Request Audio's The Beast

edorr said:

As a former customer who was always treated very well by them, I reluctantly say this, but it is hard not to conclude that MSB's primary goal is to extract the maximum amount of revenue from their very affluent customer base, through complex pricing, marketing and product release strategies. Delivering innovation and improving price performance of digital technology is a remote second objective.
They completely lost the plot with their $40K servers, $90K select models and $185K MCH system (which is a complete function/feature joke), and extorionary pricing.

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kheah78 said:

That is exactly what I meant, the price difference between the version you have and the version you want to upgrade to. Upgrades in the first year are free after which you have to pay the difference if you want the upgrade. This program is perfect for people who must always have the latest since you get the full value for the DAC you're trading in. This "rental" amount will be less than trying to sell for example, a DAC V to get a DAC VI!

However the price is frankly still ridiculous. It is made a little more palatable as I bought at the introductory price and with the even more crazy price for the new Select, I have saved a bundle already. This new Select is what I really wanted as I was told about it and shown pictures of the prototype when I was at the Munich show last year. The "value" of my DAC has gone up by $40k. I would call that a good investment!

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kheah78 said:

Has anyone bought or have used The Beast? I understand that it was launched in USA at this year's CES show.
I've had mine for about 5 months. During this time I have encountered many issues and bugs with the user interface/software. I have been in contact with Request Audio reporting all the issues but they have yet to fix any of these problems (except for an incompatibility with certain DSF files).

Is anyone else having problems with their The Beast? I'm getting very frustrated with their customer service and would like to get in touch with other owners/users to hear about their experience.

The Beast sounds fantastic and I'm very happy with the sound but the interface software is not up to acceptable standards. It takes the enjoyment out of playing music!

Thanks.

(SQ qualifier: I am not using the internal MSB developed DAC. Instead, The Beast is connected to a MSB Select using I2S.)

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edorr said:

I visited the pink faun shop in Holland last week. They say they are trying to do a shootout between "the beast" and their $4,000 a/v streamer. My money is on the a/v streamer (in fact I am about to order one).

For starters, I suspect the a/v streamer packs higher value hardware components than the beast (yet sells for $35k less). Do the math. The difference between a 2TB and 4TB version of the beast is $2,000. The difference in cost between these two drives is $100. I suspect the 2000% markup of hardware cost is roughly what was applied for this machine, so this $38K box packs about $2,000 worth of hardware. All the other cost to build the beast add nothing to its quality (e.g. custom build chassis, proprietary server software) yet inflate the price tremendously for a very small series product. By contrast. the component cost of the a/v streamer is proably just over $2,000, yet sells at low margin, manufacturer direct for just over $4,000.

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