I'd try to hear both of these contender DACs if at all possible. I'm not certain either is better sounding than your Concert fidelity 040 DAC. You may own the better DAC now unless you're just ready for something different.
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Fluffers, are you all PCM, all dsd, or both? if you are PCM 'only' and considering dacs in that price range you should at least investigate the Trinity Dac. what the Trinity does for PCM files is astonishing. I've had mine for 4 months now and absolutely love it. I'm a guy who is heavy into vinyl and tape, and I've been a dsd/SACD advocate for many years. my 3000 CD's sat dormant for the last 10 years. so very little PCM listening was happening in my system. now with the Trinity I'm a high percentage PCM listener again. the Trinity overcomes the inherent nasties of PCM. my viewpoint is that for PCM that the Trinity is at the very top of the heap 'possibly excepting' the $90k MSB Select.....which I have not heard. I did hear the MSB Diamond V at RMAF and to the degree I could tell without a direct comparison I think that the Trinity is likely better to my ears. I also own a Lampizator Golden Gate for dsd only......and am really enjoying that. I have 7 terabytes of PCM and 8 terabytes of dsd on my server and I'm really enjoying my digital. no; even with the Trinity dac PCM is not vinyl or tape, but none the less it's sounds fully satisfying and I can listen to it for hours and hours. |
I have had the Diamond Dac, I was a dealer for MSB. My Diamond DAC was sold to a Forum member here by the name of Paul who is a active poster on WTB forum. I can tell you from first hand experience. Go for the Analog DAC, Analog Power Supply and a Network Renderer or Quad Rate USB however way you connect your Digital. Another good DAC is the Audio GD Master 7 its a lot cheaper but not as good as the Analog from MSB. Really depends on your budget. |
MSB Analog DAC, One of Agon now. I was a Dealer for them for the past few years and have experienced there range and tested them Well. I would try to avoid Tube Dacs, If you want the Tube Sound Go for a Solid state DAC, Mated to a very high end tube Pre-amp and Power Amp. This combination works better and well balanced. Tubes in Dacs are probably better of directly connected to a Power Amp. I have had the Golden Gate against the MSB Diamond and Anlog. All are good dacs but the Lampizator does not really sound that Real, its tonal balance is tubyness to the extent its not actually Real. Yet a lot of people do prefer this sound so it all comes down to personal taste. As for myself as much I think Lampizator are good Dacs it is not my personal Fav. There is a massive cult following the Lampizator Dacs. have a look at Allnic DHT, again I feel some of these designers are masking the Digital side effects with Tubes MSB does spend a lot of its money in R&D and has so far built some very good Dacs. Just don’t fall for that scam, the more you pay the better it gets. I have experienced this firsthand many times. |
From a bit of a look around it's Philips R2R multibit as well, probably the TDA1541 chip. And may be very good on Redbook as well. I prefer my sources to be direct coupled and solid state, this has tubes either in the I/V or output stage or both, this means it won't be direct coupled, so for me I'd still go the MSB Sig. Cheers George |
If your main replay is Redbook CD then definitely my pick is for the MSB as it has a true discrete Ladder Multibit dac for that. MSB "There are three DACs on this chart, the Platinum Signature Ladder DAC, The Burr-Brown PCM 1738 (a high performance delta-sigma DAC), and another ladder DAC by Burr-Brown, the PCM 1704. The Delta-Sigma DACs do spec very well but they do not tend to sound as good as the Ladder DACs." It can also do DSD if you want. "The DAC IV plus is able to accept DSD in all of its digital inputs, not just the USB input like most DACs. You can play .DXD, .DFF and .DFS files and can play 64x DSD and 128x DSD. Please note, you must have a 192 kHz USB input rate for 64x DSD and a 384 kHz USB input rate for 128x DSD." And I would spring for the "Optional Attenuator" that way you can go direct into your poweramp/s. "To achieve the simplest, shortest possible signal path with the least possible degradation of the true music. The Signature Volume is controlled in 1 dB steps from +9 to -69 dB. Half or quarter db steps can be selected as a menu option. The Volume Control is completely bypassed when at 0 dB." Cheers George |