Mojo Mystique EVO Pro D/A Converter

Uniting shipping to me for review should be here Friday this week

Holy 5 figure DAC Batman! I do like the design philosophy though

Comparison between Mojo Mystique X SE VS Rockna Wavedream:

In my audiophile journey these are the two most detailed dacs I have ever heard

When I drove to my friend's home with my Amps and cables to try his Wavedream, my jaw just dropped when I heard the first note of his Wavedream in that it is soooooo much alike to my Mojo Mystique X SE, which is the newly released flagship Dac from Mojo, but here are some difference ab with my Riviera:

1, While both has the best weight of notes in the industry, Mystique X SE has even weightier and tighter mid bass, which could be fatiguing even with bass light system as Stax and HD800s. By contrast, Wavedream has hotter highs which is tad too hot to my ears.

2, These are the two dac that sounds soooo similar but with opposite tuning and goals as Analytical vs Analogue. Wavedream is the most detailed dac I have heard in terms of imaging and microdetails. I think it chases the peak of technical performance that a dac could achieved, while the engineer of Mystique X SE aspire to creat the most analogue sounding and true to life experience. While I may prefer the even higher microdetails from Wavedream, I applaud Benjamin for his chase of chasing both truth of music with technicality. If you once owned Matrum or Sonnet dacs, you may understand the charm of being real and life like sounds. As a matter of a fact, I was awaken by Mystique X SE with the song Piano and River by Hans Zimmer due to the fact I really was waken by the sound real waves, especially I'm living by lakes lol. Listening to the same song from Wavedream, I am mesmerized by the sharper images, but slightly less touched.

3, While Wavedream beats Mystique X SE and all the other dacs I owned and tested in my system ( Chord Dave, DCS Rossini, May KTE, T Plus, Matrix X, Schitt Y) in terms of microdetails, I do feel there is a lack of depth and highs for Wavedream, compared to Mystique X SE which has more organic and equal height and width of the stage. Especially, after listening to Schitt Y, it is really hard to for me to listen to dacs that lacks depth and height of stage, as if it is degrading from 3D to 2D. ( The deal breaker of Schitt Y to me is overly narrow stage width lol). In Wavedream, the shape of stage feels as a super wide artificial oval in wide setting. Switching to narrow bands at Wavedream, the width dramatically decreased but with no increase in depth so I was thinking like what is the point of giving up goodie without gaining anything lol

In conclusion, I really think these are the two best dacs I have heard so far that sound soooooo similar but at the same time sooooo different.

I used to have a dream that I dream of a dac with the bass of Terminator Plus, the analogue sounding of Metrum R2R, the sparkling timber of Wadax, the resolution of MSB, stage width of Matrix X, stage depth of Schitt Y, and information of Esoteric. I would never believe such a thing will exist in that the game of hifi is always about give and take, but if there is such a dac of best of everything, it must be Mojo Mystique X SE.

Most chip based and FPGA dacs have been chasing resolution with digital sounding while R2R chasing anologue sounding with less resolution. There seems to be always a choice in the continuum between resolution to anologue tuning. Yet this dac peaks and to me over performed in both which is unbelievable so much so that you must listen to believe.

I will demo Playback Designs this weekends and my guts told me these two will be even more similar.

Wait for Playback Designs VS Mojo Mystique X SE