John
One year on from announcing its EISA awarding-winning flagship M6x DAC, Musical Fidelity returns with a more affordable take on the platform.
The new M3x DAC maintains its bigger brother’s full-width chassis but drops its Class A/B headphone amplifier and trades in the dual-differential ESS DAC chips for a Burr Brown PCM1975-based circuit whose neighbouring SRC 4392 chip upsamples all incoming signals to 24bit/192kHz. Each of the five digital inputs – USB, 2 x TOSLINK, 2 x coaxial – are capped at the same 24bit/192kHz ceiling with the USB input adding support for DSD256.
Anyone thinking that a D/A converter’s sound quality is solely determined by its choice of silicon should read the M3x’s press release. Musical Fidelity makes notable mention of the unit’s Super Silent Power Transformers and its industrial-grade power socket. The latter comes with a DC blocker to reduce transformer hum and an EMI filter to dial down the negative influence of electromagnetic radiation. According to Musical Fidelity, the “uncompromisingly rigid” casework protects the internal circuitry from unwanted electromagnetic fields.
On analogue outputs, we get both balanced XLR and single-ended RCA, both of which feature their own output buffers. The net results, according to the manufacturer, are a large output voltage and high current drive plus a “lightning-fast” slew rate that reportedly results in lower distortion.
The M3x DAC will sell for £1349 — almost half that of the M6x DAC. Your choice of black or silver.
Further information: Musical Fidelity
