AUDIOLAB STEREO SET, the English company, which consists of:
- network player (streamer) M-NET. Retail $640.
-digital-analog converter M-DAC. Retail $1660
- transport of CD discs M-CDT. Retail $500.
- power amplifier M-PWR. Retail $780.

Since M-NET does not have a built-in DAC, it needs an external one. This role is performed by its "brother", the M-DAC converter. The most detailed, natural and dynamic sound is obtained when a coaxial digital cable is connected between the streamer and the DAC.
The devices are not just made in the same style, but are very similar, the most noticeable differences are the Wi-Fi antenna in the M-NET and the headphone output in the M-DAC with fewer buttons. The "laboratory" design is very successful - concise and will look relevant for a very long time.
The OLED displays of the "brothers" are exactly the same, but the round controls in the center of the front panel perform different functions - the streamer's flywheel serves only to navigate through the menu, and the converter's also adjusts the level on both outputs.
Both devices are powered by external pulse adapters that are connected directly to the outlet. For a device without analog circuits, this is more than enough. In addition to optical and coaxial inputs, there is also a USB interface.
In fact, M-NET will be useful even for those who have not yet acquired a file music storage - the built-in Internet radio receiver opens access to endless streams of a wide variety of music - about 20,000 stations. Navigating these riches will be facilitated by the function of saving bookmarks, and what is especially convenient, they can be saved and maintained on a computer through the portal Frontier Silicon - this company is a partner of vTuner, the largest provider of Internet radio broadcasting.
It is most convenient to control the streamer in the "near field", that is, at arm's length. Of course, it has a remote control, and you can use it to go through the bookmarks of the Internet radio receiver, but when playing files over the network (or from a USB drive), you already need a display, and here it is still small and well read only from close distance
Another option for controlling the streamer is using a DLNA / UPnP server installed on a home computer. It can be Windows Media Player 11 (the M-NET user manual describes its setup in detail) or any other program of this kind - Twonky, Plex, etc. You can control the process (viewing covers, lyrics and artist biographies) from an Android smartphone or tablet using the FoobarCon app.

Technical characteristics of M-NET

Digital outputs: coaxial (RCA), optical (Toslink)
Audio file formats: AAC, AAC +, mp3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, LPCM
Display: 2.7 "OLED matrix 128 x 64
Network interfaces: Ethernet 10/100 Mbit / s, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11a / b / g / n) Interface: USB v2.0 File systems of USB drives: FAT / FAT32
Internet radio provider: vTuner
DLNA protocol: v1.5, (with support for DMP and DMR functions) :Power supply: external adapter 12 V, 1.0 A
Power consumption (standby): 115, balanced output > 122
Dimensions: 250 x 59 x 252 mm
Weight: 7.2 kg
The M-DAC is relatively small and light, powered by an external adapter, but at the same time looks like a very serious device. On the back panel there are five digital inputs: a pair of coaxial, a pair of optical and USB. There are also a lot of output terminals: digital ones are represented by a TosLink socket and coaxial, analog ones are represented by a linear stereo pair of RCA and a balanced XLR. There are also additional sockets designed for connecting the IR control in the Audiolab component system. The monochrome contrast OLED display on the front panel displays a lot of information. On the "facade", in addition to the usual push-button selector of inputs, there is a rotary volume control (also a balance control), a switch for digital filtering modes, a button for entering the settings menu and a telephone output. As you can see, the functionality of the M-DAC is rather similar to the previous amplifier.
The "brain" of the new product is the 32-bit high-performance ESS Saber32 9018 chip, capable of internally processing digital sound data with a frequency of up to 84.672 MHz. Of course, with external sources, the M-DAC works at standard sampling rates - up to 96 kHz / 24 bits from optical and USB and up to 192 kHz / 24 bits from the coaxial input. The developers did not skimp on the analog output stages either, having used high-current balanced circuitry in class A. And all other links of the converter are made to conscience. The digital path is mounted on four-layer boards, resistors with minimal deviations are used everywhere, capacitors are either film or with ultra-low internal resistance, and ten low-noise stabilizers are used in the power supply circuits.
But the most interesting thing opens if you press the Menu button. It displays a large settings interface, where you can set the sampling rate on the digital output, enable volume control via the USB channel, disable volume control on the analog outputs, thereby making them fixed in level. In the menu you will find several more unique functions: