MSB vs dCS Bartok

@4425  
https://www.tonepublications.com/review/the-dcs-bartok-dac/

Compares the various DCS units

I have by luck engaged with a new dealer who can source Merging Audio products - Merging+Player+Power. Which is essentially a 2 box DAC/Streamer/preamp with an outboard power supply. 
Anyone have any knowledge about Merging Audio ?

@mikelavigne

the MSB Premier, as far as i know, cannot do streaming by itself. but i do believe it can be spec’d with a high quality volume control. you will need a CPU of some sort as a Roon end point.

What do you mean here? The Premier takes the same digital input modules as the Reference, Select and even the entry level Discrete. Including the latest Ethernet Renderer V2. I have a Premier and I have the Ethernet Renderer in it and it works great with Roon.

@rhmmmm

What do you mean here? The Premier takes the same digital input modules as the Reference, Select and even the entry level Discrete. Including the latest Ethernet Renderer V2. I have a Premier and I have the Ethernet Renderer in it and it works great with Roon.

you need a Roon core + Roon end point.

an MSB dac cannot work as a Roon core to my knowledge. the Core is where the music is managed. typically you would have a (1) laptop, (2) dedicated server, or (3) a NAS with it’s CPU used as the core.

i used my MSB Select II with the Renderer v2 as the Roon end point, but still used a dedicated server for the Roon core.

if you somehow used only your MSB Premier as the Roon Core + End point then where were your files, and what did your remote communicate with to change music selections? those functions are related to the Roon Core.