M2Tech is a relatively "young" company, recently became an established name in the digital audio scene with its industry-standard asynchronous USB to SPDIF converters - The original hiFace and hiFace EVO. The Young DAC is their first, and currently only stand alone DAC. M2Tech yet-to-be released flagship will be called the Vaughan DAC and is based on similar core technology and design at around 5x the price.
The DAC is housed in a heavy squarish extruded aluminum chassis with black steel perforated grill in the front. It has two buttons, power switch and source selection. The big LED display shows which source is selected and subsequently the sampling rate. There are a complete range of digital inputs: AES/EBU, RCA, BNC, and Toslink, these are 192kHz capable. And if you know anything about the Young DAC, its 32/384kHz asynchronous USB input is probably what you are looking for. Power supply is a normal looking 15v wall-wart. Unlike XMOS-based USB implementation, M2Tech proprietary USB connection requires a specialized driver. The latest Windows and Mac drivers are downloadable from M2Tech's website.
The underlying DAC chip used in the Young is a TI Burr Brown PCM1795. To get the DAC to work at 384kHz, the guys at M2Tech bypasses Burr Brown's internal digital filter function and opt for a separate Xilinx Spartan DSP chip to to perform digital filtering and upsampling function.
The Sound of Spring
We didn't waste time and hooked up our Mac Mini to The Young's USB input. First impression was that it's a very easy DAC to like. Its midband is smooth and articulate, and essentially free of flatness and forwardness of lesser DACs. The treble is well integrated and the bass is more full-bodied than most DACs we have tried recently. The soundstage was very well-defined with excellent integration between the tonal ranges and the instruments. Imagery is handled very well where depths are fully painted-in.
One of its strong point seems to be its adaptability - the ability to get right into the groove with any kind of music we threw at it. It has the ability to cope with both raucous rock music, and can instantly adapt to lyricism of deep classical passage. Many competing DACs are good with either soft jazz or classical music, but not rock, less-than-perfectly-recorded-pop, nor electronic music. Not the case with the Young. It has an urgent sense of timing to the music, and a great sense of "body" when all the instruments came together. Central images are clearly individual, yet still part of a coherent whole. The Young is not the most analytic or detailed, but it is extremely easy to enjoy. We also tried its S/PDIF inputs and fed it with our reference transport, and the sound signature described above were still very much valid.
We didn't waste time and hooked up our Mac Mini to The Young's USB input. First impression was that it's a very easy DAC to like. Its midband is smooth and articulate, and essentially free of flatness and forwardness of lesser DACs. The treble is well integrated and the bass is more full-bodied than most DACs we have tried recently. The soundstage was very well-defined with excellent integration between the tonal ranges and the instruments. Imagery is handled very well where depths are fully painted-in.
One of its strong point seems to be its adaptability - the ability to get right into the groove with any kind of music we threw at it. It has the ability to cope with both raucous rock music, and can instantly adapt to lyricism of deep classical passage. Many competing DACs are good with either soft jazz or classical music, but not rock, less-than-perfectly-recorded-pop, nor electronic music. Not the case with the Young. It has an urgent sense of timing to the music, and a great sense of "body" when all the instruments came together. Central images are clearly individual, yet still part of a coherent whole. The Young is not the most analytic or detailed, but it is extremely easy to enjoy. We also tried its S/PDIF inputs and fed it with our reference transport, and the sound signature described above were still very much valid.
Compared to...
We have on hand a similarly priced Calyx 24/192 DAC. They are similar in size and specs. While the Calyx is less flexible than the Young (only one RCA SPDIF input), it seems to target the same group of potential buyers - those who wants a reasonably priced but high performance DAC as part of their computer-centric audio system. We compared the USB input of the two DACs.
The Calyx does not need a special driver for the Mac (it does for Windows, as there are still no native USB Class 2 audio built in to the OS yet). The Young's driver installation for the Mac/PC is easy enough to install and it works silently in the background without a problem. We compared both DACs' outputs which matched level using a Mark Levinson 380s preamp. Even though the Calyx can be powered by the USB port or an external PSU, we use both's included wall warts for comparison.
The Calyx's soundstage was wider and it threw a better "speaker-disappearing" act. Its micro dynamics and nuances were slightly better. It seemed to have a blacker background which made instrument separation clearer. However it did not have the rounded full body midrange that the Young offered. Bass on the Young was at its full bloom but at the same time not bloated. Calyx's bass was tight and taut, but integration with the midrange was slightly disconnected, when compared to the Young. The Young was the more "energetic" DAC of the two, with slightly more upfront presentation while the Calyx is more laid back and "open". The Young is also more forgiving when not-so-good recordings were played. The Calyx seems to prefer better recordings where it can excels.
Forever Young
The Young is very a well-thought out device. We do not know how M2Tech came up with the name "Young", but it is actually very descriptive of the DAC. Its flexibility immediacy, adaptability make it a DAC that is easy to listen to, and definitely easy for us to recommend.
