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How good is MSB Discrete Dac?

On Dec 6th, 2018 I had attended Launching event of YG Acoustics Hailey 1.2 speakers in Seoul, Korea.

MSB Select II Dac and Pre was connected to Viola Legacy Mono Amplifier to drive the speakers.

Nordost Valhalla cables were used.

The system gave wide and deep soundstage with tight and tuneful bass.

There is no doubt it was top notch system in every way with the total cost of component over 200K $.





At the end of show, we decided to do interesting comparison between MSB Select Dac II (85K$) and vinyl system using Kronus turntable.

Kronus turntable was fed to Octave phono amp and Viola Pre amp,

MSB Select was used as Pre and Dac.


I got surprised to find that MSB and Kronus gave very similar sound.

MSB Select provided slightly more dense sound with little bit more details.

Kronus gave slightly more relaxed sound.


If I had to choose one, I would take Kronus over MSB on this music since I like relaxed sound as I get older.


But it could change with different music.

Unfortunately we could test only one music.

Other people may have different opinion.



Despite this conclusion, MSB Select II gave one of the best sound from any DAC that I had ever heard.

But Select II with price tag of 100K$ is out of reach for most of people.



Base Model of MSB Discrete Dac is under 10k$.

It is much affordable.


Now the question is how good MSB Discrete Dac is.


If possible, I would like to audition MSB Discrete Dac at my home.

But I could not find any dealer around Seattle area.

The closest one is located on Vancouver, Canada.


I welcome input from who experienced MSB Discrete Dac.
128x128shkong78
shkong78's avatar
shkong78 OP
1,485 posts
 
While staying in Seoul, Korea for dental work, I made an appointment to listen to MSB Premier and Discrete for comparison on 23rd Thursday.

Seoul is much better than Seattle to audition high end system with access to all major brands.

It may be one of the best city to audition high end at the same level as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore.
firstnot's avatar
firstnot
248 posts
 
Lot better things to do in Seoul than audition equipment.
Things you can't do in Seattle for sure.
shkong78's avatar
shkong78 OP
1,485 posts
 
I was born in Seoul and had lived there for 35 years( more than half of my life).


Seoul is such a big city that I had not visited part of it.

But I had been to most of the big sightseeing attractions in Seoul.

While in Seoul,the most joyful thing is to listen to high end components that I am interested in.

Seoul is five times better than Seattle regarding accessibility to high end.

Thomas
jwm
918 posts
 
thyname try the Bricasti M21 I think it will change your mind.
itsjustme
682 posts
 
I have not heard the MSB discrete DAC. But wait, i do have a point.... :-)
I have a 15 year old MSB Gold Full Nelson. I also got the pinouts for the power supply, and built my own, external, franken - supplies (totally independent analog and digital back to the wall plug (well, fuse), and both passive filtered and discrete custom regulated to a silly degree.
With upsampling enabled, driven by   Macbook Pro from FLAC/ALAC and bitperfect (bitperfect is very, very good, alas itunes is very, very bad), the gold full nelso link DAC (Base price like $500 in the day) is astonishing for an old, relatively cheap device. very un-digital (non fatiguing, warm, easy to listen to), and yet dynamic, detailed and extended frequencies like digital should be. And this is through a very revealing system.
If Mark could do THAT with zero resources, 15 years ago, what can he do with $10k today? A lot i would assume.
So i’d bet its a great product.
G
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