For all Mojo Audio gear
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Gotta chime in on my Mystique B4B 21 . Just awesome and sweet sounding overall. With great punch and wrap around stage. It does have the upgraded core, but not sure how much that adds to it. Also excited as i should be able to upgrade down the road to a pro.
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Mystique dacs are close in SQ between SE and XLR if its the balanced version? Not like Yggy having a less SE quality? Saw some a while ago used around 3k.
(also the same question for total dacs)
Mainly for something like Bakoon13r\Enleum23r and se tubes instead of the amber3.
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I can only speak for the new Mystique X line coming out any time now. When I spoke to the owner of Mojo Audio, Benjamin, a couple of weeks ago, he said that the DACs are designed as SE and that he only provided the XLR outs for convenience. He said that if you wanted to split hairs, the SE outputs should sound slightly better than XLR because the chain is a little purer.
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great
On my evo, I do find xlr to be better, but I don’t think single ended is gimped or limiter enough to say it’s not worthwhile single ended, it’s pretty sweet either way
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That’s interesting - is the evo a balanced design?
I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to Benjamin (you may think you only need a 5 minute conversation to answer a question, but allocate an hour), but I listened to him complain for 20 minutes about how balanced is a fad, and creating a true balanced DAC (i.e. doubling all the internals) was very expensive, so why couldn’t people just be happy with SE.
At least on the X, he said that both SE and balanced outputs were good, but the extra layer of transformation for the XLR outputs meant that the SE outputs are theoretically better, whether or not anyone can hear the difference.
Edit: Obviously evo is a different DAC than the X. But I’m curious about your preference for XLR and wondering if it’s because of the evo design or because the rest of your system just works better balanced.
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Don’t think so, I just find the balanced out to be a bit cleaner and more controlled, so I guess if you were after more fun the se might be a better choice. But I don’t have an amp with equally good balanced and single ended to really test that, it’s not gimped like other stuff like a yggy for example. I’ll have to listen more when I get back. Most of the stuff I use that dac with happens to be balanced so I tend to use it balanced most of the time for the amp, but from the times I’ve thrown it on a single ended amp it was basically just as good so really not one is all that better than the other, but on the times that I’ve thrown it on single ended amps with both a balanced and single ended input, I’ve liked balanced a bit more, but again not the best test. Either way it’s close enough to not care
I’d agree, it’s really more a design choice than anything
I mean now the mass majority of my chains are single ended if that says anything lol
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My new Mojo Mystique X just arrived, only a day late. Plugged it in and started playing music/pink noise to warm it up and break it in, per the manual, as I think it needs some time to get to operating temperature.
Just like Live Aid, the inaugural song was “Rockin All Over The World” by Status Quo, which just happened to be the last thing I loaded into Roon.
I have to say that the build quality is excellent, very solidly built. Didn’t come with power cable and it was interesting that they provided some Herbies feet instead of directly attaching rubber feet to the chassis (which actually made me laugh because I just bought some Herbies feet last week). Haven’t had time to try it out properly, as I only had a little time between meetings to set it up. But I will say that even out of the box, playing a couple of songs, the stage seems wider than the Yggy, and the tone is pretty nice.
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NICE! But I suggest you don’t leave it out in the garden when it rains.
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What’s a USB lift?
Btw, nice garden. Lol
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Prob removes the power signal from the usb in?
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That would be my guess, lifts the ground, I.e. disconnects it.
USB is differential, so the ground isn’t needed for signaling.
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From the manual:
There is a micro slide switch that lifts the DC ground from the AC, chassis, and Earth grounds (lift DC ground by sliding switch to left). We recommend lifting the DC ground unless there is some type of audible grounding related noise.
In over 95% of situations where there is active noise coming from our DACs, connecting the DC ground to the AC, chassis, and Earth grounds, will remove it (slide Ground Lift switch to right).
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It looks good!! I dare say your photos look better than the pics on the Mojo Audio Website!
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I’ve only had this for a day so far, but I’m going to write some /very early/ impressions. When I first got the Mystique V3, I wanted to make sure I could really hear the differences, so I listened to a playlist I knew really well on the Exogal, then swapped DACs, and listened to that same playlist on the Mystique V3.
I /do not/ recommend doing this, lol. Give the Mystique some warmup time before listening to it; it was pretty treble-y at first and it’s relaxed considerably since that initial listen.
However, even without any warmup time, already the separation and the way it presents space were immediate standouts. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the entirety of the space is wider/deeper/etc, but it’s more that all the individual elements of songs that felt two-dimensional before feel like they exist in space now. Things that are mixed to be front-and-center still feel close, but they’re more roomy.
Low-level detail is easier to pull apart in the way that you would expect: it’s easier to hear individual voices in harmonies, resonances and reverb are more clear, other busy things like drum rolls are more distinct, and background elements that were muddy before are easier to identify. That said, it doesn’t feel like an analytical listen: sounds still very much flow into each other.
My brain kind of interprets the sound as almost having a sort of V-shape: the bass is fuller and punchier, and while the treble isn’t sharp or shouty and it’s calmed down a lot as it’s warmed up, it’s still sounding a little bit treble-y to me.
Okay, on to some more logistical stuff:
I’ve gotten away with small DACs up until now, but the space taken up by Mystique V3 is probably the equivalent volume of three Exogals or Bifrosts. It’s surprisingly larger than it looks in photos, and it just barely squeezes onto the rack that I’m using for my main setup. On the other hand, I was told the package would be 30 lbs and it didn’t feel quite that heavy when I received it.
The Mystique V3’s output is hotter than I’m used to dealing with, so I’m currently running my amp below 9-o’-clock, though it’s not quite as bad as what @hifiDJ was dealing with. (The MYSPHERE and Diana are less sensitive than the Utopia.) I might end up running single-ended from the Mystique to the Allnic since it gives me a little more volume play, but we’ll see. (I mostly bought the balanced version for the resale value; I don’t see it as a waste to run it single-ended.) Or I could get those same Shure attenuators, but at least for now, volume isn’t being a huge problem.
For what it’s worth, this also adds some unreliability to my impressions since my control over the volume is less granular, and while I’ve tried to match it by ear, it’s pretty unlikely I’m listening at quite the same volume that I was listening to previously. (The Exogal Comet+ has a built-in volume control, and I used to run it around 85/100 with the Allnic.)
The chasis is warm to the touch, but it’s nothing that would ever melt anything or hurt anyone. The RCA jacks seem really high-quality compared to the other connections, so the physical design really feels like the Mystique V3 wants to be connected over S/PDIF and single-ended. I’ve tested both S/PDIF and USB inputs, and XLR and RCA outputs, but mostly just to cover my bases and make sure that they work, not enough to reliably give impressions as to the differences between them.
How I feel about things so far:
Having the most expensive component in my setup be a DAC is kinda weird. I spent nearly $4K, which is basically the very top of my budget atm, and then I put the Mystique in my setup and didn’t just immediately fall in love, but such is the way of DACs. Listening to DACs is kind of a slow process, at least for me.
But with more listening time, the presentation and the space have just really knocked it out the park. The way it presents sound is wonderful. That said, I also knew going in that this DAC likely wouldn’t quite match my preferences, so as I look at source and cable upgrades going forward, I’ll probably try to see if maybe I can tilt things a little less warm and a little more towards the clean/technical side of things, but so far, I like it a lot. 
For reference, my full chain is:
iPhone 11 Pro – (USB w/ Apple adapter) → Singxer SU-2 KTE – (S/PDIF) → Mojo Mystique V3 – (XLR) → Allnic HPA-3000 GT (RCA tubes) → MYSPHERE 3.1 / Diana V2
(cables are mostly all AudioQuest Carbon and Mackenzie)
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The only thing noisier than a computer is a phone. Do yourself a favor and pick up a bridge or perhaps a streamer of some sort, even a basic Pi with a decent LPS running Volumio using the standard USB out will be a much better source than your iPhone 11 Pro. The Singxer will clean up a lot but it can’t work miracles and your source is starting from the absolute worst place you can start a chain from.
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I don’t think you’re necessarily upside down with investing more in your DAC than other components. I have the same experience of being slow to appreciate DAC differences. But IMHO those differences are more fundamental.
Let me reach into my awkward metaphor bag…investing more in a DACs is a chef putting more care into the choice and quality of ingredients. It might not be immediately obvious as the waiter sets the plate down, but higher quality ingredients change and improve every bite from first to last in a million subtle ways.
At be least that’s what I found when I switched from Morpheus to Wavedream. The “a-ha moment” came later in the meal.
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Sorry to gang up, but I will third this.
I think most of us have upgraded our source last, if not completely ignored it at all. I used to think source meant DAC, as I was also one that invested heavy in that, but it comes before that!
I think my issue, probably similar to most, is that I saw the electronics as components with a purpose. DACs translate my digital, hopefully with minimal noise. Amp makes things go loud. Speakers/headphones makes the music go to my ears. Why the hell do I want a glorified computer (streamer) or WalkmanTM (DAP) if my PC or phone can already do that job???
I didn’t understand the whole source and downstream terms that people used to point out until I thought of the whole thing like a stream of water. You want to keep the water from the source as clean as possible until it reaches you. Things will inevitably taint the water – that is noise in this analogy. A PC or a phone is shitting in the water before you even start. When I finally got a proper streamer, I actually thought I got a brand new DAC. It makes that much of a difference and it makes sense now.
I hope that analogy helps and sorry again to gang up. I hope this helps others too.
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My DAC retails for 4x what my Amp does, though I am looking at an amp upgrade.
While first impressions are interesting, but there is a huge difference between first impressions and living with something.
I thought the Chord Dave was thin sounding and not really my cup of tea when I first got it, it really grew on me (especially after I picked up the NS1), and had the lampizator not shown up at the same time I had some sort of aneurism that convinced me to open my wallet, I’d have been pretty happy with it as endgame.
I really liked the 1266 initially, but it’s not a headphone I really love it’s always on the should I just sell it list.
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