Msb dacs why not alot of postings

@lalitk, Don't assume things about me or my capabilities.

But based on the meandering rhetoric in your post, I know your type as well. Suffice to say, your opinion has an audience here assuredly, but none of your opinions cut muster in any objective sense and like I initially mentioned, it's fanboy hyperbolic nonsense. Drivel, even.

MSB uses discrete r2r chips, much like Metrum, Rockna, Holo Audio and some other recent manufacturers. Manufacturing refinements since MSB’s older dacs like the Analog have enabled designers to implement resistors with lower tolerances and thermal restrictions, as well due to manufacturing of scale, these discrete chips are cheaper to produce currently (pre-covid). Based on that, discrete chips engineered by Metrum designer Cees Ruijtenberg and Rockna designer Nicolae Jitariu are very low tolerance and high performing. For instance if you read up on how Cees designed the r2r modules in Metrum dacs to split the bitrates and handle the MSB (most significant bits) vs the LSB (least significant bits) you will see that its a very elegant and clever solution to reduce noise. There is an art to it. That’s where the value proposition comes in, did a particular designer use something very clever to achieve a very high quality sound, IMO you can’t ignore this aspect even though Metrum dacs may be "cheaper" than MSB, for example. Same goes for Jeff Zhu, the designer at Holo Audio. It’s precisely the way he designs his r2r May dacs that they measure almost perfectly even though typical r2r dacs do not measure well.

This class of r2r dacs are different than integrated circuits based r2r dacs such Schiit Yggdrasil, these dacs use r2r integrated circuits like by TI, Burr-Brown, Analog Devices etc. Whether discrete modules are better than integrated circuits may be up to your tastes. People may immediately consider discrete components better (there is a typical Audiogon forum love for anything hand wired point to point) but Schiit dacs are widely loved as we know.

And r2r dacs are yet again different from other implementations such as Delta-Sigma or FPGA dacs. D-S dacs use off the shelf chips by Sabre or Audio Technica or Asahi Kasei Semiconductors for the actual conversion. DCS, Audiobyte etc fall into the FPGA category.

Then there’s the whole challenge of non oversampling vs oversampling. Whenever you are sampling a analog waveform, you are creating mirror image multipliers of the musical frequencies. OS dacs oversample the incoming signal to very high frequencies, so the mirror images are at even higher multipliers and are easier to filter out with gently sloped analog filters, as its easier to design gently sloped analog filters than steep sloped analog filters. NOS dacs do not use filtering with the assumption being that at the nyquist sampling rate of at least 44.1 khz, the waveform mirror images are beyond normal human hearing. But many software media players such as J-River or Tidal can perform the oversampling at the software level before sending it to the dac, further ensuring the mirror images are at much higher frequencies. There are other reasons to design OS dacs, but ultimately it all depends on what the designer wants to achieve.

Going back to the topic: " Msb dacs why not alot of postings", the assumption was cost. But I don’t think that’s true. As a lot of people own Dacs like the Chord Dave, Rockna or TotalDac or even Lampizator models that rival MSB in price and there are a lot more discussions and reviews on these products all over the internet.

Also another assumption was by recommending something well reviewed and measured which costs a bit less I was doing a disservice, because I (and few others posting here) can’t apparently afford a MSB (even though my first line was literally that I was considering an MSB dac at one point). That assumption is also, not true.

I was eyeing the MSB Analog a while back. The problem is within that range dacs like the Rockna Wavedream, or even the recent Wavelight have received a lot of accolades, and are more modern. Or Chord Dave for instance. Or the Mola Mola Tambaqui, and the recent Holo Audio May which measure just about perfectly. So it’s like having a non delta-sigma dac and with the peace of mind that they also measure extremely well. Comparatively the MSB Analog is a pretty old design by this point. I am sure it sounds good however. The issue is the value proposition has increased a lot with many of the newer r2r and hybrid dacs.

Mmh hmm. So its replaced by "Discrete", still the value proposition of Rockna dacs are very good. Has to compete aganst some very competent dacs in the 4-6K range that are possibly as good. There's basically no point in paying a premium IMO.

Relax man, I can afford it, not sure why you are so riled about defending a corporation? Go smoke some weed. I actually can afford a Ferrari, but drive a Porsche instead.

It's a vintage system, anchored by single ended tube amps. Which while I am sure sounds very nice, but I highly doubt it is neutral in any way. Now his statement becomes even more questionable.

Before you ask, yes I have had zero feedback class A single ended tube amps, as well as push pull class A/B tube amps, and solid state amps.

Listening to everything side by side isn't as simple as snapping a finger in the current climate. Some assessments can also be made by looking at measurements (if you are one of those measurements don't matter people - don't even talk to me) as well as reading reviews for sound impressions. Measurements for both Mola Mola Tambaqui (which is more expensive than the base MSB BTW) as well as the Holo May are available from independent sources. Rockna designer also actually worked at MSB, he was a designer who worked on developing their discrete r2r chips. I am not making a judgement on MSB's sound quality but pointing out at the 10K to 20K range, there are many other options to look at as well. Chord Dave is in that range and is pretty much universally praised. Haven't read any bad reviews of Rockna dacs either. Of course a potential buyer should compare as much as possible and then decide.

"Once I heard DA2, I could no longer listen to Rockna Signature in my system."

these types of hyperbolic statements are completely meaningless in any logical discourse. What did you hear, what with, what are the comparison notes, how good is your hearing, what was the environment, nothing is mentioned. Par for the course.

BTW here are your own words, from your system description:

"Since then, I have gone through three major upgrades and what you see now it’s my attempt to enjoy that lush, warm and organic sound synonymous with some of the finest tube and solid state components."

"Lush", "warm", "organic", ie, not neutral. You guys always think your systems are highly resolving and transparent because of airy treble, and intakes of breaths, or hands sliding on guitar strings. And that Diana Krall track. Whatever the Diana Krall track is.

Guess what, any moderate system should be capable of those things, and if not, it's not a good system.

I haven't yet heard a single word about what tracks you used, what your listening notes were but I'd assume your comments would be nebulous such as airy treble, blacker background, tighter bass and wider soundstage - when component A was switched to component B.

I haven't asked about anything remotely scientific, just even a nuanced statement such as: this is the test track I used, at 3:05, the high hats ring in a certain way, and it was a lot more discernable with the EMM Labs dac than on the Rockna.

But nope, none of that. Anyway, the point wasn't about downplaying MSB, but comparative lack of MSB reviews vs similarly priced dacs make MSB harder to recommend for blindly buying. Whereas every single dac I mentioned have been well reviewed by respected publications.

No one is saying you cant get at home trials in, unsure about the "chops" comment. I'll ruminate on it while driving my 911 Carrera S.

@arafiq , yes, ASR is a good resource for measurements obviously but measurements are not everything. Hence why these very cheap but excellent measuring dacs like the Topping actually do not sound good.

But we also have to keep in mind that devices like single ended zero feedback amplifiers, or NOS r2r dacs have inherent distortions, harmonic and intermodulation. Its just that, we tend to like those distortions. 

Yeah this whole thing took a very negative turn which wasn't my intention and I do regret that.

To @thyname , my current dac is a Metrum Pavane, prior to that I had a Metrum Onyx. I am very partial to Metrum dacs in so far as they just sound really, really good. But like most of us here I suspect, we are always thinking about what's next, what's even better. And unfortunately Metrum doesn't have anything higher end. There is absolutely nothing at all I am missing currently, but my mind wonders regardless.

So the next targets are really Rockna Wavedream Balanced, Chord Dave, Mola Mola Tambaqui, or even the MSB Discrete. But current situation doesn't allow me to go to a dealer and audition these side by side. It was already hard to do that prior to covid. Speaker auditioning is easy, electronics is tougher as single dealers just don't carry that many brands. And I am uncomfortable getting 4 dacs in for home audition knowing I have to send 3 back. Hence dealer auditioning is preferable to me, I know my test tracks well and I know what musical queues I am looking for. But hopefully situation is normalized and I can audition some of these early next year.

 @jjss49 , yes we are on the same page. So these new r2r modules are laser trimmed. They are made very well. And I personally don't have preconceived notions that a integrated r2r chip is worse, as people absolutely adore their old 90s dacs by Theta etc (even in this thread and elsewhere the Tubadour is lauded which is made from Analog Devices chips). Newer r2r dacs are just linear enough for 20+ bits, yielding SNR of 110 dbs, which is basically way beyond what we need. So the peace of mind is there. I have never liked a D-S dac for long, but even then I am highly curious about the Matrix Sabre Pro dac, which is relatively cheap, and measures flawlessly. There's a reason for this, a $300 Matrix mini was the first dac I heard that blew my mind with price/performance ratio. Even back then I knew that tiny, cheap dac was doing something magical. I have heard far more expensive D-S dacs that just didn't sound as good.

@dannad

"Some people like NOS DACs, most do not. I would go on a limb and say no one could reliability tell you whether a DAC was R2R or DS without being told."

I am no sure whether r2r vs d-s aren't discernible. The whole idea is, if implemented properly, the technology should actually be transparent to the end user. The dacs should ideally sound the same. But technically or psychoacoustically, they do not. Some devices to sound fatiguing over the long term, this is essentially what all these discussions boil down to. But that's a complex issue. After a hard day of work, I could be fatigued easily listening to music vs a nice pleasant day, in the same system with the same tracks.

NOS vs OS may be far easier to discern. R2R does not have to be NOS, BTW. Most (all?) Schiit dacs are OS r2r dacs. All NOS dacs will attenuate the high frequency by ~3db due to the nature of signal processing. Sinc(x)/x function. By reading many topics over years in this space, I realized even some pro reviewers do not know this. This attenuation doesn't mean treble will sound bad. But treble is definitely rolled off if the DAC is NOS. And you can counter that if you choose to, by using software to oversample prior to sending the signal to the NOS dac. Then the attenuation happens beyond the limit of human hearing. Most of us probably do not have the capability to hear up to 20KHz, last I checked I could discern up to 17KHz. So if the r2r dacs starts to attenuate at 15KHz, this will not be very noticeable as most of our music rarely contains components within the extremities of the bandwidth anyway.

That's also something everyone should test, there are plenty of web based or youtube based signal generators to test your hearing (and your system).

Further reading: https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1191.php

"FPGA is not a type of DAC. It is a method of implementating digital logic and algorithms."

I know that. I meant the class of dacs that use FPGA chips could be called FPGA dacs. PS Audio, Chord Dave etc. The chips can be modified by software. Hence PS Audio dacs are modifiable by software updates.