Okay, he came through and made it right. He apologized as well and that went a long way. I’ve got the tracking number and he’s dropping it off this afternoon. Hopefully there are no issues with FedEx and it’s here on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. 
Sorry for my mini-meltdown and ranting earlier.
EDIT: Oh shit, FedEx got the package and it’s showing Saturday for the expected delivery. Holy shit, I hope they can make this happen.
I guess my bitching in the thread about the various couriers was heard by the universe, because Ben shipped the Y out on Wednesday afternoon, it arrived in Aurora, CO at 6:44am yesterday, and was delivered at 11 am today.
I’ve had it powered up and playing pretty much since then and despite being brand new and in need of 150-200 hours of burn in, it sounds STUNNING. The layering and separation are immediately noticeable and clearly on a much, much higher level than the V2 SE and my rebuilt and modded GDA-600.
The amount of texture and microdetail on basically EVERYTHING is almost overwhelming. It’s just…it’s so much better than I thought it could be. And it’s going to improve!
My only real complaint thus far is the weird form factor. It juts out from the top of the Kallax shelf I use for vinyl storage and supporting all the audio gear about 2-3" because of the power cable, and it’s too narrow to have my equally stupid sized preamp sit on it correctly, so I had to get a shitty bamboo kitchen shelf from Target in the meantime. I’ll need to figure out something more permanent, but for now, this will work.
I’m so glad I’m finally part of the big boy Mojo club!
EDIT: So I’m getting very concerned. Shortly after hooking it up and beginning to use the DAC, I paused it for about 5 minutes. When I resumed playback, I got a very faint digital sound and that was it. I started the track over, played others, and got silence. The only solution was unplugging the USB cable. Then everything was back and it worked for probably 3 hours without issue when I was listening once again and suddenly there was static crackling and the music glitched out. Once again, changing tracks had no effect; the only thing that helped was unplugging the USB cable.
And just a few minutes ago, it happened AGAIN with the DAC unable to resume playback after pausing for about 5 minutes.
I’ve got it plugged directly into an RPi4, one of the USB 3 ports. I’ve emailed Ben explaining the situation and asking for his input. At the moment, unless he’s got really good news and that it’s just some stupid little thing that, once I adjust will never be an issue again, it seems like I’m going to have to ship my brand new DAC right back to him. 
EDIT 2: It’s dead. It won’t play anything. I’ve unplugged the USB cable multiple times, power cycled the Pi and the Mystique and all I get is very faint digital noise.
Good to hear. Now bitch at FedEx more as I was supposed to get a package today and the last updated for the day was it is still in City of Industry,… CA… 
Edit: it seems i spoke too soon…
Yeah, they’ll totally get it to you today.
Fuck, I am so fucking pissed and bummed about this DAC dying. This is fucking unbelievable.
Very odd as he says he tests them for a decent amount of time too.
Just to make sure, the Pi plays out elsewhere? Different cables tried? Different source tried even just a PC?
If you want to vent more send me a PM or hell put it here.
I assume you’ve tried a different USB cable, I’d also try it plugged directly into a PC FWIW.
It previously played just fine to the GDA-600 via the PI2AES HAT.
And it was working fine for a few hours directly put of the Pi until it crapped out mid-song a little while ago. It’s still recognized by the Pi and Roon, it just won’t output any audio anymore, just this digital noise. If you ever had a cellphone near old shitty, early 2000s speakers when a call or text came in, you know the kind of sound I’m talking about. That’s all I get now, and it’s very faint.
I tried multiple cables and USB ports and it was the same. I suppose I could hook it up to my laptop as well to be 100% sure, even though I already I am.
Always good to make sure. The only time i had digital issues is when a dsd track popped on and even then it was mostly silence.
Note to self: Change the antipodes sonit converts dsd to pcm.
I am sorry the bad luck bug bit you and keeps biting, especially as you had a barely warmed up taste and seemed to love it.
Just fed it straight from my work MBP and it’s dead. It’s recognized, it is receiving a signal, and there is no output at all. Not even the digital noise anymore. It’s just silent.
Damn…
He’s finally responding to my emails and it is taking everything I’ve got not to fucking unload on him. For starters, he seems to only read about 25% of what I send to him. I repeatedly said I tried multiple computers and cables.
First response:
Sounds like a bad connection, bad cable, or dirt in the connector.
It is most certianly not part of the burn in process.
It is something FEEDING the DAC not something inside of the DAC.
Yes, it has to be outside of the DAC. That’s why multiple computers and cables all result in the same thing. And yes, I’ve checked the cables, ports, and etc. There’s no dirt. It’s a brand new DAC and a brand new cable. Plus, I used an old cable I know for certain does work as well.
Follow-up reply:
I don’t know how you may have done it, but it is possible that you blew the DAC chip or the output stage.
Rare but it does happen.
It has never happened the first day a person owned one of our DACs…usually from a lightning strike or power surge that blew out other electronics in their home.
Are you certain that you powered on the DAC before booting up the MacBook?
Are you certain that everything else is correctly set up with the MacBook to play music through the DAC (DAC selected, volume 100%, etc)?
Even then, I would recommend powering everything down overnight and then starting fresh tomorrow.
First power on the DAC.
Then power on your MacBook.
Then check all the settings to make sure everything is correct.
And even try more than one player software, such as iTunes in addition to Roon.
AMAZING that he is straight up BLAMING ME. I guess yeah, it’s my fault. I plugged it in and fed it a signal. Shouldn’t have done that if I didn’t want any chance of it failing. What the FUCK? It’s possible for things to happen without it being anyone’s fault, but definitely blame the customer. No possible way that could backfire, right?
So, summoning as much patience as I could, I responded with this:
I’ve tried Roon and Spotify. I dont use iTunes. And the Mystique has been powered on the entire time outside of the few power cycles I’ve done. I don’t know how I could’ve done anything when all I did was plug it in and feed it a signal.
I jiggled the USB cable a little bit just now and it sounds like there is a signal very sporadically and it’s very faint. It only lasts a brief moment and I can’t easily reproduce it, but it’s happened a few times.
I had something similar happen a few years back with an MDHT Labs DAC where I was listening and there was a huge static burst and then all audio was lost except for a very faint, staticky signal.
I sent it in and it turned out a solder point had come undone, it took about 5 minutes to fix, and they had it back on its way to me the next day after testing it.
I’ve blown out my fair share of devices and this has none of those signs. There was no pop or smell of burning electricity. It continues to power up and be recognized by every computer I attach it to, and now with the faint signal being heard depending on how I slightly move the cable, it seems like this might be the case. Is that a possibility?
And am awaiting his next, accusatory response that suggests additional things I’ve already told him I’ve tried, while continuing to blame me. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that it would be my fault, and not the fault of the person putting the electronic device together. There’s only one way to use it and I still did that wrong, of course, because you can only insert the cables one way, so it’s on me. Not a build issue. Never a build issue. No possible fucking WAY it’s a build issue.
Fuck me, man. 100% my fault. I shouldn’t have bought this. It’s been cursed from the start. The universe just keeps letting me know every step of the way that I shouldn’t have done it. Amazing.
@kerls this reminds me a lot of what happened when i bought that guys Woo amp. A tube was broke, it didnt work right and there was a ton of blaming. All of it squandering what otherwise was an exciting purchase.
I do remember Ben telling someone here that the dac chips did have a non-ignorable failure rate and that he always keeps a stash of extras. And to be honest things just fail, new or not, the whole bell curve of electronics life expectancy. Normally i am excited to see what Ben has next but his responses to things have really soured things.
Keep the head up, if anything its a return and charge back.
Shockingly, leaving it powered off all night had no effect on the fact it doesn’t output audio.
I told him that I’m boxing it up and I want my money and V2 SE back. I cannot fucking believe I was stupid enough to send it IMMEDIATELY yesterday. Holy shit, what an absolutely nightmare this has all been.
Lesson learned. Cheap, shitty DACs are all I’m allowed to use. Won’t leave my lane again.
I understand the frustration but if you let one experience cause you to get stuck with bad DACs, you might as well move over to analog
@kerls i dont know if it is in your budget but an Evo was listed, it looks like it may be @mitch 's listing so maybe you two can come to a happy ending.
I doubt Ben’s intent is to blame you. However, his communication style may be an issue in this situation. Something clearly happened to cause your new DAC not to work. Ben’s initial responses sound similar to what I hear from our IT department - try all the normal stuff first. They probably respond like that because it solves half or more of the issues without having to ship hardware in for repair.
It seems your two choices are to ship the DAC back to Mojo, or first diagnose further by finding a friend/shop/etc. that has a working digital set-up with a DAC, and then substituting your DAC to find out if it works in that other set-up and thereby confirm whether the issue is outside or inside of the DAC.
I am sorry you had the problem because these things are certainly frustrating, and more so if the issue shuts down your system. My suggestion is to give Ben some grace, work through the issue, and get on the other side, especially given that your initial impression of the DAC was, “it sounds STUNNING”.
Good luck.
https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/650163596-mojo-audio-mystique-evo-pro/
@kerls This is the one you want anyway. Hurry, jump on it.
It was a blown USB module, apparently the separate power supply for the output stage, which is why the DAC was still recognized (input stage has its own power supply). He’s going to leave it running 24/7 through the weekend and hopefully ship back on Monday.
Are you referring to the upgraded v3 currently listed on USAM?
Just curious - could you provide specifics on the what/why of the “bastardized configuration” that prevents it from being a wonderful pick?
The only inputs being USB and optical. USB hasn’t been the best input on Ben’s offerings historically and this one having only optical in with its limitations is the reason for the comment.
It would more than likely have been snapped up long ago if it had SPDIF or AES as an alternate input.