adamlau
Um...What Is Going On?
Up until today, I had purposefully reserved judgement regarding the overall sound quality of the M-DAC. First impressions were admittedly poor: S/PDIF out sounded noticeably darker and somewhat veiled vs. the analog out of a Xonar ST (cryo treated w/ a single LME49720HA in the buffer). AB testing was particularly straightforward as not only do my monitors support concurrent RCA/XLR inputs, but a single ossmix command line option is able to swap between analog and S/PDIF out. Minimum Phase and Optimal Spectrum could only alleviate a definite sense of murkiness by so much. Might all the glowing M-DAC reviews here and elsewhere be wrong? Was I destined to become an M-DAC dissenter? Decided to take another look at my playback chain and discovered that I had installed the Oyaide DR-510 digital coax cable backwards, against the directional markings imprinted along the polyurethane jacket. Reoriented the cable accordingly and the sound absolutely opened up. Six days later and I am essentially hearing the M-DAC as it should sound within my confines of my system for the first time. So check those cable orientations everyone ...