Musiland Monitor 02 US - Page 41

Not sure how effective it would be, but I think so.

Each time I disconnect the power plug, the amp shut down. Anyway, the USB specifications are too tight for the MM02US(5,0V, 500mA, it's 2,5W MM02US need 3...) Or maybe it could be operational but with somme features disabled (like spdif output)?

It seems to me that only the DAC function remain enable without the powerplug, not the amp.

Review

Appearance
Nicely packaged, well protected and presented unit.
Supplied with USB cable (average) and Chinese plug (which I cut off and replaced with Aussie plug).
The unit itself is a smaller DAC 125mm (L) x 80mm (W) x 40mm (H), approximately.
Finished in a nice darker grey metal box and the connections all look like reasonable quality.
Overall for the money it looks and feels like a quality unit worth the dollars, I paid just under $150AUD including delivery.

Installation
Very simple, downloaded the latest driver from coolfungadget 1.0.8.4.
Installed the driver, plugging the unit in during the process as per the nice and clear instructions and voila unit working.
Small icon in tray (bottom left of pc screen) which when I click on brings up the various options.
Running winXP and WMP11 and have had no problems or challenges in set up and play.

My Setup
I have some pretty decent speakers, (DIY using peerless dual concentric tweeter) excellent CD player and amps from Jungson. My preference is to listen to my music through CD player. Recently bought some $30 headphones for fun listening to those through onboard sound card. For PC music I was listening through a Silverstone DAC that was a hand me down.

Sound quality
Straight out of the box using the DAC playing into my pre-amp from PC the sound is of course much better then the Silverstone. About 10% improvement in soundstage straight away and a small increase in detail for higher frequencies. The bass has dropped a little so will be interesting to see how this changes with burn in as well as the higher frequencies.
Listening via the very average headphones was interesting as the bass is now better controlled, was very boomy before. And again there is a little more detail in higher frequencies.

Summary
I haven't previously invested much time or thought in music from my PC. However I see this unit as an excellent centre piece for starting down that road. If it can make an improvement to my $30 headphones then I expect much much more from lossless recording and improved headphones (will be ordering some DT880).

Looks like new beta drivers are out: 1.8.6b

 

http://www.musiland.com.cn/downloads/drivers/beta/MlCyMon_1.0.8.6_build20100506.exe

 

Translation of what was updated:

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://bbs.musiland.com.cn/archiver/%3Ftid-6787.html&ei=TrPjS8LzK8yHkAWJ2vkR&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMlCyMon_1.0.8.6_build20100506.exe%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dopera%26hs%3Dp0w%26rls%3Den

 

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.erji.net/simple/index.php%3Ft866383.html&ei=JLPjS6vDENCIkAWO_s3mDw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMlCyMon_1.0.8.6_build20100505.exe%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dopera%26hs%3DXfH%26rls%3Den

 

Looks like the interface has been revamped and there's now a bass EQ option (5 band bass only graphic EQ).

 

p.s. the volume meter bar is a bit broken (it clips to 100% and doesn't fall until the music stops) in the new version. Large dpi support isn't working in the tab headings, and potentially broke the version display in the 2nd tab.

Edited by svyr - 5/7/10 at 4:45am

Hi Guys, I got my musiland 02 yesterday from China. I installed driver OK, and restart the computer, plug the cable in, the sound control panel comes out. BUT there is no sound out from neither of the headphone sockets. LED for RCA out is on but not for headphones. Any ideas of this? Is there anyway to choose either RCA out on or Headphone out on? THX guys.

Opps!!!! I was too stupid to see the button which can swich from line to HP........

One person said in the Monitor 01 thread that it can decode HDCD.  I didn't find any information on that.  

There is a driver where it does partial HDCD decoding however I called them on the legality and they have backed-off.   I did this because I didn't want to see open source non-profit  players like foobar lose the HDCD plugin.   M$ isn't a company you F with.
 

After i asked a couple of questions, they themselves said that "it was strictly prohibited to use the feature in the BETA driver because it has not passed Microsoft authorization".

 

The new driver is several times the size of the old driver. We don't know if it is hdcd.exe or an official Microsoft implementation. We will just have to wait and see what is released in the release version of the driver.

 

In the meantime, you can experiment...

Indeed, the new driver has a HDCD decoder. I'm enjoying my HDCD tracks anew and those I didn't know they were HDCD (like Dave Koz). Instructions on how to enable it here: http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/new-musiland-driver/

 

The HDCD feature is also present in their new PCI sound card which uses a 250K gate fpga (whereas the current crop of devices uses an fpga of 50K gates. In addition, the new fpga has 4 DCMs (clock managers) meaning that there is no wait in switching sample rate. You can read some of the technical info here (translate with Google toolbar): http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100001228.htm and here http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100001128.htm

 

Thus it appears Musiland is serious about including HDCD in their devices. Let them figure out the legal/licensing issues with Microsoft. In the meantime, those with Musiland devices, enjoy the new feature...

Edited by glt - 5/8/10 at 3:01am

Hi all,

 

I have a Musiland Monitor 02 and Dell 6400 with Windows 7 64 bit.. Musiland's version is 1.0.7.0..

 

My problem is, sometimes (more frequent lately) something is happening with driver and musiland doesnt work. I cant change sampling rates, cant get signal from line outs or headphone outs. Sometimes installing driver fixes it, sometimes not so i try installing and restarting a lot, at last fixes etc etc..

 

So is there anyone had this problem, or solved it? Or any ideas?

 

If I cant fix this, i will sell them and get another dac..

You can try some of the beta drivers. In particular 1.0.8.4 from here: http://coolfungadget.com/musiland/ or newer ones from here: http://www.musiland.com.cn/downloads/drivers/beta/

 

Not sure if it's worth updating to the new 1.0.8.6 driver to include MU-Bass. Any difference from 1.0.8.4 besides the bass option? I don't like to mess with the EQ.

I updated it to 8.4 and it havent cause a problem since. Maybe this can be the reason for its problem-free, I am too careful about disabling it from device manager etc..

Edited by hasanyuceer - 5/13/10 at 5:25am

I am happily sticking with 1.0.8.4 also until 1.0.8.6 gets out of beta phase.