pleasant surprise.

Lots of other great features on the MDAC - nice clear screen with sample rate display, a bit perfect test (so that you can be confident that iTunes etc. are not messing around with the sound), user seletable filters and a decent remote that also passes control back through the USB connection for play/pause/next/previous.

Very happy so far!

John

An interesting report. Looks like a very decent DAC at a good price although anyone would think it was the second coming after reading the pink forum

James

> a bit perfect test (so that you can be confident that iTunes etc. are not messing around with the sound)

That is interesting you could try out some of those pieces of magic software that some folks keep telling us make everything sound better, but that for some reason I can't hear any difference with. Perhaps the MDAC would reveal what they do 

The Weiss DAC's could do the same. iTunes, compared to the 'magic software'. Bit perfect, different sound.

 indeed.

The bit perfect test and front display are both useful for determining whether the "magic software" was doing correctly the things that I actually use it for.  Specifically, Decibel and BitPerfect were both auto-adjusting the bit depth and sampling rate on the fly, without my needing to go into OS X Audio Midi Setup to change this manually.  I don't use them for anything else!

Thanks Orangutan - sounds like good use of magic software - getting the settings right is all you need.

James - that is weird if Weiss said they were the same and then made them sound different - any idea what's going on? Does the Weiss buffer like the Naim DAC? Could the Weiss do the tests Orangutan tried? Did Daniel have any explanation?  

Hey Vortexbox is magic - I have this button and if I press it the music goes off and if I press it again it comes back again - 100% better (and louder) than when I first pressed it

Cool

Tog

@Orangutan: Which filter have you found suits you best?

If I'm honest, I hear only very minor changes between filters (which is as it should be really).  I have left it on Optimal Transient for now, but will experiement further once everything has settled in properly.

I also run the Audiolab MDAC with my iMac as a source, I was using the MF V-Dac before but the M-DAC is a significant upgrade, much more detail, 3 D sound staging and good rhythmic timing. I am going through my music collection all over again and really enjoying the new information I am hearing.