MOJO AUDIO MYSTIQUE X

Until last year, R-2R DACs were unknown to me. Unknown in the sense of having one I could engage with in extended listening sessions. All that changed last year. Since I’ve started writing for AKR, I’ve had not one, not two, but three R-2R DACs in da house. First it was the pleasing and capable Merason Frerot, then the quotidian but versatile MUSICIAN Pegasus. The Frerot impressed me with its amiable softness. It’s not displays. The only controls gracing the engraved, all black, anodized front fascia are three unlabeled push buttons and accompanying bicolor status LEDs. Inexplicably, there is also a red LED that indicates errors on the AES unbalanced input, but it’s under the USB input selector! The front panel does sport very prominent, deeply engraved Mystique X logotype but no labels whatsoever. Now I’m all for minimalist for the sake of sound quality, but no IDs for the buttons is a bit much. As an added touch, the product does not remember its prior setting when power cycled. the most accurate DAC but, for the price, it’s an excellent choice for those who have a peaky, “detailed” playback chain, or for all those who simply want a slightly low passed approach to music. The Pegasus can be coaxed to display more upper treble than the Frerot but still exhibits what I thought was an inherent characterteristic of R-2R architecture: a lack of true detail, both timbrally and in low amplitude subtlety. The Mojo Audio Mystique X SE has changed all that.

The Mystique X SE is, on first glance, an unassuming black box easily mistaken for a Class D power amp. It has no meters, knobs or

For a single box DAC, it’s quite heavy at 19 pounds. The Mystique X SE is also relatively bulky, with a 16" depth, 9" width and 4" height. The rear end has both AES balanced and unbalanced digital inputs, along with USB, and balanced and unbalanced analog outs. Though the manufacturer seems to prefer the unbalanced analog outputs, during this review I went solely with the balanced outs, while the DAC itself was driven by Amarra Luxe running on macOS.

To quote Mojo Audio’s web site, the X in the name “…stands for ‘extruded chassis.’ Our new massive extruded aluminum chassis combined with advanced anti-resonance typologies significantly lower mechanical resonance and thereby lower the overall noise floor of our new X series…It is the lower noise and better isolated power supply and shortest