Review on 🎧 Black Audiolab AAV-MDACPLUS Digital Audio Converter Pre-Amplifier: Enhancing Online Discoverability by Mac Owen

The M-DAC+ arrived quickly and was well packaged from the factory. Scope of delivery: M-DAC+, power cable, remote control and user manual. No connection cables are supplied. The instructions were satisfactory and readable. The set up was basic as it should be. This is a nice heavy unit, as all discrete components should be. The front and rear layout is decent with an excellent choice of inputs and outputs. The case, although strong, could be nicer. It's very square with sharp edges. A standard chassis size of 1U or 2U would look better in most systems, but listen and watch. My M-DAC+ music source is a Raspberry Pi 4 with piCorePlayer 8.0 using the USB output. My music library consists mostly of .flac files. The rest of the system consists of a Classe Audio Five preamp and Classe Twenty Five power amp, played through a Definitive Technology BP20. The previous music source was Squeezebox Transporter. At first I had a little trouble getting it set up properly in piCorePlayer, but once that was fixed everything was great. The M-DAC+ has a good soundstage and is very open. It's so personal listening that I find reviews a bit like trying to describe the taste of something. Let's just say the M-DAC+ is worth the money as long as the rest of your music system does it justice. If not then you are wasting your money. I then heard through the headphone output, which is something AudioLab seems to take great pride in when promoting their Class A JFET amplifier. Not that it's a bad thing, but the whole block is selling for $1,300. A good headphone amp can cost just as much on its own. I use a Glow Audio Tube power amp for the headphone amp and a pair of Sennheiser HD 800's. The sound through the headphone jack was good but using RCA through a decent amp made it much better. Much more detail from the .flac files and a well designed music. I deducted a star because AudioLab didn't bother to answer a question about Linux drivers. Bad show, and from what I've read elsewhere they have really bad customer service. So the M-DAC+ is a good DAC and worth the money if you don't expect to ever need service. I'm also not sure if other services are available in the US. Not everyone works with a DAC and when the manufacturer is based in the UK your options are limited. Good DAC. It costs $1300. Buyer Warning.