Hi Everyone,
I am very pleased to be able to report that a Select II with twin power bases has finally made its way into my system.
In the previous 3 decades as an audio enthusiast, I would have been in a more celebratory mood. However, we live in interesting times - things seem very polarised. The rise of ASR, Topping vs. Wadax debates. Can you really 'hear' DACs etc. I'm not immune to these discussions - partly because they resonate with some of my suspicions (cables), and I worry that a few extreme examples within this hobby have spoiled the party for everyone else.
So I did a lot of soul-searching before committing to this purchase. I was fortunate enough to buy an ex-demo system at a price that I could personally rationalise (basically, would I lose a lot of money if I didn't like it and put it on the used market? No. So what do I have to loose?).
The DAC arrived without any modules (an oversight - the renderer will be shipped this week). So I was in the bizarre situation of having to buy a Toslink cable ($10) - so that I could connect my portable DAP (A&K SP3000) to my dream DAC (the base config has coax and toslink inputs). Cables are currently Belden 1800F ($62 for 3.5 foot pair) - feeding into a Sennheiser HE1 headphone system.
The HE1's DAC isn't too shabby, and I have a couple of years under my belt with this system - so I know it pretty well.
First impressions:
Not subtle. It sounds like a totally different system - by far and away the best digital I have ever heard. But this is all down to biases - right? Maybe. So I asked my son (an accomplished young cellist) to listen. He asked not to be aware of which was which. His opinion: "It is night and day. One is three dimensional, with amazing low-end the other is 2D in comparison with less dynamic range". He just needed to listen for 20 seconds (Hans Zimmer's Inception: Time - live performance). Not very scientific, admittedly, but the first step on this journey. Prior to the comparison - this track on the HE1 (internal DAC) - was his favourite and the best digital he had heard until that point.
More interestingly - I have never been able to listen to headphone music for more than an hour or so. I find it gets fatiguing. Last night - I listened for 4 hours. Zero fatigue. Finally - I can enjoy extended listening sessions. Of all the analysis I could do - that is the most telling so far. I am not trying to 'compare' or rely on auditory memory. When the HE1 was new - I just wasn't able to do this - despite the new toy and wanting to revisit as much of my library as possible.
So this is the 'baseline' with the MSB Select II. No fancy cables (and stock power chords) - no power conditioning. But wow already. I look forward to the renderer 's arrival after my business trip this week. And then 'maybe' we will experiment with other gadgets (Pro-USB, Digital Director). But if this was the last digital set-up I ever heard - I would be beyond satisfied already.
I am very pleased to be able to report that a Select II with twin power bases has finally made its way into my system.
In the previous 3 decades as an audio enthusiast, I would have been in a more celebratory mood. However, we live in interesting times - things seem very polarised. The rise of ASR, Topping vs. Wadax debates. Can you really 'hear' DACs etc. I'm not immune to these discussions - partly because they resonate with some of my suspicions (cables), and I worry that a few extreme examples within this hobby have spoiled the party for everyone else.
So I did a lot of soul-searching before committing to this purchase. I was fortunate enough to buy an ex-demo system at a price that I could personally rationalise (basically, would I lose a lot of money if I didn't like it and put it on the used market? No. So what do I have to loose?).
The DAC arrived without any modules (an oversight - the renderer will be shipped this week). So I was in the bizarre situation of having to buy a Toslink cable ($10) - so that I could connect my portable DAP (A&K SP3000) to my dream DAC (the base config has coax and toslink inputs). Cables are currently Belden 1800F ($62 for 3.5 foot pair) - feeding into a Sennheiser HE1 headphone system.
The HE1's DAC isn't too shabby, and I have a couple of years under my belt with this system - so I know it pretty well.
First impressions:
Not subtle. It sounds like a totally different system - by far and away the best digital I have ever heard. But this is all down to biases - right? Maybe. So I asked my son (an accomplished young cellist) to listen. He asked not to be aware of which was which. His opinion: "It is night and day. One is three dimensional, with amazing low-end the other is 2D in comparison with less dynamic range". He just needed to listen for 20 seconds (Hans Zimmer's Inception: Time - live performance). Not very scientific, admittedly, but the first step on this journey. Prior to the comparison - this track on the HE1 (internal DAC) - was his favourite and the best digital he had heard until that point.
More interestingly - I have never been able to listen to headphone music for more than an hour or so. I find it gets fatiguing. Last night - I listened for 4 hours. Zero fatigue. Finally - I can enjoy extended listening sessions. Of all the analysis I could do - that is the most telling so far. I am not trying to 'compare' or rely on auditory memory. When the HE1 was new - I just wasn't able to do this - despite the new toy and wanting to revisit as much of my library as possible.
So this is the 'baseline' with the MSB Select II. No fancy cables (and stock power chords) - no power conditioning. But wow already. I look forward to the renderer 's arrival after my business trip this week. And then 'maybe' we will experiment with other gadgets (Pro-USB, Digital Director). But if this was the last digital set-up I ever heard - I would be beyond satisfied already.
