 A few weeks ago I reviewed the Cort Jugo M Scaler using the Cort Dave DAC. I promised to also do testing using more affordable DACs. Time to fulfill this promise. If you haven't watched the initial review, it would be best to watch it first. There is a link in the top right corner at the end of this video and in the comments. For those that have watched the video, a short recap. The idea of upscaling, also called upsampling, is to use digital signal processing to convert a digital audio signal to a higher sampling rate. This does not increase the amount of information. Ideally it does not alter the information at all. And if it alters the information due to less than optimal digital processing, it will deteriorate. Why then use upscaling? That's because it solves problems further down the road. During playback the audio has to be filtered at half the sampling frequency to avoid aliasing. Aliasing can cause a clearly audible distortion and thus must be avoided. This filtering can be done in the analog domain directly after the conversion from digital to analog. But giving the steepness of the filters needed, there will be time smearing. The energy of a pulse can be spread out over longer time so transients are less well defined. For bass notes it causes lack of detail. Texture of the low notes gets lost. The alternative is to use digital processing to convert the digital signal to a higher sampling rate. Still an analog filter is needed but since the sampling rate is higher this filter can be less steep. Using upsampling filters at half the sampling rate are needed too. But also digital filters vary in sound quality. According to Rob Watts, who did all the development on the Watts-transient aligned filters you find in chord products, this kind of digital processing can now be done close to perfect if you write the correct code and use a processor that is powerful enough to handle that code. He considers the M-scaler to be the proof of that. I guess that's not far from the truth. That's why I bought one to use with the Core Dave DAC. At €4250 the M-scaler is relatively affordable. Of course it's still a lot of money so the question is whether more affordable DACs benefit from the M-scaler enough to be a good investment. I tested that using two DACs I use as reference. The MiTech Brooklyn with Ferrum-Hipsis power supply and the Denafrips Airis II. Both were placed in my reference setup 1 during testing. I normally would not use the Airis II in my setup 1 but this time I wanted to prevent that the other setup 2 components were the limiting factors. For here we want to know what the effect is on the DACs only. This is a setup used for the M-scaler together with the MiTech DAC. The Airacoustics AX520 amplifier drives the Audio's Physix Scorpio loudspeakers over AudioQuest Robinhood Zero loudspeaker cables. The MiTech Brooklyn is connected over Grimm Audio SQM XLR cables to the amp and powered by the Ferrum-Hipsis power supply. The M-scaler is connected to the MiTech over a Network Acoustics Eno Digital BNC cable with 75 ohm BNC to RCA adapter. The cable had just been burned in and I like it very much. As much as the Eno USB cable 3 from the same manufacturer that connects the Auralic Airis G2 network player to the M-scaler. The Airis G2 is connected to the SOTM network switch over the Eno streaming system AG that I reviewed earlier. If you want to know about my reference setups, see the link in the top right corner at the end of this video or in the comments below this video on YouTube. The MiTech Brooklyn has no dual BNC input like the better court models have, but does accept up to 384 kHz sampling over a single RCA input. So all input signals were upsampled to either 352.8 or 384 kHz depending on the original sampling frequency of the file. You always want to use an integer factor when upsampling to limit rounding errors. Time to listen. The first thing I noticed right away is the vast increase of spatial information. The stereo image gets a lot deeper and wider while instruments and vocals are very naturally focused and well placed within that stereo image. The second thing was the increased low end quality. Bass tones seems to go deeper and have clearly more texture. So instead of a dark brown hum like bass you now hear a well defined tone that is clearly distinguishable and identifiable. Vocals also improve. Less noticeable but they shine more and more natural. I was surprised by the vocals on Ennismore by Colin Blunstone. I played that record on vinyl already in 1973 when it came out. I've played it on CD, later ripped the CD and now play it to form Cobus and Tidal. In all cases the vocals are slightly distorted or perhaps better described as facie sounding. Using the amp scaler it sounds less odd, almost natural. It will be interesting to understand what happens there. The Denafrips Aries 2 is my reference in setup 2. It's an R2R ladder converter that I reviewed September 2020. As said, to test the amp scaler on the Aries 2 I used my setup 1, so I simply replaced the Mitre Brooklyn with the Aries 2 using exactly the same cables as well. The speed of input on the Aries 2 is limited to 192 kHz. Combined to the Aries 2 the amp scaler is less impressive. There's a slight increase in spatial information and sibilance is slightly better controlled, but I would rather spend money on a higher class DAC than adding the amp scaler to the Aries 2. Now don't blame the Aries 2, as said it's a great DAC for the money. I measured the combination of the amp scaler with the Brooklyn, comparing the original signal with the upscaled signal. As I expected I find no differences in frequency response nor in the different distortion measurements I did. I'll show you this one. Here the signal comprises a number of tones simultaneously while the distortion and noise is measured in between those tones. When you look closely you see two traces. One is measured with the scaler on bypass, the other having the scaler on. Small deviations are insignificant. We only see differences when looking in the time domain with a single sign pulse. The non-scaled version shows almost no pre-ringing, which is a fingerprint of the DACs that use the MQA filters. When the scaling is on you see a slight pre-ringing due to the filtering used during the upscaling. But that doesn't explain why the upscaled signal sounds so much better. And no, it's not the placebo effect that is pestering me. When upscaling to 352.8 kHz the scope showed some HF noise. I guess that the Brooklyn does not use any analog filtering at this sampling frequency and trust so the subsequent equipment will do that by nature. I could not hear any artifacts coming from that. A chain is as strong as the weakest link. It's an old saying that still goes, also for a stereo setup. Just as it doesn't pay to add a 1500 euro reclocker in between a 500 euro streamer and a 850 euro DAC, adding a 4250 euro costing M-scaler to such a setup is a poor investment. Unless it's the first step in a total upgrade plan, of course. But even then I would start upgrading the streamer first, then the DAC and finally the M-scaler. You replace the weakest link first and then add extra strength to keep faithful to the old saying. Or to use another old saying, prevention is better than cure. If the streamer has a yittery output signal, trying to cure that with a reclocker is the wrong way to go. Using a streamer with a low jitter output is a far better way. A reclocker can improve the quality further when the streamer has low jitter. It's the same with upscalers. And there is another thing. The way these devices are connected together. The M-scaler only has SPDIF, Toslink and dual BNC outputs. There are no USB, dual XLR or I2S outputs. That limits the number of DACs it can be used with, if you want to upscale to 384 or 768 kHz. On the other hand, upscaling to 192 kHz already does wonders if your DAC has sufficient quality. I think I can safely say that any good DAC costing over 2000 euros will benefit from the UGO M-scaler. From experiences I had with more expensive DACs, I can also safely say that the beneficial effect will further improve when the DAC used further increased in quality. Perhaps that DACs that have their own upscaling at the same level might be an exception. It would be interesting to review the M-scaler with a DCS converter. It would be interesting to review a DCS converter full stop. But don't be afraid, I won't lock myself in with only the very expensive DACs. More affordable products will also get attention again in future videos. Which brings us to the end of this video. As usual, there will be a new video next Friday at 5pm central European time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed on new videos around. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or a link to this video on the social media. It's much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.