MSB Select II arrival

Jazzhead said:

Quite surprising regarding the Formula , it sounds anything but like a tube DAC to me .What was the rest of the chain ? That may help clarify ....

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I still have the Formula sitting here.

the Formula does have a particularly unique sense of body and mid range weight, compared to other solid state contenders....so it's balance might fit into more systems than some other ss dacs. nothing thin or lean about it. when going from the Nagra HD or GG to the Formula, it's mid range was competitive. the tubed dacs had more bloom and liquidity, but the Formula had more textural detail and agility. and it separated things better than the GG, if not quite the Nagra HD.

so it had some tendency's of tube dacs, but overall the linearity's of solid state.

of course; this is just in my system....with the SGM.

the Select II is a few notches beyond the Formula in refinement and everywhere else. and with the second power supply I expect it to take another step forward.

KeithR said:

Perhaps tube-like is a better descriptor, but sure - the Aqua was through the Select's passive preamp to an ARC Ref 150 on YG Sonjas.

I found the Aqua was a bit closed in and more intimate, with a heavier focus on the midrange. It also projected more forward like some tubes do. It was very nice/smooth on vocals, but I didn't care for it on complex electronica. It also was a step behind in the bass department.

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Keith, was the only other dac you heard in that system the MSB Select II?

KeithR said:

Yes.

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ok, that makes sense........relative to the MSB Select II, with 2 power bases.

the difference in textural nuance might lead one to think 'tube-like' with the smoother/glossed over presentation. but it's a matter of the context.

this morning I removed the Select II Powerbase from the system, packed it up and loaded it in the car. it will ship today to MSB in Watsonville.

the second powerbase is built and the boards for my case will be ready today, so it's going back to be converted to the mono configuration. the turnaround, I'm told, should be pretty quick.

I'm headed to Chicago for a convention tomorrow morning back Friday night. so likely next week sometime i'll have the 2 Powerbases back with a minimum of time missing.

I guess I will be slumming it with vinyl and tape this weekend.

PeterA said:

Mike, I am enjoying this thread and want to bring it back to you and this MSB DAC. You wrote somewhere earlier in this thread that you compare all incoming digital source components to your analog front ends, both vinyl and tape. I presume that means you use those sources as the references against which you judge the MSB. What specifically do you listen for: how convincing it sounds, your musical involvement or enjoyment, specific sonic attributes, or is it something else? This MSB Select II DAC seems to come closer than others to the qualities of your analog that you so enjoy. Could you talk a bit more about that? I am also curious to learn what "This sounds best to me" means to you.

May I ask you to describe the ways in which the MSB and NVS sound like your experience with live, unamplified music? Which one sounds more real or convincing to you? Does that even matter to you, or do you see these as different interests/activities? Is a reference to actual live music not as critical to you in this evaluation stage? How does it matter to you in terms of long term listener satisfaction?

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after my relatives left last week, I went fishing on the weekend, then was traveling for business and now I'm sitting in O'Hare airport waiting to fly home. my Select II power supply is gone for the upgrade to the second power supply, not sure when it might return. so I've not had the focused time to answer these deep type questions since you asked them. but since I've got an hour before boarding i'll try to get started at least.

certainly I use my analog as my reference. and it's that honest analog kind of musical connection and degree of 'suspension of disbelief' that satisfies me. lately I've been listening quite a bit to large orchestral music on the MSB Select II, and since I'm not home I'm not going to try to reference particular recordings right now, but will add those later when my power supplies return. I've particularly focused on various PCM 176/24 and 192/24 orchestral recordings and I've been amazed by how much they sound like my vinyl. what always captured my attention with the vinyl was the ease and lack of any sort of artifact in the presentation, the music just happens, there is no congealing of things, every part of the individual musical threads lay out when they should, the bass is where it ought to be, the degree of air and texture is right, and if the passage is subtle and quiet that sort of feeling is right, yet if it explodes and soars that gets all the way done too. the MSB Select II is able to completely get all that done. there are differences in scale and ultimate intimacy, but it's 'just like' the vinyl.

there is a Japanese conductor who does the complete Beethoven Symphony cycle 1-9 (can't recall the name) in 192-24 and I let that play for 4-5 days and I'd listen when I could. I'm not qualified to comment on his artistic treatment of this music. only can say that I was very contented and engrossed in that musical journey, and the aspect where it is just going on and I can plug into it made that experience very special. the recording quality and masterings were all very good. the consistent sense of venue was magical to my ears. this type of experience is directly related to my vinyl journey. where I was embraced by the music. I had touched these recordings before with my other dacs; but this was in a whole different level of connection.

trying to describe exactly the points where the MSB Select II gets in the reality level of my analog is more challenging for my writing abilities to capture. but over these last 10 days since you asked your questions I have thought about it. in some certain ways it comes down to the way that vinyl adds the 'real' feeling to the space around the notes, and how the vinyl captures to inner/finer texture of music. part of it is the absence of any artifacts, and part of it is the resolution of information. and then there is the tonal color and shading, like my 4k OLED screen watching Planet Earth II. it's razor sharp, yet perfectly natural.

there is a photographic principle of the difference between sharpness, and critical sharpness. sharpness is what you see when you focus a lens through the viewfinder; but then there is using 'live view' to magnify a part of the frame to x10 and then focus. the naked eye cannot see it, but there is another level of sharpness that the gear can achieve. yet the sense of reality and the suspension of disbelief that happens when you achieve 'critical sharpness' is profound, like a whole different level of immersion in the picture.

great vinyl has 'critical sharpness' when done right; so does the MSB Select II. I have not heard that aspect of the music to close to that degree with any other digital. and that is a game-changer.

I have enjoyed reading your writings about your system and room improvements over time, but I don't really have a sense of what drives your obvious passion and momentous efforts to constantly improve what you have to ever higher levels. Is it to discover and own the current state of the art? You seem to be on a constant path, always moving forward toward the next improvement. Ordinarily, this would imply to me that you are not satisfied with what you have. But, I have been following your posts long enough to understand that you are immensely satisfied with your current gear and could stop any time, and yet, you continue onward. It is remarkable.

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PeterA said:

Mike, have you given any thought to my post?

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I will come back later and add on......

the Mono Powerbases arrived today around noon. this morning I had taken my Adona rack apart to investigate whether I could somehow have a separate shelf for each power supply, which is ideal. but I just don't have the height to do that considering my Herzan and dart preamp. but having the tt off and top shelf removed it was easy to just lower the heavy power supplies onto the shelf instead of trying to slip those into the tight space. but it did take awhile to reassemble the system before I could listen.

so there are a few different things I'm doing in terms of set up compared to how it was with only one power supply. before I had the second power supply under the dac and stacked on top of the Herzan and dart pre with a Symposium Svelte Shelf between the pre and the power supply. now it's just the Select II dac atop the Herzan/dart pre/Symposium/BDR cones. then on the upper Adona shelf I have -6- A10 U8 decoupling footers (due to 90 pound total for the 2 powerbases) under the bottom powerbase, then the upper powerbase uses the stock rubber footers into the recesses in the bottom powerbase. I've jumped the top powerbase to the bottom one for grounding, both then to the Tara GME w/HFX IC's and the Tripoint Troy Sig for chassis, and the Entreq grounded to the RCA inputs on the dac.

my opinion is that part of what I'm hearing is improved decoupling performance with both the dac and powerbases.

and I get into all that system set-up stuff because I am absolutely stunned by what I've been hearing from the addition of the Mono Powerbases over these last 3 hours. and trying to wrap my head around it I have a hard time thinking it's all the power supplies. my sense is that while the new dual powerbases get most of the credit, it's likely not that simple. we are operating at such a high level of information that everything matters.

what am I hearing? this is a quantum leap. I'm going to avoid the whole vinyl question for now as I have to be careful until I actually A/B recordings, but I do think I'm now at a spot where it makes sense to do that.

that out of the way, I'd say this step up is much more wide ranging in it's implications than I ever would have expected. besides clearly (not subtly) better everywhere, I'd say 'commanding'.....'authoritative'....'grounded/sure-footed'......'bigger/bolder'. before I might say that some tubed dacs have more bloom and in some ways more tonal density. not anymore. the dual powerbases simply take things to a different dimension of performance in my system. listening to familiar tracks there is much more texture and micro-dynamics. the word real and life-like hit me everywhere. the amount of projected musical energy is just in a whole different place from any digital I have heard. the music floats above yet is grounded in power. super holographic.

the bass is better in every way, more articulation and texture, more tonally rich, goes deeper and with more slam and weight. the nuance and delicacy is a few degrees better which results in clearly more ease and flow. on every familiar recording there are passages where my previous reference is now revealed to have had distortion, and now it's removed. this part really blows my mind.

the noise floor is lower, I'm hearing so much more ambience and sense of dimensionality and feelings of openness and a direct connection to the event, and so much delicate life like detail and the feeling the air is alive.

I'm going to go back to enjoying the music for now. I will try my best to list some recordings and get into details about them. that is not an easy thing for me, but I will do my best.