Mojo Audio Mystique X SE

“You are absolutely correct…”

@signaforce   You made my day…I don’t hear that often 🤣.  
Glad you contacted Ben and got the full scoop from the Mojo Man.  I was debating whether to get the X 25 NC or X NC.  In talking to Ben he said the difference was really just aesthetics (case paint) and minor power supply changes.  He said I would be hard pressed to hear the difference in a reference system comparing both side by side.    Fyi - I bought my Mystique Evo B4B 21 from TMR a year or so ago.  They were easy to deal with making an offer, shipped fast, well packed and the unit was flawless.  

@tksteingraber LOL. 

Yes, I bought my first pre & my current streamer from TMR. First rate!
An X NC… interesting. He getting some in as trades?

I've owned or had long term auditions with around 20.DACs focussing heavily on R2R DACs. I've owned the Mojo X for awhile and love it. I have also had several Chord DACs including the Mojo, Qutest, and Hugo TT2. They are all great and have a consistent signature that is detailed and spacious. I greatly prefer the Mojo X presentation which feels very natural to me. The details are definitely present but they are shoved in your face. I'm pretty sure that Ben will let you return the DAC if you don't like it in your system (but worth double checking). Good luck. 

I purchased the new Denafrips Pontus 15 and really liked it.  Despite that and, perhaps to my detriment, I felt it was a big-DAC world and even better SQ awaited me with something grander (and more expensive).  One of the stops on my DAC merry-go-round was the Mojo Mystique X SE, a demo unit from Mr. Mojo's (Benjamin's) system. After poring through the 6 DAC shootout and its truly helpful reviews, I was really enthused and expected a great deal from the Mojo.  I must say that once installed and given time to settle, I was underwhelmed.  In my system, it was clean, resolving and musical but didn't have the bounce and enjoyment that the new Pontus provided.  Go figure.  As I add better equipment, I'm hearing more than ever before, which could be a negative to my aging ears and ever more addled brain.  My current DAC is a Meitner, which I'm happy with.  Better than what came before?  Yes.  Best fit for me?  Still working on that.  Good luck with your quest.

my 2 cents

a few years back i tried a mojo (believe it was a mystique v3) and after extended listening i ended up returning it to ben... it is a very suave very smooth sounding dac, but in my system it I felt it lacked some drive, openness, and ultimate transient clarity provided by other nice dacs I was comparing it to (audio note 4.1, msb analog, chord tt2/scaler)... i suspect ben’s design objective and voicing target is to conservatively remove all traces of ’digititis’ from systems that may have those characteristics (either intrinsically or due to power or front end jitter/noise issues) and for those users, of which i think there are plenty out there the dacs are wonderful ... I have certainly learned that optimizing a digital feed can be quite a pain

all this said, the mojos are nice super smooth dacs but to me the challenge for higher end users is to make sure the front end feed is optimized before selecting any ’keeper’ dac