MPD-8 Playback Designs - What did you own before and what did you compare with?

[grandsoir]

Hello

So after a lot of reading and talking to folks, I think I´ve narrowed it down to the following

==
MPD-8 Playback Designs
Holo Audio May KTE
MSB
==

But it´s 85% of a chance that I am going for the Playback Design. I´m looking for a DAC that can give the music emotions and dont sound digital / harsh or thin.

Holo Audio were praised a couple of years ago for sounding "analog" etc. but I also heard that it was kinda dependent to be used with a computer and HQ-player to sound the best.
MPD should be in a totally other leauge looking at the pricepoint alone.

MSB is also interesting, but it seems that it´s more analytic than Playback Design.

For those of you that switched to MPD-8; what did you have before and what are your thought about it. Is is a DAC that will settle you for a long time?

I dont understand that it´s softwarebased somewhat FPGA and a lot of it´s greatness is becuase of Andreas Koch. And that all files gets converterad and upsampled to DSD.

Anything that´s negative with the DAC?

Thanks

 

[Digital Buddha]

Pretty big price swing there. the mpd8 msrps for $24k. if you have the budget I would definitely just skip the line and goto the mpd-8 it truly is a world class dac. the holo may is good , great in fact for the money ive had one but it really needs hqplayer to shine imo. its a whole other level of Dac with sinc-m 1.536mhz pcm hqplayer. For the money fantastic not sure what else gets close at 5k. with hq player I think it probably competes with dacs in the 10k range. if you want to skip hq player I would look into the Mola mola tambaqui $11k , T+A DAC 200 - $7.5k ive only herd the mola mola and was blown away. there is a review on YouTube of the DAC 200 from a reviewer who compares it directly to the holo may.

I went a little crazy and went all in on the Lampizator horizon and when I say that jump from the holo may to horizon was 2x bigger then jump from denafrips ares ii $700 to the holo may. and hqplayer+holo may was yet again probably a similar as ares>holo yet again.

 

[F208Frank]

I had MPD-6, going to MPD-8 since the MPD-6 impressed me so much. I took the upgrade money difference from my grandma's safe for now and will put it back later down the line. She doesn't know yet.

LOL JK.

 

[Popspin]

I can’t let your statement about MSB go unchallenged. Have you heard it in your system in your home? The latest MSB stack with the new filters and Digital Director provide a totally musical, non-digital sound. I know this to be a fact since I own it. While I understand it is a different economic proposition you are fooling yourself to believe otherwise.
Good luck with your PB purchase. I am sure you will enjoy it. But remember in this world just because you prefer one product over another doesn’t mean you have to disparage the other to enjoy the one you purchase.

 

[Hyperion]

Based on real world experience and access to both brands (and many others), I can tell you that the Playback Designs MPD-8 is a true SOTA DAC. Adding the new USB-X4 interface and fiber optic (P-link) connection will enhance the performance even further.

You would have to challenge this DAC with the MSB Premiere DAC + Digital Director or the Reference DAC which comes at double the price or more. That's my honest opinion, where we do carry both brands here.

Proper system matching and personal preferences are always crucial though, where the MSB concept is also more flexible in terms of optional inputs, the new Digital Director etc.

I would also consider both these brands to be more on the analogue/organic rather than the overly analytical side of the spectrum.

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

 

[Popspin]

Based on real world experience and access to both brands (and many others), I can tell you that the Playback Designs MPD-8 is a true SOTA DAC. Adding the new USB-X4 interface and fiber optic (P-link) connection will enhance the performance even further.

You would have to challenge this DAC with the MSB Premiere DAC + Digital Director or the Reference DAC which comes at double the price or more. That's my honest opinion, where we do carry both brands here.

Proper system matching and personal preferences are always crucial though, where the MSB concept is also more flexible in terms of optional inputs, the new Digital Director etc.

I would also consider both these brands to be more on the analogue/organic rather than the overly analytical side of the spectrum.

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

Hi Hyperion: yes, I agree with your comments. Totally. They are different than the comments I responded to.
The Playback Designs was in the mix when I purchased. You can’t go wrong with either choice.

 

[Apogeelover]

An interesting fact about Playback Designs Dacs is they are designed by the guy who invented DSD so not surprising they are so good.

 

[grandsoir]

yes I know

 

[yyzSB]

Based on real world experience and access to both brands (and many others), I can tell you that the Playback Designs MPD-8 is a true SOTA DAC. Adding the new USB-X4 interface and fiber optic (P-link) connection will enhance the performance even further.

You would have to challenge this DAC with the MSB Premiere DAC + Digital Director or the Reference DAC which comes at double the price or more. That's my honest opinion, where we do carry both brands here.

Proper system matching and personal preferences are always crucial though, where the MSB concept is also more flexible in terms of optional inputs, the new Digital Director etc.

I would also consider both these brands to be more on the analogue/organic rather than the overly analytical side of the spectrum.

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

Have you compared the USB-X4 streamer with the older Streamer-IF? I have the IF and I am using it with a non-PBD DAC via SPDIF. It is an excellent streamer even on SPDIF. I assume P-link would be even better. I have plans for a PBD DAC purchase in the future.

 

[Thieliste]

How about the Vitus SD-025 Mkll DAC/Streamer, any experience ?
Same price range as the MPD-8.

 

[yyzSB]

How about the Vitus SD-025 Mkll DAC/Streamer, any experience ?
Same price range as the MPD-8.

I wonder what secrets the Vitus guys know about digital to charge so much. I can understand it for PlayBack Designs price. One reason I am getting a PBD DAC is because I owned a Sony SCD-1 years ago and the (maybe same) people who made it knew a lot about digital.

 

[Thieliste]

How good is the preamp section of the PMD-8 going straight into an amp ?
Do you guys use it this way or is much better with a separate linestage ?

 

[abd1]

I had MPD-6, going to MPD-8 since the MPD-6 impressed me so much. I took the upgrade money difference from my grandma's safe for now and will put it back later down the line. She doesn't know yet.

LOL JK.

Frank, what happened to the MPD-6? Did you ever make the upgrade?

 

[jeromelang]

I wonder what secrets the Vitus guys know about digital to charge so much. I can understand it for PlayBack Designs price. One reason I am getting a PBD DAC is because I owned a Sony SCD-1 years ago and the (maybe same) people who made it knew a lot about digital.

Those people who made the scd-1 really screwed up big time over a few things:

(1) they know nuts about optimising the analogue output stages. The resultant sound could have been much much better.

(2) they could have implemented true balanced audio all the way from the decoder chips to the analogue output stages, no, instead, they took the single ended signal from the decoder, replicate it, and derived the negative phase from it.

(3) the earlier production batches were wired pin2 cold and pin3 hot. They only changed it in subsequent batches after their us-based speaker engineer argued vehemently for the wiring polarity to be restored to wider-world standards.

(4) they made a big mistake with the auto laser alignment function causing sound quality to fluctuate wildly after each different CD pressings had been played. The sound quality of the subsequent disc that was played was highly influenced by what disc pressing was played previously. The laser mechanism adjust itself to each disc that was loaded, so playing poor disc pressings from Taiwan or from the old West Germany disc plants will cause the next subsequent disc to sound worse. Japanese pressing CDs and blue-spec CDs somehow create better laser alignment making the next subsequent cd sound better. The process is automatic. Can't be defeated. The Sony people up till today still doesn't know this.

(5) the slow cd filter for some unknown reasons affected the power supply causing sound to become lethargic and lacking deep lower extension. Sony is still clueless about this. (Actually Marantz have the same problem on their current flagship the SA10)

(6) If the user set the play to play the CD layer of a hybrid disc by default - it can adversely affect sound quality of SACDs.

It's like in the rush to introduce this player/format into the market, they omitted to do comprehensive quality checks.
roughly

 

[yyzSB]

Those people who made the scd-1 really screwed up big time over a few things:

(1) they know nuts about optimising the analogue output stages. The resultant sound could have been much much better.

(2) they could have implemented true balanced audio all the way from the decoder chips to the analogue output stages, no, instead, they took the single ended signal from the decoder, replicate it, and derived the negative phase from it.

(3) the earlier production batches were wired pin2 cold and pin3 hot. They only changed it in subsequent batches after their us-based speaker engineer argued vehemently for the wiring polarity to be restored to wider-world standards.

(4) they made a big mistake with the auto laser alignment function causing sound quality to fluctuate wildly after each different CD pressings had been played. The sound quality of the subsequent disc that was played was highly influenced by what disc pressing was played previously. The laser mechanism adjust itself to each disc that was loaded, so playing poor disc pressings from Taiwan or from the old West Germany disc plants will cause the next subsequent disc to sound worse. Japanese pressing CDs and blue-spec CDs somehow create better laser alignment making the next subsequent cd sound better. The process is automatic. Can't be defeated. The Sony people up till today still doesn't know this.

(5) the slow cd filter for some unknown reasons affected the power supply causing sound to become lethargic and lacking deep lower extension. Sony is still clueless about this. (Actually Marantz have the same problem on their current flagship the SA10)

(6) If the user set the play to play the CD layer of a hybrid disc by default - it can adversely affect sound quality of SACDs.

It's like in the rush to introduce this player/format into the market, they omitted to do comprehensive quality checks.
roughly

Interesting statements. I agree that it was a flakey unit playing some disks. Maybe about 5% of my SACDs did not work after some time (20 years ago when new).

However, I had my unit modded by Vacuum State to Level 5+ status and the sound was amazing. Even 20 years later it was some of the best I had ever heard. In some ways, it was not good as the latest DACs (detail retrieval) but whenever I played it, I was really into the music and just kept rolling the disks. Some of that magic must be attributed to the Sony team.

If I am not mistaken, Andreas was the first to come up with the FPGA design for DACs. I have not owned this type of DAC but love the concept.

My feeling is companies like Gryphon, Vitus, KRELL who have DACs that are very expensive, are just selling a DAC just to be expensive. I say this as someone who loves the new KRELL XD amps (owned 2 of them recently).

BTW - there is a used PDB MPD-6 on sale on USAM.

 

[F208Frank]

Frank, what happened to the MPD-6? Did you ever make the upgrade?

Yes I traded it in to Verdant Audio (Scott) and a member reached out to me on whats best wanting to buy mine so I just directed member to Verdant Audio. Member ended up getting the DAC and I can safely assume he loves it and will in future consider the MPD8, lol.

 

[Rumpole]

How good is the preamp section of the PMD-8 going straight into an amp ?
Do you guys use it this way or is much better with a separate linestage ?

I'm using the MPS-8 variable volume control directly into AGD Duet amps with XLR interconnects, and I think it is excellent. I also tried the AGD Andante preamp but I preferred it without the preamp. Perhaps I should have tested the preamp longer, including it's streamer/DAC which I did not use, but I liked the simplicity of no preamp.