M1DAC (DISCONTINUED) - Design and Build

At the heart of the M1 DAC is a pair of Texas Instruments Burr-Brown DSD1796 DAC chips in dual-differential mode, supported by their sibling SRC4392 sample-rate converter chip, which enables all digital sources to be upsampled to 24bit/192Hz.

It's a versatile design, offering coaxial, optical, balanced and USB inputs. It will lock onto any S/PDIF signal at 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz, with the front-panel display clearly showing the input frequency.

The M1 DAC boasts minimal distortion – typically less than 0.005% across the board – while its signal-to-noise ratio is uncannily low, making the M1 DAC one of the quietest DACs in the world, regardless of price.  In addition, our smart data-reclocking system ensures there is virtually no audio-damaging jitter imparted to the signal.

Such an accurate, low-noise approach has not gone unnoticed. In his review for Stereophile, Sam Tellig states:  "I heard a degree of low-level resolution I'd never before heard from a DAC. I think this may have had to do with the M1's astonishingly low noise floor: an absence of hash, of electronic grunge, of anything that compromised purity or sweetness of tone".

The M1 DAC offers a choice of outputs: stereo balanced or RCA connections.

Completing the stunning specification is a high-quality power supply, complete with choke filtration on the mains input – effectively a mains-signal conditioner that purifies the performance further still.