musical fidelity X-dac v3

[W WALDECKER]

i am considering pulling the trigger on the mf x-dac v3. i already have the x-10 v3 tube buffer and i will probably get a channel islands audio or monolithic sound power supply for both of them and get rid of the wallwarts. the sick thing is that i own a outstanding redbook cd player. a symphonic line vibrato it weighs thirtyfive pounds and is a handmade work of art that sounds as smooth as silk. but i am obsessed with the fact that it does not do 24 bit upsampling and i feel i am missing something. if any of you guys were in my shoes what would you do?

[Dennis Gardner]

I don't know how much of a quality bump you will get with a separate DAC with your rig, but if I were replacing mine, I would only go Benchmark DAC1. Nothing else really compares at nearly any pricepoint right now.

The MFs are cute, but a great tube pre is where its at with your Extremes IMO.

[Emlyn]

I'd suggest trying to do this in increments. Since you already have the tube buffer, try the dedicated power supply and get rid of the wall wart. You should notice an improvement there with the more stable power supply. Then try the tube buffer between your current CD player and your preamp. That was its real design purpose, to bring out harmonic details in digital PCM audio. The Musical Fidelity DAC may or may not be an improvement over what you already have. But, if you buy one used you can sell it again for about the same price since it's still fairly new on the market. I haven't played around with mine enough yet to form a definite opinion, but my purpose in getting the X components was to get close to the performance of the Musical Fidelity A5 CD player for half the price while retaining flexibility with the three box design and possibly adding the tubed headphone amp at a later date.

[haimoc]

Emlyn,

I am curious about the PSU improvement. Did you try both the Ac-DC power adapter and PSU? Could you please describe the improvement? Thanks.

[Emlyn]

Emlyn,

I am curious about the PSU improvement. Did you try both the Ac-DC power adapter and PSU? Could you please describe the improvement? Thanks.

I should have a better idea in a couple of weeks concerning the differences. The units are too new to establish a fair judgement yet, plus I just got an MIT digital cable for this set-up. Once things have settled in I'll post more.