Mytek Liberty 2 DAC $1500

(1.74h, 5.5w, 8.8d)

Mytek Liberty 2 is so good, and so fairly priced, that a good argument can be made for not having to spend a penny more, or less, in a great DAC.

First of all, there’s no reason to buy an outboard DAC unless it whups what’s in your CD player or streamer. I’m telling you right now, with very rare exception, Liberty 2 is up for the challenge.

I have compared a small boatload of CD players to Liberty 2. Running their own DACs (analog out) into a nice preamp or integrated, Liberty 2 wins every time- up until Marantz SACD30n.

Ah, and here we encounter a curve ball. Liberty 2 has BALANCED outputs. SACD30n doesn’t. If you are running a preamp or integrated with BALANCED inputs, it WILL sound more clear and dynamic through the balanced circuitry. Absolutely, positively.

My most specific example is with the McIntosh MA-252 or MA-352 integrateds. When running Liberty 2 into either, the RCA outputs sound improved from whichever CD player, or streamer by the way, that I used.

BUTTTT, running Liberty 2 BALANCED out into either of these integrateds provides a shockingly better result. That’s because you can now take advantage of the balanced input circuitry of the integrateds, which is quieter and more dynamic than the RCA path. I’ll be happy to run this dem for you. I predict you’ll need no more than 5 seconds to be amazed.

DAC

The DAC chipset being used in Liberty 2 is a Sabre ES9038. It’s a DAC considered in the highest echelon, 384k/DSD 256. S/N is 128dB. Many esteemed $10k DACs on the market (McIntosh/Weiss among them) use the same chipset.

There is more to the sound of your DAC than the chipset being used. But that is the first vital decision to be made in the design. Clearly, many of the most serious players have chosen Sabre. With this as an apples to apples start, let’s move on. Liberty 2 has:

*Linear power supply, 60w Toroid transformer

*Dedicated clock to squelch jitter

*Massive power supply caps, 48,000uF

*Separate line and amp regulators

*High grade headphone amp with 3w output to drive most any phones

*Detachable power cable: Yup, you can upgrade power the power cable: C13/15.

MQA

Liberty 2 decodes MQA. This has been a distinct advantage since Tidal offered it in 2017. MQA has some naysayers. They bark that MQA is an encode/decode process. While true, these same fanatics love vinyl- which is also an encode/decode (RIAA) process. Get off your high horse already.

You can stay up till 3am and argue with crazies on forums about whether you like MQA or not. Um, no thanks. Rest assured, Liberty 2 sounds fabulous in high res and/or MQA. You’re ready for both with Liberty 2.

Inputs

Two coax, One OPT, One USB2, One AES/EBU

Outputs

Again, I can’t stress enough…. well worth noting is the Liberty 2 has BALANCED and RCA outputs. I can promise (!) if your preamp or integrated has BALANCED INPUTS, you’re going to like the sound better running through them. The sound will be cleaner, quieter and more dynamic. This BALANCED feature is a biggie. The output can be fixed or variable.