I am getting close on the MSB, here is the what I am finding. The unit is very refined and I know I keep saying that like a broken record. The reason is that I am not happy with the amount of treble energy. I find that the vocal region seems to be (almost spotlighted) more prominent than the energy in the treble region. I remembered reading something like this and so I googled MSB review Platinum and found the old Stereophile review of the original Platinum dac which I believe contained the 1st generation of there in-house designed R2R ladder dac. Now granted the power dac has the 2nd Generation dacs and a much more powerful digital filter, but man... the reviewer described exactly what I was hearing in the treble. It is not bad by any stretch of the imagination so don't get me wrong. It is simply a presentation I am not comfortable with.
To be fair I spoke to one of there engineers and Vince (a great guy by the way) who suggested I order new batteries. I did so ,but they won't arrive until Wed or Thursday of this week (which is why this review was delayed and even now I am doing so with pause). I did open the unit last evening and measured the voltages on all 5 batteries (without the unit being connected to the charger which could give a false read) and they were all at spec, so next I made sure all the connection were tight and that the voltage at the terminals was the voltage sent to the circuit board. All was good. I did note that the treble seemed to improve after placing the unit back in the system.
Now comes the other bad thing... :) I had been listening to the DCC-1 (Museatex) on input 3 only. Well whilst comparing the MSB and DCC-1 I decided to try it on input 1 (1 and 3 are both TOS). OK....I can hear it coming, but I am telling you there was a huge difference. The number 1 input was much fuller than the number 3 input. I tired number 2 but it sounded identical to 3. So perhaps the receiver for the num 1 input is further from the mains or some EMI/RFI interference...I don't know but I know what my ears told me.
So, now the one advantage that I thought the MSB had over the DCC-1 (fuller, weightier more refined) is nill. I am now listening to the DCC-1.
I will of course reserve final judgment until the new batteries arrive and are installed and (thought they come pre-charged) have charged for at least an hour to make sure they are topped-off.
One other thing, one of the guys at MSB (when I described what I was hearing) stated that it was something in my system. When I informed him that I owned 5 dacs and had many others in for eval with ONLY the MSB displaying this behavior that argument went out the window.
I am having fun though :)
