musical fidelity x-10d

Well I do have one..and it has its advantages.

basically this is a tube buffer and can "Smoothen" (read as colour!) the sound a bit. It also is a kind of a Impedence matcher..

I tried it with a NAD521BEE and found very small differences but perhaps not of the good kind especially in higher freq. eg Cymbals are not Meant to sound sweet as this makes it out to be !!!

Folks have reported imrovements to Brighter CDP's like Marantz..and especially if you use a DVD P as a CD player it is supposedly quite good.

I use it only to connect my iPod as although my MP3's are higher bit rate..they still can sound a bit thin on my system and this rounds the sound well.


The standard JAN6922 tubes are not all that hot and upgrade to a SIEMENS ECC88 apparently does improve things a bit...never really tried it though

But in the end it IS distorting the sound although making in a bit musical..


So it is up to you really as to ow you like the sound !!!

BTW if you use a X-DAC/X-24K it apparently does make the sound better...

How is the NAD502 ? Apparently the older NAD CDPs were brighter hence this might be good for you...unfortunately only way to find out is to try it out.

Although from a practical viewpoint you could get a used 521i or 521BEE for the same cost which definitely would be a better option !!!

Thank you for your reply.
My Nad 502 is a good player,I don't think it is to bright,it's just right. I thouht that this X-10D improves the sound overall and not just the high tones. I've just bought some good speakers so I thought I could improve my source a bit,but I guess I woud have to buy a better cd-player to get the most of my speakers.The amp. is Arcam alpha 2.

Arcam 2 is of the earlier alpha range.Do not know much about it.

It is usually advised to avoid "Sound Improvement" devices as much as possible. you are right that X10 D works across the spectrum, but for my setup only the difference in treble could be percieved. in case the sound from your cdp is Grainy then you might find this useful as it smoothens the sound

...after all it is a Buffer and is not doing any conversion. Hence it definitely cannot add any information..can only change the quality.

If you go to Audio review you will find folks claiming better bass response as well so i guess it does work for them.

but what i have learnt is...for the money spent it makes sense either to put in an externa DAC or upgrade the cdp itself !

I use it on my Marantz 67SE, I guess Arj is right, it fits into the system very well, the sound is smooth right out

From what i heard, this works Best with the Marantz CDP's of the 90's maybe because their built in DAC had the level of detail but not a very smooth output which is ideal for the X10 D.
Suprisingly, for me it worked well in improving the musicality of the sound when connected between the Pre & pwer of my old NAD320. using ecosse composer I/C's

you need to be careful while comparing this as this adds a 1 to 2 db Gain on the signal. since Louder could be mistaked for "detailed" that needs to be taken into account while comparing.. !

Hi there!

I use one of them with a Musical Fidelity Elektra E100 and it really improves the sound, specially the lower frequencies.

I has two valves inside it, it brings your system something like a valve sound.