Outboard DACs

Musical Fidelity M8x DAC Playing by numbers

You don’t need to forage too far into the Interweb before encountering enthusiastic online testers who will often describe a product as ‘measuring well’. Some go farther, ranking the quality of, in this instance, a DAC by the lowest distortion and the widest S/N ratio. I’ve never really understood what ‘measuring well’ actually means unless it is the misapprehension that a ruler-flat response, vanishingly low distortion and a cavernous S/N ratio are precursors to especially fine sound. In practice they are not because any DAC, or amplifier, with those qualities will still be given voice by a speaker with something rather less than a flat response and with distortion 1000x higher. Judged by those standards the M8x DAC starts off rather well – its low 0.00008% distortion at 1kHz/–10dBFs [see Graph below] is entirely representative of what’s possible from a pair of ES9038Q2M DACs operating in differential mode through a balanced analogue output. Full marks here then.

However, the 101.5dB A-wtd S/N ratio is some 10-15dB behind what might be achieved, potentially putting a dent into the M8x’s reputation. Experience suggests otherwise, of course, when flinging the doors wide open only serves to embrace very low-level grit, grain, modulation noise and other digital gremlins entirely unrelated to the musical signal. We’ve listened to enough disc players and DACs to know that those whose ultimate S/N ratio is mildly compromised by an innocuous, low-level mist of white noise may very well sound more natural, pleasing and unfatiguing than a competing product pushing at the boundaries of specification. The fact that the M8x has exactly the same S/N ratio as Musical Fidelity’s be-tubed Nu-Vista DAC [HFN Mar ’24] is probably no coincidence – this brand’s longstanding engineering team understands that measurements are a tool and not an end in themselves. PM

Search form

Outboard DACs

Musical Fidelity M8x DAC Playing by numbers