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WordperfectAudiolab's much heratded M-DAC digitatconvertor is finally here. nidrord Blockfindsilsperformance adds up to something special...

'mongthenamestoconjure with in digital.rudio orer recent veaLs..lohn Westl:rke s hrs, r,rne

to figule very highly He has beenbehird nirny of the Audiolabproducts we'vc waxed lyrical alloutin past issues of Hi Fi Cfioice, andbefore that was involvecl in somejustifiably celebrated products honrCambidge Audio (the originalDacMagic) and Pink Trianglc (fhe DaCapo, one of rhc nosr sought-after ofthc first lvave of audiophile Dn Cs,back in the 1990s). FIis latestmagnum opus is this, the M DAC.

Choice ,u E2o12

'lhere are a number ofthingsinterestirg about this product, butsurely the nost noteworthy is itswide range offilter options (many ofwhich wc'vc cncountercd alrcady inthc cxccllent Audiolal) B200CD). Thismakes it one ofthe most sonicallytweal

AUDToLAB-\r-DAc REVI EWS

as an oppor'tunity to offer selectable filtersso that you can tune lhe sound to your taste.

John Westlake however has taken thirgs astage fufther within some (not all) ofthefilter R?es, he has made available optionsrelated to how the DAC processes the dataintemally This is pretty subtle stuff andAudiolab makes no claim that the results are

directly obser.,/able at the analogue outputusing conventional test methods andequipment. On the odrer hand, specialistaudio cables suffer from the same issue andthere's no shortage ofpeople prepared topur tlleir hand on t-heir wallet and swearthey make plenty of differcnce I Theseoptions are available in 'Optimal Transient'mode, as )aD and DD versions.

selecrable filtering isn t the only lrand)thing the M DAC does. It's got a volumecontrol which can be taken out ofseryiceifyou prefer to use your preamp, but widrfive digital inputs on the M-DAC itself youmay not acrually need a separate preampthis is it! There's a balance control too, likethe volume conffol calibrated in accurate dBsteps. Ifyou wish, you can set the displayto indicate signal level for each channel,and it can display either nominal or exactincoming sample rate, possibly useftrl forfault-finding. The display can even indicatetrack and time information fiom a CD; whoknew that information came down theS,/PDIF digital linl{? No, I didn't eitherl

With computer audio such a commonsource these days, more and moremanufacturers are including details ofhowto ensure bit-perfect replay, and Audiolabdoes this in its instruction. It goes onefurther in making a 'bitperfect' testavailable. n hich is very clever and simple.relying on a file which you download fiomthe Audiolab website. It's very comforting toknow that you are playing back anuncorrupted file. Ifyou're using windowsXB which has a habit ofaltering the leastsignificant bit (LSB) of the audio data, yorlcan use the 'LSB restoration' feature of ti'leM-DAC to conect the damage done.

Finally and it gives me great pleasure toreport this, practically all this stuffcan becontrolled remotely Ifs remarkably rare tofind a rcmote conffol included with anyDAC, but Audiolab has done it and I for one

am grateful. The rernote's nothing fancy butwho cares? It does a valuablejob.

Electronically the M DAC is based arounda high performance DAC chip from ESS,which conve s to a very high technicalstandard. Ifs followed by op-amp chips, asis the case in most conveftors, but theM DAc also includes discrete transistorcircuitry an extremely rare detail at thisldnd ofpiice. The headphone output is alsodriven by discrete circDits. There's copiouspower supply filtering all over the place andhea\,y dutyjitter attenuation to ensure thatjittery sources are still optimally converted.

Sound qualitywith all the options available, it's hard toknow where to start dre listening, so Iplumped for the 'sharp roll-off' digital filter(much the same as most CD playels) with abudget CD player as the source connectedvia an elect.ical S/PDIF link, and outputvolume fixed. Very much the plain vanillasetting in other words, but probably thesimplest way of assessing basic perfoimance.And as I d ralher e\pecled. pcrlormance isin fact anlthing bur basic...

There's near-faultless extensiol atliequency extrenes. Bass is beautifullyextended but never in any danger ofexaSSeration or overhang, while treble issweet and open. Ifs ffeble that mostobviously reacts to changing the digiralfiltedng settings, seeming to gain a liftlein extensjon when one switches to 'Optimalfrcnsienr'bul, as il seems ro Lrs. gaining intransparency in'Optimal Spectrum' mode.Thi' is a hard one to cJll 3r some recordin8sjust don't show up the difference, but withthe clearest recordings, including some I'dhad a hand in making, I definitely felt thatOptimal Spectrum had the edge all roundover the longer term, though OptimalTransient can sometimes be moreimmediately ear-catching.

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REVIEWS AUDToLAB rv-DAc

l&ltowdldthe M-DAC come obout?,ll+ lt had itsorigins in workthatDominikPektoand I did before joining

lnternatjonal Audio Group (Audiotab),

but italso grewthrough ourworkonthe32ooCD, CDQand 0Q,

What's the thlnklng behlnd XItorrd DO W.esstng?XDand DDfilters arevariations ofthe original OptimalTransient f iLter.TheXDfilterresultsinamathematically identical outputas the 0ptimalTransient f ilter,butthe results are achieved viacomputationally dif ferent processing,

altering second-order effects such asinternal PSIJ mod ulation. The Optim atTransient DD filtertakesthis fuft herby using corrective processingto nulltheseeffects.

Con the n-DAC rcollyrcsbte bft.pet@ oudlo oltetvlndows hasfddled wlth the LSB?Yesitcan, ascan beverified usingthe M-DAC'S buitt-in BitperfectTest.The LSB restoration willworkforf ileswith originaLbitdepth ofupto 2o bitsatsample rates upto96kHz playedon Windows XP through DirectsoundorwaveOut. ln otherwords,you cannowlistentoa lossless CDorevenHDCD musicstraightfrom iTunesorWindows Media Playerwith nofeelings ofguilt. U nfortu nateLy, Vistaand 7 both employa limiterthat'skickingin anytimethe music is hittingpeaks, irreversibty changing a ll thesamples nearbythe peaks.Again,theM-DAC'S real-time bit depth analvserand peakmetermake itpossibletoobserve th is behaviour.

Whd oE the odru nb ges tthediseEl-ll:ldt ulb?The M-DAC'5 f ully discrete analoguecircuits make up an extremelylinearoutput stagewithout relyingonoverall global feedback, to linearisethedesign.Theyarealso highlyimmuneto RFdemodulation, RFleakage f rom the digital conversionprocessisoneof the main reasonswe believe conventional digitaldesigns haveatendencytosound'hard'an d 'bright'.

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ffiA OIIG DAGwe'vthe Rega DAC (t fC357) is the ctosest inpdcetotheM-DAC.

selctable fflters,though dosn'thave the otherPro(essingoptionsofth J|it-DAC. Nordoesit havetheinformative dlsptay,a headphoneoltput,

batancd outputs,so Audiolab canaPparently,ustifythe extra rooasilyenougfi.

Sonicaltythecomparison isintersting. I foundlots to like about theRega,includingasimilarly eFortlessway with detail andvery good extension

bass. The onthingitfellbehindwith was imaging,whichseemdatouch distant. Now Ihaven't mentionedimagingasrcgardstheM-DAC,simpty

hardly aware of it.Goingbackandlistenlngspe.ificallyforthat,though,lfound imagswre about as sotidand believabl as

Andthlscrtainlyincludes rcordingslpersonallyhad ahand in making.The Rega is a veryfine product, butlfeel the M-DAC iustedg6 past it.

One of the beauties of having allthese filters available is that somemusic may seem more convincing viaa different filter A solo pianorecording seemed to have just ashade more body to it using the'Minimum Phase' filteL for instance.My investigation of the filters wascertair y aided by the very high,quality headphone output, whichdrove all in my large collectionof 'caN'very convincingly and tovery high levels when required.Interestingly though, my conclusionsas to which filter was preferred forwhich music once or twice differed,depending on whether I listenedthrough headphones or speakers.

That this DAC dearly offers some ofdre most detailed - and at the sametime most musically bewitching -sounds I've heard ftom any digitalsource. lt is, as it should be, largelyfunmune to dre differences betweensources and gets the best from CD,streamed audio and local computerplayback with the greatest ofconfidence. It simply revels in thekind of tricky multilayered soundthat can so often ffip up modemaudio electronics.

As with all the best ki! it's up toyou how you listen; if you just wantto let the sound wash over with you,you'll be caried away in no time,or if you prefer to listen closelyard analytically you'll find theinformation you seek widt very litdeeffort on your part.

A quick word about practicalities. Imentioned above that I started withthe M-DAC in fixed-volume mode,but engaging the volume controlconvinced me that this is also aperfecdy sensible way to listen.

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Pedormance as a digital preamplifieris excellent, and the gains to be madefrom eliminating a unit (i.e. thepreamp) from the signal chain dontseem to have a pdce on them. Andwhile it doesn't affect the sound, theunusually informative display andremote conbol combine to make thisone of the nicest DACS to use that I'veencountercd at any price. I couldn'tconyince myself that I could hear anygains from dte DD,O processing,but everything else about tie M-DACis so easy to recommend that itcomes out a clear winner.

ConclusionWith excellent sonics across a widemnge of sources, fine build,superlative ease of use and a vastfeature count, it's very difficult nor torave about the new Audiolab M-DAC.It's a landmark product, just likeJohr westlake's original DacMagicwas all those years ago. If you'relooking for a digital-to-analogueconvertor at or anj'.where near thisprice, you surely must hear this. o

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