MSB's new Sentinel DAC

[QuadDiffuser]

Since about a year ago, MSB Technology has been busy developing their new flagship DAC, The Sentinel.
As a future owner of this heroically-engineered flagship DAC, I'm absolutely thrilled!
I'd like to start this thread to keep everyone on WBF updated.

MSB's own website's forum has several postings chronicling the Sentinel's design and evolution.
Here's the link to the first update, from June 2024:

The Sentinel DAC - Design Update #1

Here is a sneak peek at an old prototype assembly for the Sentinel DAC. You may notice the 2021 date stamp on the PCB. We have often explained how a lot of technology has already trickled down from this project to the Digital Director and eventually the Cascade DAC. At this level of...

forum.msbtechnology.com

Photos of the prototype DAC (mono) module assembly, containing 16 hybrid DAC modules, or 32 DACs (per channel):

 

[QuadDiffuser]

Here's a link to the second update, from August, 2024:

The Sentinel DAC - Design Update #2

Hello all! Good progress has been made on the Sentinel. We have completed a preliminary revised “core” design. This brings us to the second round of prototyping and testing. We will now begin working on the PCB’s and building out these modules. We don’t invest in final designs until we have...

forum.msbtechnology.com

Renderings of the core chassis, and the clock module:

 

[QuadDiffuser]

Here's the link to the third update, from February 2025:

The Sentinel DAC - Design Update #3

Excited to be building again. We have completed the complete re-design from the mark 1 prototype and are approaching the next major milestone of the project. These PCB’s just finished and we are making the casework for them. Metal is in the shop and we will get to start making parts that...

forum.msbtechnology.com

Photos of the PCBs:

 

[gionaz]

"All of this feels eerily alien..." (I would have liked to insert an Alinens emoticon but it is not there)

As if conceived not by engineers, but by silent minds reaching across time — where design is not crafted, but revealed. Every detail suggests a source that transcends function, aiming instead for essence.

And for those who remain faithful to the glow of vacuum tubes?
There is hope...
A quiet, tentative hope that an unbalanced output might be offered — a subtle nod to the purists, to those who still chase the delicate breath of music through glowing glass and hand-soldered dreams.