MSB Analog DAC? (Review p3)

[isquirrel]

How old is your W20 ? What output are you using?

 

[Johnny Moondog]

The W20 is from the original release. My dealer did have the audio board upgraded at one point. Need to confirm if that included the newer USB mentioned. I was using the AES connection with my previous DAC, but am now curious to try USB with the Nagra HD DAC.

 

[Icenine2]

Oh my that is beyond cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Happy New Year to you all, I thought it was time I posted about the MSB Select II I have here, mine has been delayed and won't be here until the 3rd week of this month. Have also been playing with different music servers, the CAD CAT and the Aurender W20. The Select I have on loan only has 2 inputs I2S and Quad USB, I have been using USB with the Select and playing around with AES, Optical & USB on the Nagra out of the Aurender.The Aurender W20 is about 2 years old and the USB output is average at best, after talking with Romaz it seems the later ones have had their boards updated tot he same as the N10 etc and are much better, so for now the CAD CAT USB is being used into the Select.
 
First up the system has the following components:
 
Source's:  Computer Audio Designs CAT & Aurender W20 & Mac Pro (Optical) both the CAT and the Mac are using Roon V1.1 build 88 64bit
 
DAC's:      MSB Select II DAC & Nagra HD DAC - balanced outputs on both
 
AMP:        Woo 234 customs
 
Tubes:      Tung Sol RP 6SN7's, Elrog (New Release) 300B's, Takatsuki 274B
 
Cabling:    DHC Silver Spore 4 & Curious  
 
Photos:     I have the display of the Select to Auto Off
 

 

 

[isquirrel]

 
The W20 is from the original release. My dealer did have the audio board upgraded at one point. Need to confirm if that included the newer USB mentioned. I was using the AES connection with my previous DAC, but am now curious to try USB with the Nagra HD DAC.

The Aurender I have on loan is 2 + years old, using the Nagra I have tried all of the connections and have found AES 110 ohm to be superior by quite a margin over the others. I suspect all is not well with this unit as the USB performance is not great.  Though after having spoken with Roy, he found the USB output on the recent units to be very good. Its worth trying out the AES connection with the Nagra. There is a sense of air and presence which is lacking from the other outputs. I suggest you speak with Roy who is up to speed with his info on the Aurender's.
 
I am keen to hear what Aurender's plans are from the CES for 2016, my wish list is either new model or an updated W20 (the latter is more likely) and Roon integration would be the icing on the cake. I think its too much to hope for I2S support. I will report on the sound of the Select II shortly. Getting a read on it and being able to describe it, is proving a challenge for me.

 

[jazzfan]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

  Happy New Year to you all, I thought it was time I posted about the MSB Select II I have here, mine has been delayed and won't be here until the 3rd week of this month. Have also been playing with different music servers, the CAD CAT and the Aurender W20. The Select I have on loan only has 2 inputs I2S and Quad USB, I have been using USB with the Select and playing around with AES, Optical & USB on the Nagra out of the Aurender.The Aurender W20 is about 2 years old and the USB output is average at best, after talking with Romaz it seems the later ones have had their boards updated tot he same as the N10 etc and are much better, so for now the CAD CAT USB is being used into the Select.
 
First up the system has the following components:
 
Source's:  Computer Audio Designs CAT & Aurender W20 & Mac Pro (Optical) both the CAT and the Mac are using Roon V1.1 build 88 64bit
 
DAC's:      MSB Select II DAC & Nagra HD DAC - balanced outputs on both
 
AMP:        Woo 234 customs
 
Tubes:      Tung Sol RP 6SN7's, Elrog (New Release) 300B's, Takatsuki 274B
 
Cabling:    DHC Silver Spore 4 & Curious  
 
Photos:     I have the display of the Select to Auto Off
 

 

 
 

 
What an immaculate system. I'm speechless!  

  Not only is this an incredible stack, you've done an remarkable job of cable management. I'm very envious. Well done.

 

[Icenine2]

iSquirrel,
 
What under the sun does this system of yours sound like?  Must be Angels descending from the clouds............

 

[isquirrel]

Some female to female XLR couplers will be here tomorrow so will be able to run headphones direct out of the Select's balanced out's. Hopefully this will work okay, even better if it sounded good as Roy (Romaz) is telling me that DAC direct outputs do sound excellent. 
 
Will do a more detailed report on the sound of the Select tomorrow with and without an amp if all goes well. Still no sign of mine and this is going to back shortly plus the Nagra has found a new home. 
 
I can tell you that the Select has altered my understanding of what was possible, the lines between SOTA Analog & Digital have now been crossed. IMHO it sounds better than my previous SOTA Vinyl rig. I have experimented on a couple of people, one an experienced Head-Fier, the other my sharp hearing partner. Her respond was I think the best:
 
"I had to keep reminding myself that a machine and not a human was producing the sound".
 
Analog rig:
 
Rockport Sirius III
Integrated linear tracking arm with on the fly adjustment of VTA
Most preferred Cartridge - Air Tight Supreme
 
The difficult task is how to best convey it to you guys, for now all I can say is that its very very hard trying to describe the sound as usually you can say its got more bass or its soundstage is is wider etc etc, when my brain is telling me its real the analytical part shuts down as you are intoxicated by the music. Especially through headphones - its wired direct to brain. Usually I sit reading articles, surfing the web etc, this machine and its time travel effect makes it an effort to focus on doing anything else. There is no one aspect that I can comment on, it does;t have more bas than this or a better soundstage than that - its just shockingly real, not bright, not dark, everything is at it should be, there is no veil anymore, I am in the room not looking through the window.
 
I will ask my friend Matt to jump in here and comment. 
 
To be continued......

 

[romaz]

  ...its just shockingly real, not bright, not dark, everything is at it should be, there is no veil anymore, I am in the room not looking through the window.

Mouthwatering descriptors, Simon.  Thank you.  And these descriptors mean all the more given the level of gear you are comparing against.
 
But with your system, it's more than just the Select II.  From your HRS isolation bases underneath each component (even MSB stacks their gear and yet you don't) to your Shunyata power to your DHC Silver Spore4 headphone cable and on and on, it seems you have considered every detail with your integration and I can imagine that your setup is arguably at the ceiling of all headfi-dom.  I suspect even the Sennheiser Orpheus II will pale in comparison to your setup although rumor has it that MSB is working on headphone modules for the Select that will drive either dynamic or electrostatic headphones.  If so, quite the ultimate single box solution.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall that the Select II that is coming your way soon will actually be better than the one you have on hand as it will have the dual power bases (one for the digital side and the other for the analog side) as well as the upgraded Femto clock?  It will be interesting to hear your take on what kind of improvements these things bring.  Also, it will be interesting to know what you think of this DAC without your 234 amps in the chain.  For a while now, as you know, my position has been that with certain DACs with an adequately powered analog output stage and an adequately low output impedance, adding any headphone amp has been akin to adding a veil.  Lastly, as your system (especially DAC direct) is undoubtedly brutally transparent, I wonder which source (CAD CAT, Aurender W20, UMT via I2S, network renderer, etc) proves superior.  So many questions...

 

[Beolab]

  Some female to female XLR couplers will be here tomorrow so will be able to run headphones direct out of the Select's balanced out's. Hopefully this will work okay, even better if it sounded good as Roy (Romaz) is telling me that DAC direct outputs do sound excellent. 
 
Will do a more detailed report on the sound of the Select tomorrow with and without an amp if all goes well. Still no sign of mine and this is going to back shortly plus the Nagra has found a new home. 
 
I can tell you that the Select has altered my understanding of what was possible, the lines between SOTA Analog & Digital have now been crossed. IMHO it sounds better than my previous SOTA Vinyl rig. I have experimented on a couple of people, one an experienced Head-Fier, the other my sharp hearing partner. Her respond was I think the best:
 
"I had to keep reminding myself that a machine and not a human was producing the sound".
 
Analog rig:
 
Rockport Sirius III
Integrated linear tracking arm with on the fly adjustment of VTA
Most preferred Cartridge - Air Tight Supreme
 
The difficult task is how to best convey it to you guys, for now all I can say is that its very very hard trying to describe the sound as usually you can say its got more bass or its soundstage is is wider etc etc, when my brain is telling me its real the analytical part shuts down as you are intoxicated by the music. Especially through headphones - its wired direct to brain. Usually I sit reading articles, surfing the web etc, this machine and its time travel effect makes it an effort to focus on doing anything else. There is no one aspect that I can comment on, it does;t have more bas than this or a better soundstage than that - its just shockingly real, not bright, not dark, everything is at it should be, there is no veil anymore, I am in the room not looking through the window.
 
I will ask my friend Matt to jump in here and comment. 
 
To be continued......

Simon, do you have any date when you are about to try the Abyss / HEK1 + MSB Select II + 234 against Orpheus II with MSB Select II  also ? =)=)=) That would be a killer review setup!

 

[isquirrel]

 
Simon, do you have any date when you are about to try the Abyss / HEK1 + MSB Select II + 234 against Orpheus II with MSB Select II  also ? =)=)=) That would be a killer review setup!

That would be very nice, not going to happen though, I have no idea how I would go about getting an Orpheus II for demo, in any event, the tech appears to be in the headphones, the DAC is a 9018 Sabre DAC so as we are in the MSB thread I think everyone appreciates here you can do better than a single Sabre 9018 DAC. If the onboard DAC could be bypassed then undoubtably you could improve the Orpheus II. Still not really my cup of tea, it looks like a lifestyle "I am the richest guy in the room" type of product. That's of zero interest for my purposes.
 
Nice idea though ! You thinking of getting a demo ?

 

[isquirrel]

  Mouthwatering descriptors, Simon.  Thank you.  And these descriptors mean all the more given the level of gear you are comparing against.
 
But with your system, it's more than just the Select II.  From your HRS isolation bases underneath each component (even MSB stacks their gear and yet you don't) to your Shunyata power to your DHC Silver Spore4 headphone cable and on and on, it seems you have considered every detail with your integration and I can imagine that your setup is arguably at the ceiling of all headfi-dom.  I suspect even the Sennheiser Orpheus II will pale in comparison to your setup although rumor has it that MSB is working on headphone modules for the Select that will drive either dynamic or electrostatic headphones.  If so, quite the ultimate single box solution.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall that the Select II that is coming your way soon will actually be better than the one you have on hand as it will have the dual power bases (one for the digital side and the other for the analog side) as well as the upgraded Femto clock?  It will be interesting to hear your take on what kind of improvements these things bring.  Also, it will be interesting to know what you think of this DAC without your 234 amps in the chain.  For a while now, as you know, my position has been that with certain DACs with an adequately powered analog output stage and an adequately low output impedance, adding any headphone amp has been akin to adding a veil.  Lastly, as your system (especially DAC direct) is undoubtedly brutally transparent, I wonder which source (CAD CAT, Aurender W20, UMT via I2S, network renderer, etc) proves superior.  So many questions...

Thanks Roy, yes there are lots of questions to be answered, clearly the Select like any DAC I have played around with, needs a good source. I have clearly established that.
 
MSB are going to release a matching Select Transport at Munich this year. I understand that the final spec of that is not completed yet, so it could be either a UMT (Universal Media Transport) with a physical disc spinner or a computer based audio/video server with internal storage. My hope is for the latter, but its been a real stretch to get to the Select DAC level, anything else will have to wait a while. I wish I could try the Select with AES out of the Aurender but this particular Select only has a choice of I2S or Quad USB inputs. In this setup the CAT server is the preferred option running the latest 64 bit build of Roon Server.I have asked if it possible to borrow an MSB UMT as I would like to hear what it can do over an I2S connection. Wish Aurender would add I2S, but I suspect its too hard as pretty much every I2S connection is slightly different. 
 
You are correct the Select coming is a different colour (Silver) and has a couple of power bases and the Femto 33 clock plus AES + Word Clock out, S/PDIF, Optical, USB, I2S it also has both  outputs Balanced and Single ended. 
 
I will post today on direct Headphone out as soon as the coupler turns up. Then this DAC has to go back to its proper home, while I stare down the path for the FedEx delivery van 

 

 

[Beolab]

That would be very nice, not going to happen though, I have no idea how I would go about getting an Orpheus II for demo, in any event, the tech appears to be in the headphones, the DAC is a 9018 Sabre DAC so as we are in the MSB thread I think everyone appreciates here you can do better than a single Sabre 9018 DAC. If the onboard DAC could be bypassed then undoubtably you could improve the Orpheus II. Still not really my cup of tea, it looks like a lifestyle "I am the richest guy in the room" type of product. That's of zero interest for my purposes.

Nice idea though ! You thinking of getting a demo ?

This was more of a hypotetical question and because i know you have good connections, and yes the cheap Sabre chip aren't even activated yet in Orpheus II yet, so you have to have a separate DAC, and i was thinking Select DAC as source for the Orpheus II vs Select / Abyss / Woo 234 combo should have bin a nice contest.

Jude almost start crying because of the sound of the Orpheus II , take a look here:
http://youtu.be/YK6ilc1TMSo

Yes Orpheus will apere at our big High End Event in Stockholm in late february.

I hope you will come up with a short but more in dept review on the Select soon

 

[negura]

  The difficult task is how to best convey it to you guys, for now all I can say is that its very very hard trying to describe the sound as usually you can say its got more bass or its soundstage is is wider etc etc, when my brain is telling me its real the analytical part shuts down as you are intoxicated by the music. Especially through headphones - its wired direct to brain. Usually I sit reading articles, surfing the web etc, this machine and its time travel effect makes it an effort to focus on doing anything else. There is no one aspect that I can comment on, it does;t have more bas than this or a better soundstage than that - its just shockingly real, not bright, not dark, everything is at it should be, there is no veil anymore, I am in the room not looking through the window.
 
I will ask my friend Matt to jump in here and comment. 
 
To be continued......

 
It is similarly difficult to convey the sound of the Signature V stack and I can imagine how it must be with the Select... The usual descriptors become redundant. "Shocking real / you are there" is about summing it though.  And it all sounds even more impressive with speakers, but that could be just conjecture and a story for another time.

 

[ccschua]

  Some female to female XLR couplers will be here tomorrow so will be able to run headphones direct out of the Select's balanced out's. Hopefully this will work okay, even better if it sounded good as Roy (Romaz) is telling me that DAC direct outputs do sound excellent. 
 
Will do a more detailed report on the sound of the Select tomorrow with and without an amp if all goes well. Still no sign of mine and this is going to back shortly plus the Nagra has found a new home. 
 
I can tell you that the Select has altered my understanding of what was possible, the lines between SOTA Analog & Digital have now been crossed. IMHO it sounds better than my previous SOTA Vinyl rig. I have experimented on a couple of people, one an experienced Head-Fier, the other my sharp hearing partner. Her respond was I think the best:
 
"I had to keep reminding myself that a machine and not a human was producing the sound".
 
Analog rig:
 
Rockport Sirius III
Integrated linear tracking arm with on the fly adjustment of VTA
Most preferred Cartridge - Air Tight Supreme
 
The difficult task is how to best convey it to you guys, for now all I can say is that its very very hard trying to describe the sound as usually you can say its got more bass or its soundstage is is wider etc etc, when my brain is telling me its real the analytical part shuts down as you are intoxicated by the music. Especially through headphones - its wired direct to brain. Usually I sit reading articles, surfing the web etc, this machine and its time travel effect makes it an effort to focus on doing anything else. There is no one aspect that I can comment on, it does;t have more bas than this or a better soundstage than that - its just shockingly real, not bright, not dark, everything is at it should be, there is no veil anymore, I am in the room not looking through the window.
 
I will ask my friend Matt to jump in here and comment. 
 
To be continued......

 
probably the best word would be transparency, isnt it. it pays a hefty price tag to get to the ultimate transparency.

 

[ccschua]

 
MSB are going to release a matching Select Transport at Munich this year. I understand that the final spec of that is not completed yet, so it could be either a UMT (Universal Media Transport) with a physical disc spinner or a computer based audio/video server with internal storage. My hope is for the latter, but its been a real stretch to get to the Select DAC level, anything else will have to wait a while. I wish I could try the Select with AES out of the Aurender but this particular Select only has a choice of I2S or Quad USB inputs. In this setup the CAT server is the preferred option running the latest 64 bit build of Roon Server.I have asked if it possible to borrow an MSB UMT as I would like to hear what it can do over an I2S connection. Wish Aurender would add I2S, but I suspect its too hard as pretty much every I2S connection is slightly different. 
 

 

 
I wonder if MSB Analog has I2S input ? do we have to buy from MSB which is the green ethernet connection I2S ? should have implemented using HDMI.