Musical Fidelity V90 DAC review - YouTube

Welcome to the HB Channel,

my name is Hans Beekhuyzen and in this show a review of the Musical Fidelity V90-DAC

For some years now the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II has been my reference in Set 3.

Recently, Musical Fidelity replaced it with the V90-DAC, which,

at least on the outside, looks like a big improvement.

The V-DAC II’s housing was a kind of DIY box with the power input, all audio inputs

and the input selector on one side and the analogue outputs on the opposite side.

Rather inconvenient since you either have cables on the left and right side and no sight on the input switch

or you have the power cable, the digital input cables plus the input switch in full view.

That input switch has two positions: USB or SPDIF/Toslink.

If you used the SPDIF input on RCA, you could not have any signal on the Toslink input as well.

But then again, for its price the sound quality was outstanding so we learned to live with it.

The new V90-DAC seems to take away all these inconveniences.

The cabinet is still small, but now has a real front, containing a power switch and an input switch.

The latter offers you three positions: async USB, SPDIF on RCA or Toslink and a second Toslink input.

On the rear we see the two Toslink inputs, an SPDF on RCA, the async USB input

and the analogue outputs on RCA.

It’s not as cramped as the V-DAC II and it doesn’t look like a DIY box anymore.

The electronics inside have changed less.

Essentially the same circuits are used, only the d/a-conver chip has changed from a 24 bit

to a 32 bit Burr Brown.

That sounds great but the V90-DAC has no digital input that accepts 32 bit signals.

The SPDIF input accepts up to 192 kHz sampling and 24 bit depth,

while the optical and USB inputs are limited to 96 kHz and 24 bit.

For the optical input that’s understandable since affordable Toslink connectors have limited bandwidth.

But why the USB receiver chip has not been replaced for a more recent type I don’t know.

To more or less compensate for this, all input signals are upsampled to 192 kHz with

- there you have it - 32 bit depth.

There is not much to report on using the V90-DAC:

just plug in the power adapter, connect your digital sources to the matching input,

switch it on and select an input.

Although the V90-DAC looks more adult than the V-DAC II, it’s still a simple device.

And that’s fine as long as it keeps the same benefits the V-DAC II had:

good sound for relatively little money.

That was the reason for Musical Fidelity boss Anthony Michaelson

to have his UK designs built in Taiwan. So, it's time to listen.

Obviously I started in my € 1600 Set 3.

The old V-DAC II was already gone so a direct A/B comparison was no option.

But if there is a difference in sound between the two, it must be rather small.

The V-DAC II improved clearly when I replaced the switching power supply

with a Best Of Two Worlds filtered lineair power supply,

so I connected the V90-DAC to the same power supply.

That made a clear difference, even more than it did with the V-DAC II.

The influence of cheap switching power supplies varies and depends on the design of the device it powers.

Some housings, components and print designs are more sensitive to the high frequency pollution

these power supplies generate.

It seems that the V90-DAC is more sensitive for it than the V-DAC II.

That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad converter, it’s simply outstanding for the money.

But adding a linear power supply brings it one big notch further up.

That makes the V90-DAC fantastic for Set 3!

With the V90-DAC Musical Fidelity took an already very good V-DAC II,

chose a more practical housing and changed the d/a-converter chip to one with a higher spec.

That made it slightly more sensitive to the switching power supply it comes with,

but made it more easy to use.

The power supply is - eventually at a later moment - easily replacable for a linear type

and when you do you’ll end up with an affordable yet very relaxing,

very good sounding d/a-converter for the money.

It’s ideal to bring low end streamers, including the likes of Sonos and Squeezebox,

up to the standard of an 800 to 2.000 euro stereo set.

The same goes for computers that are used as music players.

That’s why - up till the moment I find a better one for the same money -

it’s chosen to be the new d/a-converter in my reference Set 3.

Thank you for for watching. You will find the full review on theHBproject.com.

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