Musical Fidelity MX-DAC £549

The specification might be less than lavish, but this DAC still offers an impressive audio performance

DETAILS

PRODUCT Musical Fidelity MX-DAC

ORIGIN Austria/EU

TYPE DAC

WEIGHT 1.9kg

DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 220 x 53 x 215mm

FEATURES

● Supports: PCM to 192kHz and DSD128

● Outputs: RCA; XLR

● Inputs: 2x optical; 2x coaxial; USB

DISTRIBUTOR

Henley Audio Ltd.

Not only is the MX-DAC the most affordable such device from Musical Fidelity, it is also the oldest participant here. The specifi cation refl ects this as it’s very much ‘just’ a digital-to-analogue converter rather than a sort of digital Swiss army knife. It’s the only exclusively line-level device in the group and offers no headphone functionality or Bluetooth, let alone streaming or other such niceties. The sample rate handling is also the most limited here as it supports PCM to 32-bit/192kHz and DSD to 128. Before we grab any pitchforks, though, it’s perhaps worth reiterating that this is still more than suffi cient to replay the vast majority of commercially available music without any need to downsample or otherwise alter what you’re hearing.