Musical Fidelity V-DAC MKII

Don't be fooled by the cheap appearance of this DAC, the sound is great! I was already familiar with the Musical Fidelity sound: smooth, warm, slightly laid back. This unit has it. Supposedly they kept the guts and scrapped the cosmetics to keep the price down. To use the USB input you need your own USB cable, but no drivers need to be installed. You plug it in, set the Playback output in foobar to DAC, and it plays the music. The sound was good right out of the box. However, on careful listening the highs were a bit harsh, the lows lacking and just not right (with dance music). After a couple of days of break-in the sound became more balanced and the harshness was gone. After a couple of weeks of break-in the bass became full and now it handles any genre effortlessly. It's very musical: rich, detailed, warm, with great soundstage. I'm using it with the original power supply, and never unplug it. Runs warm, but never gets hot. Tried in an A/B listening test the USB input (PC with Vista + foobar + wave files) and the coaxial input (Oppo Bluray player + CD), with the same material. The sound is almost the same, with the USB input faring slightly better in my setup. It excels with acoustic music (jazz, classical) but does well with dance music and techno too. It's very revealing and unforgiving, if the source file is poor (some old recordings or low bitrate mp3s) it will not make it sound pretty. The sound is unbelievable with some audiophile grade recordings: transparent, excellent detail, balanced tonality, excellent soundstage. It's a fantastic unit for the price.

Don't waste your money. I purchased the VDAC from Audio Advisor and tested it on my home stereo. I hated it. It made the highs sound phony and bass muddy. It was agonizing to listen to. Luckily you can return equipment for a full refund within the first 30 days of purchase so, I got a refund. I purchased the PS AUDIO Digital Link DAC for $799. WOW!! The PS Audio is highly recommended. Unbelievable sound quality. You get what you pay for!

I am using it with my imac. I tried both the optical and the USB inputs from a 2008 imac and am feeding its output to a Qinpu A6000 which in turn is driving Cambridge s30 speakers. When I compare it to the iMac 2008 headphone inputs driving the Qinpu to the v-DAC mkii driving it, there is a minuscule improvement (could be imagined). So not clear if its really adding value. Should probably examine other options to see if something better exists. Update: Sep 6 2013: I ordered a HiFimeDIY uae23+ dac (hifimediy.com) based on the Sabre ES9023 DAC from their Oregon warehouse for about 83 dollars shipped from their site (does not come with power supply or usb cord) and even though out-of-the-box it does not have the smoothness of the vdac mkii, I find it a more of "exciting" dac. Very clean, detailed, black background. Superb midrange. YMMV (some might find it more forward, but so far I love it). vdac-mkii is quite boring in comparison and is going back. The hifimediy is also available from Amazon. HiFimeDIY Sabre USB DAC 2 ES9023+TE7022 + USB to COAX

I bought the V-DAC based on the glowing reviews done by Stereophile, amazon and other online reviewers. I was not disappointed. The sound was good and was exactly as people said, fluid, detailed, rich and a bit laid back. When Stereophile reviewed V-DAC, the $299 was an absolute breakthrough in bring the quality DAC to the people at an affordable price. I know affordable means different things to different folks. For some, a $12,000 DAC is affordable and some $2000. But most people who shop amazon would consider $299 is much more affordable than a $800 or $1200 DAC. After all, Yamaha and Denon have brought us HD-audio capable receivers for less than $300. Well the V-DAC sounds good but it is limited to 16/44 with its adaptive USB interface. It tries to overcome the jitter prone adaptive USB interface with its oversampling DAC and achieves its goal quite well. Until recently, few USB DACs are capable of the asynchronous mode. The ones they do, are all high end products costing many times of the price of the V-DAC, until now. When the HRT Streamer II and M2Tech hiFace came out with the asynchronous USB mode and hi-res music support, the V-DAC is no longer the king in this price bracket. The HRT Streamer II supports 24/96 with the native OS drivers. The hiFace supports 24/192 through its proprietary driver. Both are sold at $150. One can buy both with the price of the V-DAC. I did and love them both. The HRT Streamer II, at 1/2 cost of the V-DAC, sounds every bit as good as the V-DAC and has a fuller sound than V-DAC. It has a more enthusiastic personality than the V-DAC. The hiFace is not a DAC but can work with DACs accepting the 24/192 input which include many AV receivers from Yamaha, Denon and others. The V-DAC would truncate (re-sample) the 24/192 input to 24/96 with its S/PDIF input.

I will second all of the reviews written here regarding this device. The Music Fidelity V-DAC is beyond unbelievable. The V-DAC has absolutely made a tremendous difference especially when I'm listening to high bit-rate FLAC music sources (800 - 4500 kbps). The clarity, separation, and detail are beyond anything I've ever heard from any pure audiophile setup. I am using my V-DAC with the Pyramid power supply also recommended here, and have them connected to my laptop using a high quality Mediabridge USB cable. My other components are a Marantz receiver and Focal speakers with 14 gauge speaker wire. It has also added new life my CD collection although I now am only collecting FLAC source music due to the incredible stellar difference with my V-DAC. It has breathed new life in my music and it is a wonderful device and well worth the price. ============================================================================== Update for early 2012 - I upgraded from the V-DAC to V-DAC MK-II - wow!!! What I thought could not get better went beyond any expectations I had for improving the sound of original V-DAC. The V-DAC II is simply an Astonishing audio device. With the Asynchronous USB I have no jitter and the extra audio separation and clarity are superb!! Musical Fidelity has now given the V-DAC II a professional refined clean look to this device - which it really deserved. Again worth every single penny and by far and away - the Single Best Audio Investment I have ever made. I want to hear all of my FLAC sources again - this is an incredible device...... still using the same Pyramid power supply which is solidly built and running like a rock. Even after hours of heavy usage - it gets only slightly warm. I am very happy with both my Musical Fidelity V-DAC II and my Pyramid power supply - overall an excellent audio device combination!! -:))

Much of what the poor audiophile buys is going to provide very little sonic differentiation, for the V-DAC MKII that does not apply. Here you can actually hear the difference. This device actually makes my MAC Mini a true Audiophile device.

I purchased this assuming this was a 24bit/96kHz DAC. Apparently, though this was 4 years ago. I purchased the V-DAC off of Amazon. It shows this being a silver model and that it supports 96kHz. I was sent a black one and, come to find out, years later it was version 1, which can't handle 96kHz. Being years old now, I'm an idiot for not realizing it but it did provide better audio than my laptop could handle, that's for sure. Music Fidelity's support also, well, they don't have any I guess. There's no e-mail address for them at all. You can only get ahold of their support via an international overseas phone number and well, facebook, after I messaged them on facebook, they had someone e-mail me 3 weeks later. I won't buy another Music Fidelity product because of their lack of support or care to give their customers or products support.

I just got the V-Dac II today in the mail along with the Pyramid outboard power supply. I am using a 40 ft toslink cable from my Imac to the V-Dac II which is besides my stereo (Conrad Johnson PV10, BK monoblocks, and Dyna Audio speakers). The Imac recognized the DAC and it just started to work as soon as I connected it. I am listening to high bitrate mp3's on itunes and the sound is very good AS LONG AS THE SOURCE MATERIAL IS GOOD. Crappy MP3's sound bad, good ones sound very good but a little thin on the low end. The high end is very good as long as the source material is good, we'll see how everything sounds in a week after everything is settled in. My intent is to start putting my 500 CD's on disk so I can access them from a front end like Itunes and not have to deal with a mountain of discs anymore. I'll update this review in a few weeks after everything is settled in and I can report on the sound of the vDac compared to my NAD C542 cd player. 2-21-12 Let me explain that I do not have "golden ears" but I do appreciate good sound. I allowed the V-Dac II to run constantly for 5 days with a signal going through it and it now sounds great, smooth with great bass - much better than straight out of the box. Before buying this i did a lot of research and discovered the included wall wort was not desirable so I bought the combination that came with the Pyramid linear outboard power supply. I used to design power supplies so I knew there was no real reason to buy the 4X more expensive power unit that some of the reviewers in audio magazines were touting. I have not listened to other similar priced DACs but for my money this is a great unit, I am upping my rating to 5 stars