4 DAC Shootout - Low to High-end

I wonder how much better your Theta would be running balanced out?

 

The two aren't mutually exclusive

 

Put me down in the treble rolled camp. If there's a war no one likes the guy sitting on the fence.

 

When I audition any dac/equipment(I always use a test track of a live concert recording of a singer whom I have attended her concert before), the first question I ask myself is:

Does this thingy fool my ears into believing that I am in the live concert?

Mojo failed the above test. The cymbals transients sounded fake(no decay, too tizzy, somewhat like ESS Sabre but better).

 

Shirley Horn never sounded better on the Mojo via speakers vs a lot of dacs, haha. To each their own

 

Maybe that's because Shirley Horn is pretty much slow jazz music which suits the mid-centric Mojo.

For me, I listen to plenty of genres, so I would rather my DAC and other equipment to stay as close to neutral as possible.

 

okay , you have superior music, ears, etc. Neutral by most accounts around here is Schiit.

Plays into the shill theory. hahaha. Listening to Gungnir Multibit at the moment, just effin beautiful with no faults. hahaha.

 

Sorry I don't regard myself as having superior ears or etc. I am just a foolish guy who happen to like listening to music as a hobby/mind relaxant. Like avid sports fan or a guy who collects stamp or a train otaku* etc.

IMHO Schiit is not exactly Neutral as per say. There's the mike moffat bass for example... Some might find the yggdrasil to be brighter than neutral(e.g. grey etc).

*

Spoiler: off topic

This guy from my country loves trains so much that he basically camp over night to take the very first train on the newly opened line:

 

Meridian Explorer sounds like a Meridian. Doubt that if people dislike the Mojo, they will like the Meridian. Both sound British. Mojo slightly lighter tonality, Meridian less so. I do not know how they compare with the darlings of this forum - the Schitts'. Closest I probably will get to hear Schitt is the old Sumo Andromeda and Ulysses gear I had back in the day.

I do think thought that this opions about the Mojo is a reaction to the positive reviews elsewhere. This is in the spirit of this forum right?

In this shootout it was the only transportable dac that works with mobile devices and includes a headphone amp, so that makes it a a more fair value proposition. Perhaps it cannot "drive" the HD650 like some people would like, but I find that criteria too narrow in scope to judge with.
One more thing I should point out that depending on the amp you plug the Mojo into the line-out might be slightly to hot and and some amps do not like that. Not saying this was the case, but just putting this out there. I do not know why the went with 3V output instead of the more standard 2V.

I'n times of war I prefer to use common sense - worked well for the Swiss!
It is a surprisely good sounding thing for what it is.Hifi people are just so weird...

Moving on, I think the Xonar STX series might be an improvement over the Creative card, especially in the headphone output for Senn HD6XX series.

This is totally out of the scope if the comparison, yet would be very interesting too when done with speakers.
Would the sound signature with earphones carry through? I find that rarely the case.

 

The 'temporal choppiness/disjointedness' you talk about, what exactly is it? I am not familiar with the term but I think it should describe the uneven decay characteristics in mojo's sound. This the first thing I noticed upon listening to it, but did not know how to term it.

 

If I get that terminology correctly it is uneven image of soundstage in terms of angle and distance in time. I got the sharp gaps between images. Although I'd say a Yulong is worse in this. The feeling I get of this is sorta like a ultra fast and powerful strobe light in a nightclub, but on ears not on eyes.
The pricky treble feels like a separate problem, although these two are probably related in their birth nature to the FPGA processing or something.

 

@zonto

Sorry about that, not going to change it though.

Why don't you stay with the stock deep blue? I generally dislike bright backgrounds, dark ones are much easier on the eyes imho.

 

I too found the Mojo to have a fake or an enhanced sound. It was like there was too much gain and perhaps some micro delay applied to create a warm or syrupy sound. I did not find the timbre of the instruments accurate or the high end to be very well resolved. I am using it in my main system with a Melco N1A through a Raleigh preamp and Don Allen 300B mono blocks with DIY Phy-hp speakers. I compared it to a Raleigh Rakk Dac version 1(They are on version 4 now). The Rakk dac is much more accurate, resolving and neutral to my ears anyway.

 

I shall brook no disparagement of the Bifrost Multibit. You are summarily removed from my Christmas list. One year.

On a more serious note, I know you have voiced a critical opinion of the Bifrost Multibit, but here do you mean that the Bifrost Multibit is weaker than Modi Multibit in terms of its sonic presentation, or more that it's not a great value because Modi Multibit comes so close if not equal?

 

I don't know, as someone who officially also sounds British and annoying, and who owns both a Mojo and the cheaper Modi 2 Multibit, I do prefer the sound of the latter. The Mojo is a bit too rolled off, and doesn't seem to do as well in the micro-detail. When things are busy/loud up top, it gets almost prickly, like Delta/Sigma glare. It does reasonably well with the timbre of strings and piano, though I think the Modi Multibit probably trumps it by sounding a bit more effortless there, too.

In addition to that, I really disliked the faff involved with using the Mojo on the desktop- having to hold down two of its three bollocks down while powering on to preset it to a level that Chord consider "line". Worse yet, using it on the desktop, connected to power, it overheated constantly in the summer, switching itself off. I tried popping it out of its case, still overheated, I tried standing it on one edge to maximise airflow- it still overheated, but with more uptime.

That's what eventually lead to me looking for a desktop DAC. Having recently bought a Mojo, I was feeling parsimonious, so I bought a Modi Multibit. This felt like an extravagance, and I had some buyer's remorse, until I spend some time listening to it. I was pleasantly surprised at the improvement across the board- more fine detail, less prickle, nicer staging, less roll-off. Of course, the fact that it didn't crap out on days when the temperature was in the high twenties helped, too.

All of this happened before I joined SBAF. In fact, it's the thing that lead me to really becoming impatient with Head-Fi. The Chord Kool-Aid drinkers' echo chamber on there would hear no suggestion that any Chord device could have flaws, feverishly defending Mojo's risible overheating with something bordering on aggression- jaw-dropping stuff. This sort of blanket denialism is counter-productive. I'd have liked to have known about this and the dreadful interference rejection before buying- they are major factors. It's easier to make an informed decision when people are honest.

These days, my Mojo gets plenty of use driving my IEMs while commuting. Its slightly rolled-off, warm sound is perfectly fine for a comfortable, calming cocoon of travel tunes. I'd seriously consider getting another if I lost or broke it. However, having heard how easily even modest desktop components can outclass it (and I haven't even touched on amps in this post), I'd not want to use it as a desktop component, if I was able to lay my hands on proper desktop units of even modest spec.

The right tool for the job > blind brand fanboyism.

 

I never really read about all the hype on head-fi.

I never read about the Mojo on head-fi, although I can imagine the feverish debate on the Mojo.
My experience with it has been a lot more positive than yours - no overheating even with the case on. It does buzz when charging. Battery life has also been pretty good when driving some easy to drive headphones.
I went from many dacs to just one. In my comparison with my Hegel HD12, Audioquest Red and Henry Audio DAC, the Mojo kept pace. The Mojo was simply more versatile in my usage than any of the others without any annoying flaws, because of its portability. I might change my mind after a few more months. though.

 

I've never actually had the dreaded buzzing- but I do try to use semi-decent USB power sources- I suspect that a lot of folks who have problems use old manky PSUs that came free with cheap gadgets years ago.

The overheating was a gigantic pain in the ass- we had a run of days above 30 degrees C this summer, and it wasn't nice to not have a working DAC to unwind with at the end of a day. It was an excellent salesman for the Modi Multibit, though.

 

Coming from chi-fi DAPs I was quite satisfied with my Mojo as a portable dac/amp, and I was almost ready to call it a desktop end-game for my needs with my Vali2, modded HD650 and Alpha Dogs. (Note that I hadn't heard any good desktop system before that.) But the overheating in the humid Japanese summer was really bad. I couldn't listen more than 30 minutes while charging before it shut down.
So I decided to buy a Modi Multibit for desktop use, than things escaleted quickly. I preferred the sound of the Modi Multibit enough, that after comparing the two a few times, I sold the Mojo and bought a Jotunheim for the money. And I would have been perfectly happy with this pairing for the rest of my life.
(Un)fortunately a few weeks later on my way home from work, I walked into a used electronics shop and there was an Yggdrasil in original box, for 90,000 yen (about 900USD). Of course I bought it immediately and while I like it much better than the Modi Multibit, I would be still be happy with a Modi Multibit if I ever need to downsize for some reason.

 

Wow, what a great deal. Just a bit of a size bump when going from the Modi Multibit though.