While I maintain the practice of using marginal (never bad) recordings to test systems, particularly speaker neutrality - it didn't really matter in the case of Mytek DAC. Even with some of the best masters I had playing at extremely soft volumes (40db with 50db peaks), the Mytek still exhibited treble glare which built up over time to make it difficult to listen too. None of the other DACs exhibited this behavior to such an extent.

None of the other DACs in the comparison were of a forgiving nature either. Bad recordings still sounded bad on the X-Sabre, Invicta, PWD2, Gungnir. DACs which gloss over bad recordings or commit serious sins of omission would be considered shit by us.

It's definitely possible this unit may have been defective. After all, you never know about stuff which is being dumped on the 'gon. I will look into the DAC again when I get a chance which wouldn't be anytime soon. Unfortunately, both this unit and another unit owned by CS member (who would be willing to lend it to me) have been sold.

I am curious though, what other DACs have you heard which you would consider on the same playing field of the Mytek? Or what other DACs have you heard which you would consider similar sounding to the Mytek? I've always felt that DACs can a very personal thing very dependent upon a person's preferences.

I know this is old news but I came across this and wanted to add my 2 cents.

I have objectivist leanings and am a fan of the waterfall plots on this site.  I recently bought a mytek based on the feature set (analogue volume control, headphone out, sabre 9018, and professional pedigree.)   I like the way it sounds - i have not sampled very high end dacs (i'm limited to HRT, musical fidelity and entry level w4s) 

I have it going into Focal CMS 40 and headphone out direct in to Senn HD650

Perhaps I should sample the Schitt unit.

However, what I am wondering is shouldn't these defects in the DAC be/have been measurable?   Wouldn't treble glare show up in a frequency response test?

However, what I am wondering is shouldn't these defects in the DAC be/have been measurable?  Wouldn't treble glare show up in a frequency response test?

Nope.  You can do the same w/ tube amps and swap bright or dark tubes that can be double blinded consistently and the FR will measure the same.  That was one of the core principles of starting this site, correlating subjective w/ objective data by looking beyond FR.  An analogy in the car world is when people talk about which car feels quicker on their butt dyno so people start comparing dyno charts and peak horsepower.  The problem is dynos don't measure throttle response and gear ratios.

So while FR is important, it's also important to not get distracted by one single metric and jump to absolutes based on assumptions.  That's when objectivity stops being objective for some people and becomes religious and faith based.

yeah, folks have mentioned lowering the high gain and using FW to solve the glare issue.


On high rez, there is a bunch of stuff already discussed here. Just need to search for it. It turns out some providers of high-rez material don't actually provide high-rez.