Musical Fidelity X-RAY v3 CD-player

It seems that the success of Cyrus competitors does not give piece to the British company Musical Fidelity - that particular think arises when looking at the units of X series. The design, of course, is absolutely different, but the concept is the same: the advanced audiophile electronic filing is placed in a monolithic compact aluminum case .

Here is the standard set of outputs: linear, coaxial, optics. This player is also not deprived of functions, as well as informative LCD-display. Connectors on the back are of high quality. Mechanism is Philips. Fundamental coincidences with Cyrus present in the digital path too: two 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs and the same is in differential switching. However, MF engineers chose PCM1732 chips - more functional than PCM1738, but with less impressive figures. And what a strange detail: although on this chip there is a digital filter capable of decoding HDCD, this function is not activated in X-RAY V3. There are even more significant differences in the power supply system and analog cascades, but in deference to both companies I don't want to disclose which ones are better or worse. In the end, the main judge is the sound.

First impressions are the brightest. In the expert path Musical Fidelity X-RAY V3 does not sound at its price. There are no timbral or dynamic simplifications. High detailing coexists peacefully with the comfort of perception: the player extracts a huge amount of musical information. The scene is stable, deep and divided according to plans with amazing clarity. The imaginary sources are slightly dissolved in space, the "air" seems a bit smoky, but it is rather a matter of taste. Such a balanced sound, unpainted and skillfully accentuated, makes a good impression. I listened to Musical Fidelity X-RAY V3 for a long time, trying to find individual flaws, but nothing was added to my first impression.