Antoine's system

[SwissBear]

Hi Confused, thank you for your post! I'd be happy to share my findings as always with you guys.

The more I read about the Mutec the more I wanted to try it. I managed to hold it off for some time but eventually had to succumb.  I do realize that this hunt for better performance and the speed of progress made in computer audio (especially those surrounding the "horrible" USB interface ;-)) holds the risk of always wanting to buy the latest & greatest or as some put it: the flavour of the month.

I do see a clear evolution in my purchases though, later also following the introduction of technical advances, and tried the following:
- mid level USB cable (Audioquest Carbon)
- dual headed USB cable with battery PSU (Kingrex)
- higher quality USB interface in PC (JCAT USB interface, JCAT/Bakoon battery powered)
- filtered USB cable (TotalDAC D1 cable)
- USB reclocker/impedance matching (Uptone Audio Regen)
(sidestep: Curious USB cables)
- USB galvanic isolation/reclocker/impedance matching (Intona USB isolation)
- High quality reclocking, galvanic isolation, bypassing the Devialet internal USB converter (Mutec MC-3+ USB)

To do: determine if the Intona adds or detracts to/from the SQ provided by the Mutec.

I've tried to make as little side steps as possible, like eg. replacing the Regen with a device providing similar functionality like a Wyred4Sound Recovery USB. With this I've hopefully been been careful enough to not "fix the fix" through minor changes in functionality.

In hindsight could/should I have directly gone to the Mutec (which is a stayer) like Jan/"Gentleman" did (I believe he even tested Mutec MC-3+ USB prototypes)? Absolutely! But I then would have learned little and would not have had the fun in discovering myself. I really am a music lover but also have the 'nerd genes' so like the tinkering as well.

So far I like the Mutec very much. I'll provide more detail on my findings later (still forming an opinion) but at least it gives me as much as I had with the Intona plus more.  It wasn't jaw dropping though thus far. I feel the Intona was a bigger step up from Regen. However I certainly recognize qualitative improvements I can now probably no longer do without (would I switch back). The amount of information extracted from recordings for example is simply stunning.

It's weird though, I feel a little bad about no longer using any of the Devialet's 'modern' digital inputs (USB, ethernet, WiFi) now since I use the Mutec as a USB->AES converter. In hindsight I could say the upgrade from D-Premier to 250 specs has been an expensive "waste" in a way, being more expensive than all items on above list combined. Not counting resale value here of course and also not really sorry about it, it's just a feeling.

Hi Antoine,

Congratulations on your purchase. Hope you will enjoy it :-)