Measurements.... hmmmm. Topping China DAC has great measurements as well. Measures perfect on the entire “audible range” spectrum. So, who in the right mind will spend thousands in a Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC, or Rockna, or Holo Audio, when same measurements (read: SQ) can be achieved with a couple of hundred dollars? Asking for a friend 😉
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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. |
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“There’s basically no point in paying a premium IMO.” I chuckle every time someone shows up here advocating value proposition of DAC’s without any A/B comparison. As @thyname pointed out, there is always a better value but to knock a product unless you have a direct experience with, it just goes to show one’s ignorance and arrogance (no offense). While I have not heard MSB discrete or Premier, I did own Rockna Signature Balanced ($16K). It was no match to my current reference EMM DA2 ($25K). Once I heard DA2, I could no longer listen to Rockna Signature in my system. To me, that next level of musical bliss rendered by DA2 defines the hard to beat value proposition. |
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Boy oh boy... these guys know exactly how something sounds without even having to lay hands (or eyes) on something. They just know. Oh, and for everything out there, there is always something cheaper. Better value? Sure. Especially when the more expensive alternative is out of reach. For some reason, many people get riled up when expensive gear comes up. Big trigger! Can’t you just ignore unaffordable stuff? So tough? I certainly cannot afford a Ferrari but I don’t spend my time in Ferrari boards telling their owners how much better value my Dodge Durango SXT is |
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. |
Very different sounds I bet. A similar comparison but in amps would be two different topology amps. https://gryphon-audio.dk/shop/power-amplifiers/antileon-evo-mono/ VS https://audioresearch.com/product/ref160m/ Cheers George |
I have not heard an MSB or Lampizator DAC. There are a substantial positive reviews of the Lampizator's top $17.500 and $25,000 DACs that are considered the most musical. I've heard some DCS stacks in high end but not good sounding systems so that wasn't good (I attribute the mediocre sound to the cabling and speakers of those systems). My own DAC is one I can afford, the COS Engineering D2+ at $5K. Maybe in another 5 years it will be bettered at about the same price. Can someone compare the MSB to the Lampizators? |
the Brit rags are famous for supporting Brit gear first, euro gear second and then the unwashed colonials last. True most of the time I noticed, but they did give this rare (outside the US) discrete R2R battery powered one a "good rap", with a stiff upper lip still, I’ve listened to it and it sound much better than they ever so slightly reluctantly say. https://www.hifinews.com/content/msb-technology-power-dac-%C2%A33090 Cheers George |
I purchased an MSB Platinum DAC early in the first decade of this century when I had the income to do it. Because I prefer single ended triode amplifiers using AM radio station transmitter tubes so I don't have to use highly sensitive speakers I bought their first upgrade, two R2R ladders with more precise resistors in them rather than all four for balanced output. I had them put in an up-sampler to 384 kHz but I find the new downloads at 24/96 onto a computer storage USB plugged into the back of a Bluesound Vault 2i makes a more noticeable image focus without the up-sampling. I had a buffer that reloads the bits and puts them out with almost all jitter eliminated. I have not heard other high priced DACs and mine was expensive after all the upgrades. The years passed and I did not know how good it can sound till I had some 24/96 recordings I play in their native rate. All of you are correct about the prices of what they sell skyrocketing to something only a television evangelist could afford. As income declined for most people and prices went up I could never afford anything like that again. Eventually I could not even afford parts to build my own tube amps and preamps, the last thing I did was to upgrade the series wired electrolytic filter capacitors in the 1000 Volt power supply with polypropylene capacitors good for 2200 Volts because electrolytic capacitors have a limited life expectancy and more DC resistance than polypropylene and this is where the MSB difference became more conspicuous. Recently the frequency display counter went out on my MSB Platinum and to the credit of MSB, they repair such a model which has not been made in so many years. |
@lalitk, The LinQ has no interface, you simply turn it on and it acquires and IP address and is available as a Roon device ready to stream. As you probably already know, it has modular "cards" if you will with ROON, DLNA and HQPlayer currently supported. So if you only have the ROON card, yes you need to subscribe to ROON to connect and stream through it. I will tell you that it's quite revealing and I found that the design is very sensitive to footers, as much if not more so than my amps. Compared to the streamer boxes and gadgets (Sonores, SOTMs with LPSUs) the LinQ is simply in another league. |
in any product development there are two important frontiers 1 - at any cost, advance performance, define state of the art 2 - bring excellent performance to more users at a price many users can easily afford for those of us who enjoy this hobby, we also want to know the absolute performance gap between 1 and 2, then we calibrate and decide what we want to buy on the value vs performance curve for me personally - i cannot and do not speak for anyone else - i think 1500-2000 bucks for a dac is a sweet spot - really excellent sound can be gotten, rivaling excellent analog systems (which i also fortunate to have) - i have tried many dacs now, some quite expensive ones well above this price tier, thus the basis for my belief i could spend 10x that amount, affordability is not an issue, but for me, i would rather save the money, spend it on something else, and/or give to charities i support - no we can’t take the money with us when we pass, but even so, i would rather use the money for other things to improve my life and other peoples lives in ways that have more meaning and impact |
It's disheartening to read so many negative comments about MSB from folks who've never even heard it. The reality is - with most things in life you get what you pay for. That plus diminishing returns is why top performance cars, audio gear, etc. are expensive. I rank MSB as one of the best along with TotalDAC, Aries Cerat and a handful of others which I've heard. My taste lends towards a detailed non - fatiguing effortless DAC which is why I picked the Aqua Formula along with the matching LinQ streamer. Not the best but quite good IMO. |
I got a floor model MSB S200 power amp a number of years ago for a decent price; it sounded so great with either solid-state or tube source that I got some other used MSB gear on Audiogon, like an 'Analog DAC', which I also use as a pre-amp, and the UMT Plus transport. I'd never be able to afford this stuff new, but you CAN find them at reasonable prices as either store demos or used, and I've had no problems with any of this gear. |
Yes, today they are crazy expensive. Yet looking back 20 years that was not always so. I have one of Mark’s earlier units, the MSB Gold Full Nelson, to which i added my own power supply (plural actually) and some further fitter control (a loop on the already excellent timing source). I believe the base price was under $500 and with all the upgrades a few hundred more. The parts for my external PS (which made a big difference BTW) cost me maybe $125.00 - plus of course lots of pencil and soldering iron time. So Mark knows how to deliver value as well. I guess he just moved on as the market progressed. I have not heard the latest stuff under controlled circumstances, but if the past is any indication, i bet its great. G |
I cant imagine there would be any major advantage to adding a high end DAC in the Kii system but would be interested to hear others thoughts. No matter what DAC you use in front of the Kii it would sound the same since it’s the Kii DAC that does the final conversion. And the dac’s are not near the hiend quality of this threads MSB subject or it’s nearest competitors. It would really be something to hear if there were a bunch of MSB R2R dac’s in the KII innards. Cheers George |
I cant imagine there would be any major advantage to adding a high end DAC in the system but would be interested to hear others thoughts.Kii is correct there would be no reason to add any DAC the preferred method of input is digital unless you’re connecting phono. If sending an analog signal from a DAC the ADC in the Kii is convertig the analog signal back to digital running it through it’s DSP and using it’s DAC to convert back. No matter what DAC you use in front of the Kii it would sound the same since it’s the Kii DAC that does the final conversion. |
Hi Everyone, Newbie on this subject...can anyone compare or comment on the Kii3 dacs as opposed to MSB? Is it even possible? I feed an analog signal to my Kii3's so it has to be ADC'd back to digital in the Kii, and the Kii team are confident enough re this conversion that they say if a difference is detectable then there is a weakness in the analog chain feeding the Kii! I cant imagine there would be any major advantage to adding a high end DAC in the system but would be interested to hear others thoughts. rgds |
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I have listened to msb dacs at shows and club members msb analog dacs in the past, they are ok sounding, but preferred others. I haven’t heard the latest top of the line model since the virus occurred, my experience was with the models 2 years ago and prior. I always thought the msb analog dac was overpriced compared to its competitors and to keep with technology, it can cost $1500 to upgrade to say an Ethernet port, so you can have $15k into the dac with powerbase and some upgrades while other dacs are much better for half the cost or much less. |
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i have heard the MSB Analog w optional powerbase and it gave my Aesthetix Pandora signature a serious run SQ and build quality dimensions, a real toss up decision. My reference in that fairly resolving system ( Poverty Bay Sound in virtual systems ) is against high speed half track tape ...... I agree with Mike to paraphrase something he said in a different drain swirl thread, “ the IQ of audiogon has fallen “ |
Hi @mikelavigne : well said. As much as it hurts, I ultimately agree with you. Part of the testicular fortitude I mentioned above, which I admit I lack. Kudos to you. I also don’t look down my nose at well performing modestly priced gear. Been there, done that. Years ago. I just can’t stand people dismissing better stuff as snake oil, unnecessary expense. Again, I shouldn’t care, but I lack THAT testicular fortitude of not caring. Maybe I’ll get there one day. The key is not hating people like you, but trying hard to be like you. One day. Peace! |
@thyname Hey @mikelavigne : you are spot on. I wish I had your testicular fortitude in approaching these Dow Jones types.i don't really see my posting as approaching anyone. i had no such intent. just answering your question. i do happen to think there are lots of modestly priced fine sounding dacs out there. so i do understand why it's hard for some to not connect the dots on what makes some dacs so expensive.....and whether they are worth it. the value equation is different for everyone......depends on your expectations. personally i came to MSB trying to find a dac to be seamless in my system with lots of high level analog. that is a tall order. and the MSB does that better than any digital i have heard. my vinyl and tape are top level. so if you are simply wanting to improve your current digital, then the answer for you might be different than for me. and we can both be completely right. my only issue here on Audiogon is that so many opinions are offered without ever listening......mostly dismissing products just based on price. more social commentary than a hobby forum mindset. and so be it. i just don't happen to care much for it and it's off putting to me. i certainly do not look down my nose at well performing modestly priced gear. nor should i. if i did i deserve scorn. |
