I’ve had a Musiland MD10 for about a week now. It’s a slick little device. It has all the inputs including USB, and has several setup options that are pretty easy to figure out. It even has a clear manual IN ENGLISH (surprise!). As mentioned earlier in this thread I have another Chinese DAC, the Zhaolu D2.5. I’ve been impressed with the apparently build quality and appearance of both. The Zhaulo was supposed to be put into my home system, but never made it out of my office where it was shipped to. The MD10 was installed and functional in minutes (your mileage may vary). An odd thing about the MD10 is that it doesn’t have a line out RCA. Volume adjustment is straight forward. But, I find it difficult to figure out what sounds best if I can’t get the volumes normalized.

After a week of use, I’m happy with it. You’re free to take my impressions with a grain of salt, but I think the MD-10 gives a slight smooth sound that I prefer. I’ve never been happy having my receiver doing the digital decoding as it always sounded a bit brittle and edgy. There seems to be a slight de-emphasis of the highs and/or rounder lows on the MD10. But not an unpleasing one. And this is relative to my previous arrangement so as far as I’ve corrected a problem I’m happy. I’m mostly thinking this is the sound I’m after, something neutral.

I listened to Al Di Meola et al: Friday Night in San Francisco (Digital remaster) as the first go via USB and it sounded great. Dynamic and crisp. Currently, I’m listening to Wynton Marselis: From the Plantation to the Penitentiary. Vocals, Brass, Piano all good and natural sounding.

My summation is that this is a good purchase and another solid contender in the sub-$400 DAC category. I purchased from Pacific Valve and Electric (http://www.pacificvalve.us/SolidStateDacs.html). The musiland is also offered by www.ifiaudio for about the same (I got the Zhaulo from iFi and had good experiences with both). Musiland and Diyeden are the same company I believe and if one only wanted a USB DAC (no coax or optical) the Diyeden SVDAC05 is, from what I gather, essentially the same and $100 less. The blue screen is a little bright but I keep my DAC in a cabinet under my gear...


My motivating factor for this purchase was primarily to give my setup some flexibility and stability to the info chain and to allow me to add another stereo to my ‘network’. My old laptop can’t always deliver on the wireless network. I recently upgraded it from USB1.1 to USB2.0 with a Cardbus adaptor. I’m cooking with bitstreams now.

My previous path was
HD>USB1.1>Laptop iTunes>Airport Express Base station>Mini-optical>Receiver

Now it’s
HD>USB2.0>Laptop iTunes>USB2.0>Musiland DAC>RCA analog>Receiver

I’m now free to move the AE Base station to another location in the house and run a second stereo off iTunes from any wireless laptop. Next project…