New MSB Cascade DAC

[Lee]

We are working on a module which will provide a direct MSB PRO ISL fiber interface. For joint MSB/Taiko customers this means they can bypass/eliminate their MSB Pro USB adapter and USB cable and/or MSB Network Renderer V2 module if they so desire.

Are you doing anything for dCS owners as well?

 

[Kingrex]

The "working around USB for a decade" remark is quite fitting imho But there's also a versatility benefit to USB being you have options where / when you do your USB to I2S conversion, this however adds to the "messy" appearance.

Most commonly the USB to I2S conversion is performed inside the DAC. MSB offers this as the MSB USB input module. But indeed it's generally accepted that their external MSB Pro USB solution, which moves the USB to I2S conversion to an external adapter, and then transports I2S over an optical link to the DAC, is the superior solution.

This is actually more similar then different to what Wadax offers, both perform their USB to I2S conversion externally from their DACs. But obviously Wadax can place their XMOS module inside their server and go direct I2S over optical out, where MSB needs to rely on that external module for compatibility as they don't manufacture their own server based sources (yet?).

A lot of DAC use a JCat USB card. Do you have an option for that? Maybe those DAC are lower cost than what a Taiko owner would purchase. Either way, if you parented the output and input cards, you could impact the industry as a manufacturer for other companies to use the technology.

 

[gds7368]

We are working on a module which will provide a direct MSB PRO ISL fiber interface. For joint MSB/Taiko customers this means they can bypass/eliminate their MSB Pro USB adapter and USB cable and/or MSB Network Renderer V2 module if they so desire.

Great news! If I am using the new direct MSB PRO ISL fiber interface ... should I get the XDMI interface option on the Olympus?

 

[Ron Resnick]

My posts here were a critic about the sound of MSB Cascade DAC. I tried to show what I hear with evidences (videos).

But this simply isn't true, because you have not heard "the sound of MSB Cascade DAC."

In my personal opinion your posts are intellectually dishonest, trolling and unfair.

 

[Elliot G.]

But this simply isn't true, because you have not heard "the sound of MSB Cascade DAC."

In my personal opinion your posts were intellectually dishonest, trolling and unfair.

none of this makes sense asno one has heard the Cascade or the Taiko or any of the new products. This is all meaningless until these products are released and people can see and listen to them. How does anyone know what they do or if they work or if they ever will come to market.
I really dont get it . I understand the enthusiasm for new tech and new improvements but before we crown them perhaps it would make sense to let them actually come to market.
AS I said this is the best food I ever ate even though I have never tried it!!!

 

[Taiko Audio]

Are you doing anything for dCS owners as well?

Dual AES/EBU

A lot of DAC use a JCat USB card. Do you have an option for that? Maybe those DAC are lower cost than what a Taiko owner would purchase. Either way, if you parented the output and input cards, you could impact the industry as a manufacturer for other companies to use the technology.

We have an USB output card, the idea of the new interface is to get rid of USB entirely though

Great news! If I am using the new direct MSB PRO ISL fiber interface ... should I get the XDMI interface option on the Olympus?

That would allow you to get rid of the MSB USB to Pro ISL adapter, and your USB cable.

 

[Kingrex]

We have an USB output card, the idea of the new interface is to get rid of USB entirely though

What I was trying to say is can you make the new architecture for your XMOS fit on a card like USB so that any server, be it home made could benefit.

 

[Taiko Audio]

What I was trying to say is can you make the new architecture for your XMOS fit on a card like USB so that any server, be it home made could benefit.

I’m happy to elaborate on future options but if you don’t mind we should move this discussion to a different thread as it’s unrelated to the MSB Cascade DAC, like this for example:

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/introducing-olympus-olympus-i-o-a-new-perspective-on-modern-music-playback.37939/page-86#post-967033

 

[Taiko Audio]

 

[Daniel Gullman]

Hello! This is Daniel Gullman here, finally decided to make an account and jump in to share some thoughts. It pains me to see speculation for things that I have the answers behind all this… so here I am, to hopefully clear a few things up. Specifically around trade in, modular design, and the pricing for the new Cascade DAC.

The 95,000 USD price of the Cascade DAC is a disruption to MSB and to industry trends. Here, we have a DAC outperforming the Select DAC and we made the radical decision to sell it for less. Why?

I will happily provide some full transparency on the reasoning behind the decisions made. This is a real example of how “greedy corporations” can and often work, not us. We could have arbitrarily decided to sell the Cascade DAC for 165,000. That reality would see our customers unknowingly purchase both the Cascade DAC and the value of the Reference DAC all over again. Easy for us to offer 100% trade value as long as we could still find a way to sleep at night. A cloak and daggers method to deceive people. This is genuinely what industry folks asked us to do when we first revealed the pricing… it’s a thing. I hate it.

Let’s chat about the previous trade in program, and how it was different. For the Reference to Select upgrade: we gut and re-use almost all the parts of the Reference DAC. Because this is the same platform, we can do that and make the trade in actually work. Also, the price gap between the Reference and Select (73,500) is much bigger than between the Reference and Cascade (16,000). But now, moving to the Cascade, we have fundamentally changed to next gen architecture and we cannot migrate materials over. If we limited the Cascade to the Select platform it would have killed our most innovative product evolution yet. The Cascade DAC will have 90% trade in because similarly, we can migrate the actual DAC materials over to the new Sentinel DAC.

Now, let’s address modular design… the DACs are still modular and will still benefit from this. When/if new updates or input modules come out, they will be made available to existing DACs that are already 10 years old… and that will continue moving forward. The Digital Director for the Reference and Select is an upgrade we were able to implement because of this. This is the upgrade path to the new platform! Y’all made it! This is how products are supported. We will continue to do this! We are nerds and we want everyone to get their hands on cool stuff. We can service and fix our DACs longer than anyone in our industry because of this design feature.

Alright, sorry for the long message, last thing to discuss. Why 50%? I hear you, and you are right. Do not trade in a one month old DAC! That would be wild. This trade in policy is a price protection policy. It means in 5 years, your Reference will not drop below 50% because it CAN be traded in for the Cascade. Maybe even in 8 or 10 years!? If anyone wants to sell their new Reference DAC, the buyer can know that DAC has an established value. It is worth a hell of a lot more than 50% its original value. Let’s not get carried away praising the new DAC at the cost the Reference and Select DACs. They are still. So. Damn. Good. Every owner thought it was worth the money when they bought them, and they still are.

So, in the end, why choose 95k vs 165k? This is where the buyer wins, not the “greedy corporation”. I am terribly concerned over industry behavior towards charging whatever will be paid. Systems based on retail dollar values instead of the product craftsmanship. They say the audio market is slowing down, but I feel we are simply pricing out the people we do it for. We are engineers who have created a leading class manufacturing facility with advanced robotics, lean manufacturing, and clever designs to be able to offer our best sound ever at this price point. I am not disillusioned on the price, this is still expensive, but we are going to make sure quality from start to finish is second to none.

This is as honest as I can be. I am just a guy trying to make cool audio systems because I really like building them. I am not trying to screw anyone over. We made a decision that was best for the most people possible… and I totally get how much that sucks for some of you. For that, I am sorry. We decided not to gauge you… if you tally it up, it’s a better future for you too.

Cheers all! Glad to be here.

 

[Daniel Gullman]

This is probably a dumb question but is the cascade dual mono? That is, completely separate parallel architecture once sent to the DAC portion and on to the analog?

Correct. Inside has parallel and isolated channels. Our DAC modules are separate for each channel, so it is not shared like a "chip DAC" solution. We have a deep dive video coming out in the next week that will show what's inside each chassis. I think by industry speak, dual mono might mean separate chassis entirely for each chassis... but its phrasing that can be easily manipulated depending on what you want to say haha. alas.

 

[davetheoilguy]

Thank you Looking forward to th me video.

Correct. Inside has parallel and isolated channels. Our DAC modules are separate for each channel, so it is not shared like a "chip DAC" solution. We have a deep dive video coming out in the next week that will show what's inside each chassis. I think by industry speak, dual mono might mean separate chassis entirely for each chassis... but its phrasing that can be easily manipulated depending on what you want to say haha. alas.

.

 

[godofwealth]

As someone who was considering getting a high end server, these “interface wars” have put an end to my purchase decision. I’m going to wait to see if XDMI actually becomes more than a one manufacturer interface. I’m also wary of investing in a novel interface that might take a while to get its bugs sorted out. I recall my early days of owning dCS gear with the FireWire interface between the Elgar Plus, the Purcell, the Verdi transport and the clock. Every manufacturer touts their interface. It’s too confusing as a consumer. I’m going to stick with the established interfaces for now (USB, SPDIF) and see how this fast changing market evolves.

 

[Wavetouch]

But this simply isn't true, because you have not heard "the sound of MSB Cascade DAC."
In my personal opinion your posts are intellectually dishonest, trolling and unfair.

I mentioned (#31 post) "I heard MSB DACs in audio shows. Above video sounds exactly what I heard. "

My room (#272) is next to ALMA audio at THE SHOW 2024, OC. Costa Mesa. I'll hear MSB this year again. I welcome everyone to compare sounds of MSB and my system.

ALMA audio represents MSB and will play it (like previous audio shows and debuted Cascade at Munich audio show 2024) at THE SHOW 2024, OC. Costa Mesa audio show on June 7-9, 2024.

--- edit ---
My initial post was about the noise I hear from MSB video (post #29). Some disagree with my opinion. So, I post few videos to support my opinion. Then some wrote it's a video problem.

So, I wrote (post #61) "I see more respect members have different opinions. I know the argument doesn't solve anything. I am done with this thread." Please respect that.

 

[Dustin Symanski]

I mentioned (#31 post) "I heard MSB DACs in audio shows. Above video sounds exactly what I heard. "

My room (#272) is next to ALMA audio at THE SHOW 2024, OC. Costa Mesa. I'll hear MSB this year again. I welcome everyone to compare sounds of MSB and my system.

ALMA audio represents MSB and will play it (like previous audio shows and debuted Cascade at Munich audio show 2024) at THE SHOW 2024, OC. Costa Mesa audio show on June 7-9, 2024.

I welcome constructive criticism, but I don’t believe your comments are constructive, are actual criticism or even have any place in this discussion at all, here is my reasoning as to why.

I will be using cars in an analogy because many (most?) people have experience with them.

Your posts have the equivalent message of “I’m a Chevy dealer that once rode shotgun in a Ford around a crowded parking lot, and it handled like crap!” Now it may be that some, or even all Fords handle like crap, but the above statement has a huge problem with bias (you would probably like to put your competitor out of business, or at least steal some of it) a huge problem with specifics (exactly what Ford did you drive? When? Did you even do any of the driving? And is it even the same model of Ford car in discussion?), and evaluation circumstances (is a crowded parking lot really the appropriate place to do a handling evaluation of a car?).

Your factual evidence is also of the weakest possible kind, compressed videos from the internet :-( Are you really going to defend internet videos as reliable evidence of audio quality? I would doubt you had any expertise in audio on this fact alone….

 

[Carlos269]

I welcome constructive criticism, but I don’t believe your comments are constructive, are actual criticism or even have any place in this discussion at all, here is my reasoning as to why.

I will be using cars in an analogy because many (most?) people have experience with them.

Your posts have the equivalent message of “I’m a Chevy dealer that once rode shotgun in a Ford around a crowded parking lot, and it handled like crap!” Now it may be that some, or even all Fords handle like crap, but the above statement has a huge problem with bias (you would probably like to put your competitor out of business, or at least steal some of it) a huge problem with specifics (exactly what Ford did you drive? When? Did you even do any of the driving? And is it even the same model of Ford car in discussion?), and evaluation circumstances (is a crowded parking lot really the appropriate place to do a handling evaluation of a car?).

Your factual evidence is also of the weakest possible kind, compressed videos from the internet :-( Are you really going to defend internet videos as reliable evidence of audio quality? I would doubt you had any expertise in audio on this fact alone….

I believe that Alex has invited attendees to a “live” comparison during the upcoming show.

 

[Al M.]

I believe that Alex has invited attendees to a “live” comparison during the upcoming show.

Show conditions are still hit and miss. I'll be there and do the comparison for myself. If one or both rooms sound bad, I'll draw no conclusions. If one room sounds good, that says something good about that room.

Only an inexperienced person will draw conclusions from bad sound at a show -- where so many things can go wrong.

 

[Carlos269]

Show conditions are still hit and miss. I'll be there and do the comparison for myself. If one or both rooms sound bad, I'll draw no conclusions. If one room sounds good, that says something good about that room.

Only an inexperienced person will draw conclusions from bad sound at a show -- where so many things can go wrong.

I get it. You don’t draw any conclusions from videos and you don’t draw any conclusions from shows, but I believe that you draw conclusions from home or dedicated listening room environments other than your own. I wonder how you are able to correlate some listening conditions but are unable to correlate other listening conditions. Perhaps you can elaborate on your methodology.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...hiya. Any chance we can post all this extraneous banter on the appropriate threads, rather than on this MSB Cascade thread?

 

[matthias]

...hiya. Any chance we can post all this extraneous banter on the appropriate threads, rather than on this MSB Cascade thread?

+1
Can not moderators delete OT posts?