Mashie Design Visual Audio MDVA

The MDVA

The front looks very clean, only four mounting screws and the three buttons are visible. No annoying colorful logos which could disturb your viewing experience.


The MDVA uses black tinted Plexiglas in front of the LEDs. It still lets enough light through to give the LEDs a clear brilliant shine.


Here we can see that modding experience pays. Mashie ships plastic screws with the MDVA. If you were to use metal screws there is a chance that the plexi breaks. Not with these "soft" screws.

Buttons

On the front there are three buttons which control the MDVA's functions.

The first button "Pattern" allows you to select from eight different patterns.

1. This classic pattern originates straight from Anemone where the bars go from the center and out.
2. This is the dot mode for pattern 1.
3. Here is the inverted version of pattern 1 where the background is illuminated and "black" bars are drawn.
4. This pattern starts to draw from the center of the bars and out.
5. This pattern starts to draw from the edges of the bars and in.
6. This pattern draws the bars from the outer edge and in to the center.
7. This is the dot mode of pattern 6.
8. Here is the inverted version of pattern 6 where the background is illuminated and "black" bars are drawn.
9. Off. All LEDs are turned off, no matter what the audio input is. I find this is important, too many modding accessories can not easily be turned off.

List taken from Mashie's site

Next is the "Sensitivity" button. It does exactly that. Depending on the setting, the audio input levels are adjusted, so you can make sure you have proper visualization no matter which output volume you have set on your PC.

The third setting is "Brightness". It allows you to select the LED brightness from three different levels. I left it at the highest setting which gives best results in my opinion.

Another important fact to note is that the MDVA saves the settings in its own internal memory, so if you turn the PC off or even uninstall the unit, it will come back with the last settings, no matter what.