Msb dacs why not alot of postings

" The MSB may be a marvel of engineering but how much does it differ on the analog output from the Benchmark? In my opinion it isn't so much how we get the result as what is the result."

Seems to me that finding an opportunity to go listen to one for yourself is probably the only way to answer your question  one way or the other to your satisfaction. 

You can use the msb dac as a preamp...im sure other dacs are the same. 

@dannad

"Some people like NOS DACs, most do not. I would go on a limb and say no one could reliability tell you whether a DAC was R2R or DS without being told."

I am no sure whether r2r vs d-s aren't discernible. The whole idea is, if implemented properly, the technology should actually be transparent to the end user. The dacs should ideally sound the same. But technically or psychoacoustically, they do not. Some devices to sound fatiguing over the long term, this is essentially what all these discussions boil down to. But that's a complex issue. After a hard day of work, I could be fatigued easily listening to music vs a nice pleasant day, in the same system with the same tracks.

NOS vs OS may be far easier to discern. R2R does not have to be NOS, BTW. Most (all?) Schiit dacs are OS r2r dacs. All NOS dacs will attenuate the high frequency by ~3db due to the nature of signal processing. Sinc(x)/x function. By reading many topics over years in this space, I realized even some pro reviewers do not know this. This attenuation doesn't mean treble will sound bad. But treble is definitely rolled off if the DAC is NOS. And you can counter that if you choose to, by using software to oversample prior to sending the signal to the NOS dac. Then the attenuation happens beyond the limit of human hearing. Most of us probably do not have the capability to hear up to 20KHz, last I checked I could discern up to 17KHz. So if the r2r dacs starts to attenuate at 15KHz, this will not be very noticeable as most of our music rarely contains components within the extremities of the bandwidth anyway.

That's also something everyone should test, there are plenty of web based or youtube based signal generators to test your hearing (and your system).

Further reading: https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/1191.php

"FPGA is not a type of DAC. It is a method of implementating digital logic and algorithms."

I know that. I meant the class of dacs that use FPGA chips could be called FPGA dacs. PS Audio, Chord Dave etc. The chips can be modified by software. Hence PS Audio dacs are modifiable by software updates.

As a (amateur) musician i love my MSB dac. It's the dac that tells the story of music to me. Many other DA converters I have listened to are reproducing notes in a technical way. If I study my teacher sometimes tells me: you're playing vertical notes instead of musical sentences. 

I have learned using a good cable with a low impedance is key as the output impedance from the MSB is rather low. Matching with the "wrong" cable does affect the result. But i assume that matching gear and it's connections isn't an unknown here. Also important is to make sure you have the connections right. A MSB dac is fully balanced and when connected to a single ended design trough it's balanced output...it will perform mediocre. 

Warranty and product support from this company is extraordinary... and that also has it's price. If you just bluntly say it's expensive and promote another brand...it gives true credit to MSB for making exeptional gear. 

Enjoy the music.