I’m one of the three “traitors”, I suppose. After 5 months with the MK II I was simply happy, I loved it, it undoubtedly improved the SQ compared to my 3 years old MK I. Even though I experienced beta unit misunderstanding (long story), some issues to be fixed and firmware updates problems… I was honored to be in contact with Ted to test it for a while, a really kind and passionate guy not only a genius.
Life is strange, I wasn’t think to sell it at that time. A Saturday morning I visited a dealer for an audition, don’t know why, I wasn’t searching for anything in particular. Just audiophile curiosity! Suddenly, I simply felt in love with another DAC. It happened, that’s all.
I hope my wife never reads about my frivolous attitude!
Well for $27K I would hope that the MSB DAC sounds better. Back in 2017 when I was shopping for new speakers the dealer that I bought them from would play the SACD’s I used to audition the speakers on an MSB DAC. At that time there was an MSB SACD/CD transport. I think it used an Oppo mechanism like the old PS Audio DMP did. I do not see a transport on the MSB website. Do you play SACDs or CDs?
Here in EU unfortunately even more expensive, Tony! It’s always dangerous having auditions, I learnt on my skin the lesson.
MSB doesn’t produce transports anymore, I disagree with them because I think playing CDs still makes sense nowadays. I loved the PST + MK I combo for instance, particularly playing CD/SACDs via I2S HMDI Dragon. They sound glorious, period! At that time I considered CDs reproduction superior over streaming from Qobuz.
Once MK II offered a superior USB input, at least as much as I2S, new opportunities raised up. I still use the PST transport, I love it! So I cannot play SACDs because MSB DACs do not sport I2S inputs.
To my ears now CDs and Qobuz are sonically equivalent, much depends on recordings more than gear. I have less than 10 SACSs in my collection, so it’s not a problem.
MSB works out great in your situation. People like we who owns a large collection of SACD do not have too many choices. Once I selected PST, then it is logical to go with DS/DS MK2 because of the I2S connection.
I have been buying about 50-60 SACDs per year. But with the latest streaming upgrade I will buy much less because SQ are very close. The SQ of streaming will save me money and storage from now on. Still, I have 300 to 400 SACDs so my next DAC needs to have I2S input (TSS, where are you?).
Unfortunately this hobby sometimes makes you illogically incoherent though. I still haven’t learnt enough from my bad decisions, my friend. I’m a bad newbie! And I occasionally take the way I never thought before was the right one. Simply driven by instinct (or ears). Isn’t it the funniest part of the life?
I ripped quite a few SACDs, but recently the program that everyone was using did not work anymore. I even got the same Sony Blueray player again, and it still did not work.
The worst illogical decision on my part is that I kept buying cables and cords. Within a few months I bought two pricy power cords, two pricy USB cables, and I am looking at another pricy power cord. That may not be the last one either.
This hobby can make you happy and mad at the same time.
