What does your DAC sound like

@brbrock  - you asked:

"Although you said that the Helene is better can you tell me if the Mystique X SE sounds similar?"

I have responded over on my Six DAC Comparison thread (here).

My dacs are DCS: Paganini and Elgar, as well as my Arcam FMJ CD23 Ring CD player, which is the reason I even bought DCS. After 25 years of having a Ring converter (the Arcam), and having tried  and lived with many others, I decided I had to stick with a Ring converter dac. Both Arcam and DCS really DO pay tribute to the music.

Both bring the music to life in a way that is mesmerizing (one sits there smiling at how complete the presentation is, even as one is just thrilled to death musically). Most dacs sound great, but do truly they have the "Breath Of Life"? Not too many do that; they’re more concerned with having ’great bass,’ or ’great treble’ or ’great midrange.’ Music, however, is more than that, and DCS appears to have gotten their "1s" and "0s" pretty correct.

I have had a Schiit Yggdrasil, Bryston BDA and two other dacs, and they were all highly competent. But none of them quite reached the experience of what it sounds like when a cellist is sitting 6 feet away from you (this happens in  students' recitals in music teachers’ homes). The DCS does this (feeling of the instruments moving in the likelike way they do in real life) extremely well. And while things like soundstaging and imaging are not what I look for anymore (after 40 years in this hobby, I expect the soundstage to be well-formed), the DCS presents a much airier, larger venue than any previous processors. And the images are very individualized. None of the musicians-sitting-on-top-of-each-other in the soundstage! No crowding!!

But the music is where DCS excels. The tonal palette of DCS converters is wide, so there are more "colors" of the orchestra. Strings are "silvery," brass is "golden", double basses ('wooden')  have the correct amount of body (internal volume and are not "shrunk" in size within the soundstage (most of the other digital I have heard "shrinks" the size of instruments, which it shouldn’t).  The pluck of classical guitar is thrilling to hear, complete with the harmonic information that follows (another thing a lot of digital doesn’t excel at: ambience retrieval) with space around the guitar.

The Schiit has a more ’direct’ sound, as though someone is sitting 6th row center (considered the ideal seating in a symphonic music hall). The DCS is a bit like 9th row center: the sound leaping off the guitars is very much akin to what it is live, but one also hears the ambience of the recording venue, and that includes the side and back walls (which none of the digital I had prior to this, revealed) and the floor (usually inaudible unless the dac has stellar low-level capabilities).

If I wanted to compare, I could compare the Arcam FMJ CD 23 player I have. The Arcam is fantastic at picking up even the slightest change in "touch" on an instrument. If they pluck/slap/ a string, one can hear the variation from second to second. But the Arcam presents a much smaller venue, vaguer in its ambience retrieval than the DCS, which makes it sound as though the orchestra was moved to a much larger venue during intermission and now you hear the venue clearly.

DCS is great a presenting a complete picture of what is going on musically. What we all hope from our converters.

Ones & Zeros.  😵‍💫

MSB Technology Select II DAC

For sale on Audiogon

PRICE REDUCED!  more than 50%

 $36,000

Listing ID: lisbdfe1 Classified 

Listed June 4, 2025 3:15pm · 602 Views

● My Grandparents lived through the depression, saved the first, last, and every dime they ever made. They lived well, and died with a large fortune! So, if I were to buy something as foolish as this DAC, they would dis-own me in heaven!!!

But to each their own. This looks like a deal if anyone is interested. 

We have to keep in mind that the A in DAC stands for Analog, so in order for a DAC to sound great, both the conversion and Analog output stage must be good.  I like Benchmark products which have an astounding SN ratio, and some features found on very few other DACS like the +3db of digital headroom, adjustable output gain (for use with both pro and consumer gear) and both digital and analog volume control.
https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/digital-filter-overload-distortion