MSB select II vs all dacs ?

I understand that audio stores and distribution companies have the opportunity to A/B a significant amount of equipment. Unless they have the exact same components as the end user, it's impossible to tell that customer how component X will sound in their system. The other issue is preference. What ice cream do you prefer? No matter what ice cream you prefer, I prefer something else. This hobby is "highly subjective", influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions; therefore you can A/B a million different components and come to a completely different conclusion on how it sounds compared to another listener. I hate to repeat myself, but there are no absolutes in audio, only preferences. The end users ears are the only ears that count.

“Personally we have A/B 76 different digital front ends.”

@worldwidewholesales, 

Is the number 76 comes from your life long exposure to digital front ends or direct comparison with Rockna DAC?

We would love to see your top 10 A/B comparisons with Rockna. Why not start a thread that details your impression about Rockna Sig vs other 9 DAC’s that are currently available and competing in $20-$5K range? 

Cheers! 

Hi,

 

First I want to say that I fully agree that the hobby is subjective to a point and that is why we do blind testing and A/B testing with 5 other people who only have 2 things in common with our system. The remainder of the 5 systems are completely different, our rooms are completely different and our ears are completely different. But the majority of the time all 6 of us, over a 2 day test period come to the exact same conclusion. Lots of time it comes down to knowing what you are actually trying to achieve in a high end home system and listening for that end result.

 

Our digital testing has been done over the last 20 + years and as I said earlier there is no "best" when it comes to dacs or digital front ends. Set up is key, cables are super important, server is also very important and our preference connection is an i2S connection.

 

It would be absolute suicide for an audio distributor to state his/her experience and preferences. It would only sound like sales so we prefer to keep our test results among ourselves. I hope you understand.

Cheers,

@worldwidewholesales did you hear MSB Select 2? How did Rockna compare?