New Audiolab DAC

[BoogieWoogie]

Quote:

Spent nearly half a day with the MDAC (and a fortnight before that running it in).... So here are some of my pointers.
 
(Don't take this personally, owners! My review is not going to be pretty, if I'd say so myself!)
 
Fresh out of the box, I'd found that the MDAC actually sounded pleasant enough to live with (esp. when you plug your cans in to its onboard headphone amp). Quite smooth, mellow sounding, almost valve-like in nature with a reasonable amount of detail.
 
However, as time wore on and the unit continued to run in, I was taken aback at how it was starting to sound VERY much like it's 8200CDQ cousin, except only worse.
 
Everything was too loud, I got hard clipped on most of my tunes (both CD quality and high-rez stuff), the soundstage narrowed to silly levels and the bass was too overpowering to the point of clipping wildly (almost Big Bad Wolf levels of bad, if you know what I mean). Timbrally, a lot of notes and textures seemed to have lost a lot of detail and accuracy in the insane levels of distortion (I mean, really? boxy sounds on HEADPHONES??). Mind you, this was consistent regardless if I had used USB or SPDIF or even a reference quality CD player as a transport for my source files/material. In fact, it got a hell lot worse along the line; in THAT order.
 
And that was just the start. The troubles really came when you output those onto speakers. It was plain horrible! Again, everything was too loud, there's a definite harshness to the whole thing, timbres and soundstage were off and distortions all around. What in the world was What Hi-Fi thinking when they've written the bloody review for this thing?
 
It's just plain bad sounding, really. To the point of making a Fiio E7+E9 setup (for cans) look like a freaking bargain.
 
Oh btw, Audiolab being part of IAG is presumably Chinese by design and make (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If it's possible at all, someone should properly ABX this against two of its other Chinese brethren just to see how it truly fares. Namely, the Matrix Mini-i and Audio GD NFB-10. I'll bet you any money that party is going to be a real treat!

Most adjectives I have seen describing it seems to be Bright and dried, you agree ?

 

[9VARZ]

Quote:

Most adjectives I have seen describing it seems to be Bright and dried, you agree ?

Bright is one thing.
 
To me, it was more of a very silly U-shape in the freq. response and everything was like a very old CD player: +10dB for everything.
 
Frankly speaking, the sound was so bad I wasn't even able to pick out the "dry" bit. In fact, the only time it sounded alright (which was out of the box) was when it actually sounded quite lush.

 

[Blurpapa]

Quote:

What do you know? Me got me a silver M-DAC today after all.

Haha! Congrats mate!

 

[Blurpapa]

Quote:

Spent nearly half a day with the MDAC (and a fortnight before that running it in).... So here are some of my pointers.
 
(Don't take this personally, owners! My review is not going to be pretty, if I'd say so myself!)
 
Fresh out of the box, I'd found that the MDAC actually sounded pleasant enough to live with (esp. when you plug your cans in to its onboard headphone amp). Quite smooth, mellow sounding, almost valve-like in nature with a reasonable amount of detail.
 
However, as time wore on and the unit continued to run in, I was taken aback at how it was starting to sound VERY much like it's 8200CDQ cousin, except only worse.
 
Everything was too loud, I got hard clipped on most of my tunes (both CD quality and high-rez stuff), the soundstage narrowed to silly levels and the bass was too overpowering to the point of clipping wildly (almost Big Bad Wolf levels of bad, if you know what I mean). Timbrally, a lot of notes and textures seemed to have lost a lot of detail and accuracy in the insane levels of distortion (I mean, really? boxy sounds on HEADPHONES??). Mind you, this was consistent regardless if I had used USB or SPDIF or even a reference quality CD player as a transport for my source files/material. In fact, it got a hell lot worse along the line; in THAT order.
 
And that was just the start. The troubles really came when you output those onto speakers. It was plain horrible! Again, everything was too loud, there's a definite harshness to the whole thing, timbres and soundstage were off and distortions all around. What in the world was What Hi-Fi thinking when they've written the bloody review for this thing?
 
It's just plain bad sounding, really. To the point of making a Fiio E7+E9 setup (for cans) look like a freaking bargain.
 
Oh btw, Audiolab being part of IAG is presumably Chinese by design and make (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If it's possible at all, someone should properly ABX this against two of its other Chinese brethren just to see how it truly fares. Namely, the Matrix Mini-i and Audio GD NFB-10. I'll bet you any money that party is going to be a real treat!

Was your14-day burn-in continuous? Could it be possible something burnt and fizzled out in your box? "Clipping wildly" and "insane distortions" are signals that I should get any piece of audio equipment repaired.

 

[Blurpapa]

Quote:

Most adjectives I have seen describing it seems to be Bright and dried, you agree ?

 
Quite a bit darker and fuller than my CLAS (which was giving me problems with brightness during peaks at hgher listening levels) actually. But I do admit that a CLAS is not a proper DAC and that my experience with DACs is limited.
 
 

 

[orkney]

Quote:

Spent nearly half a day with the MDAC (and a fortnight before that running it in).... So here are some of my pointers.
 
(Don't take this personally, owners! My review is not going to be pretty, if I'd say so myself!)
 
Fresh out of the box, I'd found that the MDAC actually sounded pleasant enough to live with (esp. when you plug your cans in to its onboard headphone amp). Quite smooth, mellow sounding, almost valve-like in nature with a reasonable amount of detail.
 
However, as time wore on and the unit continued to run in, I was taken aback at how it was starting to sound VERY much like it's 8200CDQ cousin, except only worse.
 
Everything was too loud, I got hard clipped on most of my tunes (both CD quality and high-rez stuff), the soundstage narrowed to silly levels and the bass was too overpowering to the point of clipping wildly (almost Big Bad Wolf levels of bad, if you know what I mean). Timbrally, a lot of notes and textures seemed to have lost a lot of detail and accuracy in the insane levels of distortion (I mean, really? boxy sounds on HEADPHONES??). Mind you, this was consistent regardless if I had used USB or SPDIF or even a reference quality CD player as a transport for my source files/material. In fact, it got a hell lot worse along the line; in THAT order.
 
And that was just the start. The troubles really came when you output those onto speakers. It was plain horrible! Again, everything was too loud, there's a definite harshness to the whole thing, timbres and soundstage were off and distortions all around. What in the world was What Hi-Fi thinking when they've written the bloody review for this thing?
 
It's just plain bad sounding, really. To the point of making a Fiio E7+E9 setup (for cans) look like a freaking bargain.
 
Oh btw, Audiolab being part of IAG is presumably Chinese by design and make (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). If it's possible at all, someone should properly ABX this against two of its other Chinese brethren just to see how it truly fares. Namely, the Matrix Mini-i and Audio GD NFB-10. I'll bet you any money that party is going to be a real treat!

An interesting (and idiosyncratic) take. Can you go into a little more detail concerning batch number, actual transports and headphones used, filters tried and so on? The incredibly bad SQ you describe suggests to me that the unit was broken -- the MDAC undoubtedly has a flavour but I can imagine no conditions under which it could sound as bad as you describe.
 
thanks in advance,
 
o
 

 

[9VARZ]

Quote:

Was your14-day burn-in continuous? Could it be possible something burnt and fizzled out in your box? "Clipping wildly" and "insane distortions" are signals that I should get any piece of audio equipment repaired.

Nope. Apart from leaving the power on for extended periods of about 3 or 4 days max (mind you, this is supposedly a low power draw device), it gets about a few hours of usage a day. Sometimes, not at all.

 

[9VARZ]

Quote:

An interesting (and idiosyncratic) take. Can you go into a little more detail concerning batch number, actual transports and headphones used, filters tried and so on? The incredibly bad SQ you describe suggests to me that the unit was broken -- the MDAC undoubtedly has a flavour but I can imagine no conditions under which it could sound as bad as you describe.
 
thanks in advance,
 
o
 

Yeah, sure! I'll go compile the list and get back to you over the weekend (time for work!).
 

 

[Mavwong]

I recall someone posted as bad review in pinkfish, it sound thin and wrong. In the end it's the speaker jumper wire or something loose. Another one got a bad unit that has hiss....
 
I'm sure something gone wrong, probably time to sit down and troubleshoot the problem when you have the time, worst is exchange another set from your dealer.
 
Quote:

Nope. Apart from leaving the power on for extended periods of about 3 or 4 days max (mind you, this is supposedly a low power draw device), it gets about a few hours of usage a day. Sometimes, not at all.

 

 

[SpudHarris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blurpapa
/img/forum/go_quote.gif

Was your14-day burn-in continuous? Could it be possible something burnt and fizzled out in your box? "Clipping wildly" and "insane distortions" are signals that I should get any piece of audio equipment repaired.

x2
 
Sounds broken....
 
 

 

[0rangutan]

x3.
 
I was able to AB with a Benchmark DAC1 and HRT Streamer II+ and the MDAC won out.
It also gets very close to my WA3 on headphone duties.
I don't doubt that you heard what you heard, but I very strongly suspect a faulty unit.

 

[Mavwong]

This my current setup.
 

 

 
Ipad (stream from my PC itune) -> USB -> MDAC -> LYR
 
Ipad which is bit perfect as source sound a lot better then my PC setup (itune, not bit perfect)
 
Yesterday I find myself going to HD600 using just the build in head amp and I just use the remote to move track/volume. Enjoying it from 10pm to 1am

 

[Blurpapa]

Quote:

This my current setup.
 
 

 
Ipad (stream from my PC itune) -> USB -> MDAC -> LYR
 
Ipad which is bit perfect as source sound a lot better then my PC setup (itune, not bit perfect)
 
Yesterday I find myself going to HD600 using just the build in head amp and I just use the remote to move track/volume. Enjoying it from 10pm to 1am

Nice setup Mav. I like the glow from your PC.
BTW what USB cable is that you are using?
 
Something is wrong with my PC-MDAC setup. I'm using both iTunes and Foobar and they both failed the bitperfect test which you sent me
Going to have to spend the weekend troubleshooting to see what is going wrong.
Same here, Ive not been getting enough sleep from listening to the MDAC.....but its been shiok!
 
 

 

[tkteo]

Hmm will I make it to sim lim square in time...

 

[Blurpapa]

Quote:

Hmm will I make it to sim lim square in time...

Call them to check if they have any left, and reserve a set now!