How good is MSB Discrete Dac?

@thyname

Thanks a lot for your valuable input.

I will contact Vince after being back to my home at the end of this month.

Thomas

I heard Dave with or without Blue II transport at the shop last week.

Without upsampling with Blue II, Dave is just good not extraordinary one.

With Blue II, Dave sounds very nice with deep and transparent soundstage although not in a same league with MSB Select II.

Please note that Dave with Blue II will cost more than 20k$.


It will be hard to compare Dave with MSB Discrete.

It is up to personal taste and system.


I have an appointment to audition Trinity Dac, Golden Atlantic and MSB analog at the shop coming this Sunday.

I will let everybody give my impression.

While staying in Seoul, Korea for dental work, I made an appointment to listen to MSB Premier and Discrete for comparison on 23rd Thursday.

Seoul is much better than Seattle to audition high end system with access to all major brands.

It may be one of the best city to audition high end at the same level as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore.

I was born in Seoul and had lived there for 35 years( more than half of my life).


Seoul is such a big city that I had not visited part of it.

But I had been to most of the big sightseeing attractions in Seoul.

While in Seoul,the most joyful thing is to listen to high end components that I am interested in.

Seoul is five times better than Seattle regarding accessibility to high end.

Thomas

I auditioned MSB Discrete, Premier and Lampiziator Pacific on 23rd May in Seoul, Korea.

The source was simple Ron Nucleus with Octave Tube pre and Viola Monoblocks.

I also added just one more power supply to MSB Discrete, Premier as suggested by other member.


I started with Discrete first.

It sounds balanced with good details which belies its price tag of 11,500$ with one more power supply.

I played two vocals(one classical and one Jazz) one classical concertos and one New Age.

After switching to Premier, the sound changed drastic with more refined sound and tone color.

The difference of sound between Discrete and Premier is not minor.

After listening to Premier, I can not go back to Discrete.


MSB discrete sounds just slightly better than my 10 years old EMMLab Dac2 (New price 9K$) .

No consideration for upgrade at all.


After switching to Pacific, the sound had more body, timber and bass slam.

Pacific cost 25K$ in USA so It may be fair to compare it with Premier with improved clock.

Unfortunately they did not have upgraded clock.

But the difference of sound between Pacific and Premier is not so drastic as those between Premier and Discrete.

I say Premier is better than Discrete by 40% but Pacific is better than Premier by 15%.

With power bass block or upgraded clock, Premier may match the sound of Pacific.


I try to limit my budget to 20K$.

Thus I had hoped that the difference between Premier and Discrete shall be minor.so that I can be happy with Discrete.

But I will not consider Discrete at all after this audition.


On 26th, I will audition Trinity Dac and Aqua Formula XHd with SGM Extreme server.

Let us see what happens.

Thomas

MSB Discrete Dac sounds decent.

But after listening to MSB Premier, I can not go back to it.

Of course the price difference of 10K$ is not small.

Since I already have decent EMMLab Dac2, I wish to get substantial improvement over it.

Premier and Pacific Dac could be  substantial improvement over EMMLab Dac2, but Discrete not.

As Discrete can be updated to Premier later by paying difference in price, one can consider Discrete if he has budget of 10K$ only.

Chord Dave and Mscaler

Dave without Mscaler is just so so. but with Mscaler I had been happy with the sound for last 2 months with transparent  3D soundstage and excellent details.


Some people may prefer lush sound out of Lampiziator Pacific Dac which I also liked very much.

Thomas