While I have not owned the Select or the Premiere I did own for a number of years the MSB Power Dac Gold which uses the core MSB ladder dac technology. I was told by a MSB insider that they thought it actually sounded better than some of the higher end units (not speaking of the Select or Premiere) because it was one circuit board and they found the direct connection had benefits related to the sound quality over the beauty of modularity. Can’t have everything :) I owned it for years and at times it made some beautiful music. I did find it to be a little soft. I literally sold it because the little $700.00 Metrum Acoustics Octave knocked the living snot out of it.
No contest, speed, dynamics, flow, weight and musicality all went to the tiny little two box Metrum which in turn got its clock cleaned by the AMR DP 777 se which I still have and am listening to some 11 years later, in fact as I type this post.
I did think I wanted a Diamond Dac back in the day but when I auditioned it, I was left unmoved.
You simply have to listen for yourself no matter what people say or how something measures and I have never ever heard a dac which sounds better direct than with a great preamplifier and that includes my former Wadia, my current AMR Dac and too many others to name. The Bidat? Hmm that little thing is a freak which is why I still own one and direct, yeah it’s formidable.
