[Tao8]

Hi there!

I'm looking at getting an M-Scaler, and I notice the common thread of the reviews is more separation, clearer-sounding instruments, etc. The assessments have almost all been rather "sonics analysis"-based.

I've never read anyone saying anything like "I get so much more joy listening to music through it."

Sonic detail aside, have people had a significantly increased raw emotional experience from it?

I find with mscaler engaged that the experience of the music is then also much more engaging but not because of sonic wow so much but more because it’s the honest portrayal of timbre makes everything just seem so more convincingly natural that it’s then also easier to let go of the sense of an audio machine at work and just then fall more easily and more deeply into the music.

The experience is for me completely less disconnected when the mscaler is in play as the music is just absolutely less synthetic.

I’ve experienced some gear that over-wows you with the details and that is for me always just OTT and ultimately quite exhausting to listen to through time but there is zero fatigue going on here with the mscaler... just pure joy for me. Loving it and after a couple of weeks find no downside sonically or musically. Just all good really.

 

[JaZZ]

Pass through sounds the same as DAVE direct, yet adding a 1m length of BNC cable is audible?

Think Pass-through mode = no upscaling going on = no internal RFI production = no need for extra shielding measures

 

[TeediuS]

i sat and listened to an album with mscaler out of the loop (as in optical straight to the TT2), while reading a book, so I was less focussed on trying to listen for any discernible differences. I then put the mscaler back in the loop, and restarted the album. Was quite a few times I put down the book, and just listened to the music, it was that more engaging, which I hadn't being doing when it was out of the loop (or maybe my brain just needed a rest from being fried trying to read Gravity Rainbow ). But, the music really did sound that much better.

As for cable alternatives, got these last week; https://www.ghentaudio.com/part/e07.html. can't say if it's any better or worse than other after market cables, but they work (funnily enough, i did think they sounded a bit brighter when i first connected them (in comparison to the in-the-box ones, which I had listened to for a few weeks. will swap them back out see if i'm still thinking the same when i get a chance, but then again i'm probably only getting 25% of the benefit cause i bought 50cm ones instead of 2m ones )

 

[AndrewOld]

Think Pass-through mode = no upscaling going on = no internal RFI production = no need for extra shielding measures

m

Me think passthrough = passthrough big complicated box of electronics still with FPGA and all componentry on including USB to spdif conversion, a second clock ...

Hard to believe that is utterly transparent when at other times a single soldered joint or piece of wire affects transparency.

But I will try myself when I get round to it.

 

[JaZZ]

Andrew...

...I'm confident that the upscaling function of the FPGA is disabled during pass-through mode. Reasoning: When you switch from white (full 1 million taps) to the lower upscaling variants, the 705.6 of 768 kHz upscaling is certainly replaced by say 192 kHz, it doesn't run in parallel. So why should switching to pass-through engage the full upscaling again if it's not needed?

Solder joints and wires and other analogue electronics components only matter in the analogue domain. Even complicated devices like computers can send bit-perfect digital data to a DAC; the only problem with them is RFI (and jitter, depending on the DAC).

 

[tunes]

And a little deoxit gold!
https://caig.com/deoxit-gold-g-series/

Does it matter if the cable is thicker e.g RG6 instead of RG59? The cable shown above is heavier 18 AWG center pin RG6 wire but frequency is 4.5 GHZ at 75 ohms. I like this one but will it work at that frequency ??

 

[burbster]

Hi there!

I'm looking at getting an M-Scaler, and I notice the common thread of the reviews is more separation, clearer-sounding instruments, etc. The assessments have almost all been rather "sonics analysis"-based.

I've never read anyone saying anything like "I get so much more joy listening to music through it."

Sonic detail aside, have people had a significantly increased raw emotional experience from it?

In fairness I think many of the attempts at objective descriptions of what the HMS brings are in a large part down to a number of posters saying they are finding it hard to notice the difference the HMS makes, or in particular the difference between the various HMS upscaling modes. These descriptions I think were trying to help and answer those queries.

I am fairly new to HiFi and as such my HiFi vocabulary is quite limited, I simply describe the HMS effect as making the music more real, which also makes it a highly addictive and enjoyable experience!

 

[Boogie7910]

Double post

 

[Boogie7910]

What should the output sample bit rate be set to in foobar using wasabi? If I'm listening to a 16 bit track but foobar is set to output 24bit, would that be unoptimal and be doing a job mscaler should be doing? Vise versa if I have foobar set to 16 bit but I'm listening to a 24 bit track, does it down sample it before sending it to mscaler to then upscale it again which would also be unoptimal? Would I have to change the setting everytime depending on what I'm listening to?

 

[JaZZ]

Setting it to 24 bit is optimal. With 16 bit recordings the lower bits just aren't used, but sound quality remains intact – there's no (up- or down-)conversion involved.

 

[marcmccalmont]

Does it matter if the cable is thicker e.g RG6 instead of RG59? The cable shown above is heavier 18 AWG center pin RG6 wire but frequency is 4.5 GHZ at 75 ohms. I like this one but will it work at that frequency ??

RG 6 is fine this cable has one foil and one braid some of the Beldens have 2 foils and 2 braids in my noisy system I hear improvements with very well shielded cables I add another braid to the outside of the Belden and then add broad band ferrites to “gild the Lilly”

 

[ZappaMan]

Just to say for anyone reading and getting confused, we are not saying that mscaler isn’t upscaling, it’s obviously better when activated. But switching to passthough mode still sounds the same to some but not others.

But here is my thought. The upscaling from 44khz is a separate activity of the mscaler then the application of the tap length.

Case in point, play music at 1 million taps, enable video mode, tap length is reduced to help latency, but hugo still reports receiving a 705. kHz stream.

Hence the two functions are not axiomatically connected.

So could passthrough also not be connected, and that setting to 44khz is not in fact removing the 1 million taps.

I’m sure speculating, I’m sure it’s not the case, but then we are told to believe our own ears, and this is what my bronze ears tell me.

 

[marcmccalmont]

Does it matter if the cable is thicker e.g RG6 instead of RG59? The cable shown above is heavier 18 AWG center pin RG6 wire but frequency is 4.5 GHZ at 75 ohms. I like this one but will it work at that frequency ??

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/272111257524 This might be a better choice quad shielded Belden RG6

 

[Boogie7910]

Just to say for anyone reading and getting confused, we are not saying that mscaler isn’t upscaling, it’s obviously better when activated. But switching to passthough mode still sounds the same to some but not others.

But here is my thought. The upscaling from 44khz is a separate activity of the mscaler then the application of the tap length.

Case in point, play music at 1 million taps, enable video mode, tap length is reduced to help latency, but hugo still reports receiving a 705. kHz stream.

Hence the two functions are not axiomatically connected.

So could passthrough also not be connected, and that setting to 44khz is not in fact removing the 1 million taps.

I’m sure speculating, I’m sure it’s not the case, but then we are told to believe our own ears, and this is what my bronze ears tell me.

Something like this is what I'm speculating is happening at least with my unit. I also am only using a Schiit Gumby with single bnc until my TT2 arrives so any impressions I'm sharing do not reflect the full potential of the Mscaler and my experience could completely change. It seems to me as of now that processing is being done whether in pass through mode or not or any other sample rate setting for that matter because it all sounds the same after critical listening but at the same time there also being a discernible improvement as opposed to mscaler not being in the chain at all. In other words pass through sounds better than mscaler out of the chain. Odd

 

[Amberlamps]

The MScaler works, 1mmillion taps sound beautiful, especially if you have a track that the mscaler can take full advantage of.

Case in point, yesterday, I was listening to a 60s playlist in qobuz, a song called “I just want to make love to you” by Etta James came on.

Now all my life I have heard this track in movies, commercials, radio etc, but when it started to play WOW, it sounded amazing and I have never heard that song sound so good. Infact it sounded so good, you can even hear a man speaking in the background in the middle of it.

The music sounded great, ok her voice sounded screetchy at times, but the music was very good.

http://open.qobuz.com/album/0000881120172?track=499836

My setup is, pc to mscaler to hugo 2 to hd800S.

I just tried listening it again, but it sounded like schiit on my ipad.

As for passthrough, who is even going to use passthrough mode ?