Added a Musical Fidelity M1 DAC to my system

vc69

Hey all,

I have had this piece in my system for a few weeks. A friend let me use it while he was out of town to break it in for him. At first, it sounded a little thin to me, not harsh, just really laid back. However, as it got some hours on it, it really opened up and warmed up. Over time, I grew quite fond of it. Well, my friend came back so I was boxing it up Saturday in anticipation of his wanting it back. When I switched back the analog outputs of my Oppo BDP-83SE, I was really disappointed. Not a little, but a LOT! The midrange was ok, but really forward and the bottom end was far more... well, sloppy than I had remembered. The highs didn't have that nice "shimmer" and decay like they did with the M1 DAC. To put it mildly, I was in distress. I couldn't go back. This would never do!

Long story short, I bought the DAC from him. He got a special deal on it that he was able to pass on to me, so I really lucked out (Silver face, $500). Best I could find online was a demo model for $600.

I said all of that to say this: I am constantly learning something in this hobby. You read all of this stuff about "veils being lifted" and "micro dynamics" and tempo, but until you actually experience these differences, it hard to wrap your head around how big of a difference the "little things" can make. What kills me, is that the "little things" cost so damn much. I am on a seriously tight budget, so audio purchases are not often a priority and there is little to spare. I have to scrimp and save to make a purchase. This was one of those purchases that not only satisfies the budget requirements but brought my system up a notch. Really, a couple of notches. I attribute the greater percentage of the improvement to the much better analog output section that the DAC possesses, but I am sure some of you who know more about these things can enlighten me.


The only real issue I have with my current setup regarding digital, it's that the Oppo won't output BluRay audio or SACD via coaxial (s/pdif), so I can't take full advantage of the DAC where those formats are concerned. Needless to say, I have my eyes peeled for a sturdy transport. Perhaps an older Denon or something. I would like some suggestions on something used that would make a good transport.

Carry on...

falconcry72

Congrats, man! I had an M1 in my system for a while, and I thought it was excellent. It's right up there in quality with the likes of the Benchmark DAC-1, they just have different flavors.

As far as SACD.. yea... that's a big reason I don't do SACD. I have found that the redbook layer of a SACD release played through an awesome DAC will sound better than the SACD layer played through an average/good SACD player's DAC. The DAC makes a bigger difference than the sampling/bit rate. Obviously a $10k SACD player would be the best of both worlds, but I don't think you could find a SACD player whose DAC could compete with the quality of your M1 for 500 bucks.

Enjoy!

steveinaz

Kev,
Not sure what mean by not being able to output BluRay audio to your DAC. I've been doing this forever. Just tell your BluRay player to output "PCM" or "LPCM" (NOT bitstream) depending on your player, then run a coax/toslink to your DAC. You'll get the uncompressed PCM digital layer from the movie.

erniejade

I have a pioneer d9 sacd and a denon 2910. both will not do sacd through the coax or toslink. When it his or uses sacd, it will only play it though its internal as well. The pioneer does not give me an option like Steveinaz said but, its only a cd / sacd player and not dvd or bluray.

steveinaz

Correct, you can't digitally output SACD; only PCM or LPCM. Most all DVD/BluRay players have this option. As falcon pointed out, sometimes playing the PCM layer of an SACD thru a very good external DAC is better than playing the SACD layer thru mediocre built-in DACs. You have to experiment.

vc69

Whoa Steve! I totally forgot about switching over to PCM in the player. Thanks!
I'll give a try later and report back the results. I have my hands full here with the T/S - Hurricane that's we are expecting.

steveinaz

Be safe Kev!

Mike Reeter

vc69 wrote: »

The only real issue I have with my current setup regarding digital, it's that the Oppo won't output BluRay audio or SACD via coaxial (s/pdif), so I can't take full advantage of the DAC where those formats are concerned. Needless to say, I have my eyes peeled for a sturdy transport. Perhaps an older Denon or something. I would like some suggestions on something used that would make a good transport.

Carry on...

I have a Denon DVD-2900 in front of a EE Mini Max DAC, on redbook cd's it has trumped my Jolida in almost every way. I was shocked at what a good DAC can do with a solid transport.

vc69

Thanks, Steve. We are preparing of course, but it looks as though Louisiana will take the worst of it. Our coast will get a storm surge though and we are under a "state of emergency" declaration. I work at our statewide public TV/radio station, so I am a first responder. We are busy. :eek:

heiney9

Everyone swears the Oppo's are so great for audio, they aren't and I've stated that since the beginning. They aren't better than most decent stand alone DAC's. No one ever believes it until they try it for themselves.

Congrats on a new discovery that enhances your listening enjoyment.

H9

Big Dawg

heiney9 wrote: »

Everyone swears the Oppo's are so great for audio, they aren't and I've stated that since the beginning. They aren't better than most decent stand alone DAC's. No one ever believes it until they try it for themselves.

Congrats on a new discovery that enhances your listening enjoyment.

H9

Brock, I'm sure that's true, dependent on the DAC. I have an Oppo 83 (not SE) that is far better than the DACMagic to which I've compared it. Of course, the DACMagic is a good value as a DAC, but not a great DAC, so I suspect that if I try a better DAC I'll have a different opinion.

brgman

vc69 wrote: »

Whoa Steve! I totally forgot about switching over to PCM in the player. Thanks!
I'll give a try later and report back the results. I have my hands full here with the T/S - Hurricane that's we are expecting.

You may need to set it to 48kHz also.I am using the Oppo 95 this way with a M1 as well.

cnh

Well is that really a fair comparison, Brock? A good DAC unit, primo unit starts at $1000 and I'd hate to say how high it can go. You can't expect an Oppo which, if I'm not mistaken, retails for around the price of a decent DAC to compete with it when it does so much more than just translate bitstream to analog wave forms.

The only DACs I've heard that are noticeably better than a decent CD player in the sub 1000 range are 1000+ nothing cheaper sounds anything by bright and mildly irritating up top. I don't have a grand to spend on a DAC of that quality and the Jolida below sounds better to me anyway.

Budgets are a BiXXX!

cnh

steveinaz

With differences between DAC's being relatively subtle, it's likely going to come down to listener preference/expectation.

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

With differences between DAC's being relatively subtle, it's likely going to come down to listener preference/expectation.

Sorry but my experience has been the opposite, quite a difference in DAC's and analog sections of cdp's.

I took a "very good in it's day" dac, added (2) modern op-amps, a handful better poly caps and new electrolytics in the power supply and completely transformed the same dac into something that was much more than "subtle". Didn't change a single thing in the design.

H9

tonyb

steveinaz wrote: »

With differences between DAC's being relatively subtle, it's likely going to come down to listener preference/expectation.

Sorry Steve, gonna have to throw ya under the bus on that one. :cheesygrin:

Maybe that statement would be somewhat ok if you were talking dacs in the entry level side or within the same price range but they can sound much more than subtle from my experiences.

Besides, doesn't everything in audio come down to listener preference/expectations ?

falconcry72

steveinaz wrote: »

With differences between DAC's being relatively subtle, it's likely going to come down to listener preference/expectation.

I think this is true when comparing good DAC's to good DAC's, but comparing a good DAC to a crappy one can be dramatic.

nspindel

Just saw this thread. Funny that you mention this, because I have a good friend in England who got the MF dac recently, and he just emailed me a few days ago raving about how great it is. He'd been using a mad-expensive Reimyo cd player, and is now playing cd rips through the MF and is telling me that he can't hear a difference. Always great to hear people very happy with gear that doesn't break the bank.

vc69

I would agree with most here in this thread. One of the reasons that this DAC found it's home in my system, rather than my friend's system, is that his main digital source is an ARC CD3(mkII) When we introduced the M1 (via AES/EBU) it was a lateral move. In his system, we could not discern a noticeable improvement, or degradation for that matter. It was a wash.

However in my system, the improvement is dramatic. I have never tried another DAC, so I cannot speak to whether or "this" DAC outperforms "that" DAC, but I can tell you that it raised the bar in my system by no subtle margin. I was always very impressed by the Oppo. In head to head comparison with the CD3, it always came up short, as would be expected. But the Oppo bested many other players we tried. Regas, Denons, Pioneers all fell short in one way or another. Keep in mind, we didn't have an assortment, and many were older players, so it was no surprise. And this is the 83SE so it has the improved analog output section, which is not bad at all. But the M1 just plain blows it away.

My friend will most likely buy an ARC DAC 8 when he does buy a DAC. This one was a test piece he was able to acquire at dealer cost, so I got a good deal on it. I have always maintained the Oppo was the best $800 I ever spent on audio. The M1 is the best $500 I have ever spent. That I have a digital source chain that cost me only $1300 and rivals a 2.5k CD player is outstanding. We will do a head-head with the CD3 and the Oppo/M1 and let you know how turns out. I have a feeling the CD3 will prevail, but not by anything like the margin that CD3 blew the Oppo away. What I now wonder is what a good transport might do for the sound. The Oppo isn't bad, but there are much better transport mechanisms out there and they might be kind of cheap. I would love to retire my Oppo to the HT and not have to use it for audio. I have only 1 Bluray Audio disc.


Truth is, there are many levels to this hobby. I think that the most dramatic improvements happen at the levels where I tend to play. As you move up the budget chain, the dramatic differences cost a LOT more money. and those differences get smaller and smaller. I could be wrong, but I don't have the money to find out. I sure do love this hobby though.

falconcry72 wrote: »

I think this is true when comparing good DAC's to good DAC's, but comparing a good DAC to a crappy one can be dramatic.

And I would bet that the analog section is what makes or breaks the DAC. All other things being equal (good chips, dual differential stacking, etc) the quality of the analog section is the almighty thing IMHO. I am no expert, but I know I have Sabre32's in the Oppo and Burr-Brown's in the M1. Both are dual differential, and the M1 is far superior.

.

vc69

Also, I was unable to get the Oppo to output SACD in PCM via the coax (spdif) out. I have not tried all of the settings. In other words, I did not try to limit the LPCM output to 48khz. It doesn't seem right to take an 88.2 or a 96-192khz stream and down sample it, then feed it into my DAC which upsamples everything to 192khz anyway. Too much monkey business. I would welcome any discussion on this, though. There are a lot of guys using the Oppo with a DAC, so by all means post and let me know what you are doing.

Thanks!

falconcry72

vc69 wrote: »

I would agree with most here in this thread. One of the reasons that this DAC found it's home in my system, rather than my friend's system, is that his main digital source is an ARC CD3(mkII) When we introduced the M1 (via AES/EBU) it was a lateral move. In his system, we could not discern a noticeable improvement, or degradation for that matter. It was a wash.

However in my system, the improvement is dramatic. I have never tried another DAC, so I cannot speak to whether or "this" DAC outperforms "that" DAC, but I can tell you that it raised the bar in my system by no subtle margin. I was always very impressed by the Oppo. In head to head comparison with the CD3, it always came up short, as would be expected. But the Oppo bested many other players we tried. Regas, Denons, Pioneers all fell short in one way or another. Keep in mind, we didn't have an assortment, and many were older players, so it was no surprise. And this is the 83SE so it has the improved analog output section, which is not bad at all. But the M1 just plain blows it away.

My friend will most likely buy an ARC DAC 8 when he does buy a DAC. This one was a test piece he was able to acquire at dealer cost, so I got a good deal on it. I have always maintained the Oppo was the best $800 I ever spent on audio. The M1 is the best $500 I have ever spent. That I have a digital source chain that cost me only $1300 and rivals a 2.5k CD player is outstanding. We will do a head-head with the CD3 and the Oppo/M1 and let you know how turns out. I have a feeling the CD3 will prevail, but not by anything like the margin that CD3 blew the Oppo away. What I now wonder is what a good transport might do for the sound. The Oppo isn't bad, but there are much better transport mechanisms out there and they might be kind of cheap. I would love to retire my Oppo to the HT and not have to use it for audio. I have only 1 Bluray Audio disc.


Truth is, there are many levels to this hobby. I think that the most dramatic improvements happen at the levels where I tend to play. As you move up the budget chain, the dramatic differences cost a LOT more money. and those differences get smaller and smaller. I could be wrong, but I don't have the money to find out. I sure do love this hobby though.


And I would bet that the analog section is what makes or breaks the DAC. All other things being equal (good chips, dual differential stacking, etc) the quality of the analog section is the almighty thing IMHO. I am no expert, but I know I have Sabre32's in the Oppo and Burr-Brown's in the M1. Both are dual differential, and the M1 is far superior.

.

I'm sure that ARC CD-3mkii sounds great. I have a CD-1, and its internal DAC is very very good, plus it has balanced outputs. My Audio GD NFB-7 sounds better than the CD-1 on its own, but it's pretty close.

I'm actually thinking about selling the CD-1 and buying something cheaper, since I'm only using it as a transport, and most of its value is as a player.

What I now wonder is what a good transport might do for the sound.

Not much. Use the money to keep climbing up the DAC chain, or on something else in the system. You could even sell the oppo and go to a cheaper transport, like a Cambridge Audio 350c, and use the leftover money elsewhere.

nspindel

Logitech Squeezebox Touch. Greatest digital transport ever. Street price is about $235.

vc69

Falcon, I don't know about the CD1, but the CD3 has the renowned Phillips transport/laser. I honestly think you will do well to keep the the CD1 as a transport. I cannot help but think the transport is one of those things that makes a big difference. I would be interested to to hear your thoughts if you ever do a comparison between different transports, but many would say that it does make a difference. And you have a really solid one.

Nspindel, That is is my near future. Steve and others rave. But that is a discussion for the other forum!

falconcry72

vc69 wrote: »

Falcon, I don't know about the CD1, but the CD3 has the renowned Phillips transport/laser. I honestly think you will do well to keep the the CD1 as a transport. I cannot help but think the transport is one of those things that makes a big difference. I would be interested to to hear your thoughts if you ever do a comparison between different transports, but many would say that it does make a difference. And you have a really solid one.

Nspindel, That is is my near future. Steve and others rave. But that is a discussion for the other forum!

Well before I just up and offed it I would do some comparisons. I had forgotten about that plan. Now I'm interested again. I have a long weekend, maybe I'll do a quick transport shootout: ARC CD-1 vs. Parasound CDP-1000 vs. some random crap one.

steveinaz

I'm speaking in terms of going from a modest $300 Cambridge CDP to a $1500 DAC. I suppose one man's "dramatic" could be another man's "subtle"; I just feel like practically everything in this hobby gets a little over-hyped in terms of improvement. While my Benchmark was an upgrade to my Cambridges' internal DAC's, I don't think I'd ever classify it as a dramatic improvement; much as I'd like to, to bolster my own self-esteem.

Also, keep in mind I said "relatively subtle."

steveinaz

vc69 wrote: »

Also, I was unable to get the Oppo to output SACD in PCM via the coax (spdif) out.Thanks!

You won't be able to if the SACD doesn't have a hybrid layer (redbook).

heiney9

steveinaz wrote: »

I'm speaking in terms of going from a modest $300 Cambridge CDP to a $1500 DAC. I suppose one man's "dramatic" could be another man's "subtle"; I just feel like practically everything in this hobby gets a little over-hyped in terms of improvement. While my Benchmark was an upgrade to my Cambridges' internal DAC's, I don't think I'd ever classify it as a dramatic improvement; much as I'd like to, to bolster my own self-esteem.

Also, keep in mind I said "relatively subtle."

Says the self-admitted deaf person. :razz::biggrin::eek:

I'm sure that has something to do with your experiences, not that I have some kind of golden ear.

H9

falconcry72

steveinaz wrote: »

...While my Benchmark was an upgrade to my Cambridges' internal DAC's, I don't think I'd ever classify it as a dramatic improvement...

I bet the DACs in that Cambridge were pretty decent. When I think of a bad DAC, I think of an ipod, or smartphone, or stock PC soundcard, or some $20 non-audio-centric cd/dvd player, or something along those lines. I think going from the Cambridge to the Benchmark is more like going from "pretty good to very good" as opposed to from "bad to good".

vc69

Well, I guess when I say "dramatic", I mean "dramatic to my ears". I have been in a static state with my system for awhile. So I was intimately familiar with the way it sounded with the DAC. Moving from the BDP-83SE's analog outs to the M1 was not something I would have described at the time as dramatic. But as the DAC settled in and I got used to listening to it, something happened. It was fairly "green" when my buddy and I compared it to the CD3, then I brought it home and hooked it up and ran it for days, Listening to it off an on. While I couldn't really quantify a change, it did get smoother and warmer over that time period. My friend was gone for nearly three months, so I had plenty of time with the DAC in place. The dramatic difference I heard was when I removed the DAC from my system and went back to the BDP-83SE's analog outputs. I was just plain disappointed. No other words can describe it. I would not be happy going back.

heiney9

vc69 wrote: »

Well, I guess when I say "dramatic", I mean "dramatic to my ears". I have been in a static state with my system for awhile. So I was intimately familiar with the way it sounded with the DAC. Moving from the BDP-83SE's analog outs to the M1 was not something I would have described at the time as dramatic. But as the DAC settled in and I got used to listening to it, something happened. It was fairly "green" when my buddy and I compared it to the CD3, then I brought it home and hooked it up and ran it for days, Listening to it off an on. While I couldn't really quantify a change, it did get smoother and warmer over that time period. My friend was gone for nearly three months, so I had plenty of time with the DAC in place. The dramatic difference I heard was when I removed the DAC from my system and went back to the BDP-83SE's analog outputs. I was just plain disappointed. No other words can describe it. I would not be happy going back.

I know exactly what you mean.

H9

steveinaz

huh? you say somethin' LOL