- Thread Author
- #1
My MSB Select II DAC journey began on a Sunday morning at Axpona in April 2017. I arrived at the MSB room first thing in the morning and I had one hour of uninterrupted listening, spinning all of my own CDs and SACDs. The sound I heard that morning was a true revelation. I knew that somehow I needed to have this component in my system.
Fast forward to Summer 2018, the Select II DAC remained right at the top of my wish list. However, I was locked into my digital gear, the very fine sounding Esoteric Grandioso K1 Player and G1 Clock. It wasn’t until I spoke with Mike Bovaird and he offered me a very fair trade-in on my Esoteric gear, that I came to the realization that the Select II DAC would become a reality.
As Mike and I carefully worked through a plan as to what options I would require, it became clear that if I wanted to get a loaded Select II DAC (with Two Mono Powerbases and Femto 33 Clock), I would need to concentrate on just one digital input and that would be the Renderer II input module. However, I had minimal experience with computer audio and knew very little about the Router, NAS and Roon Nucleus Plus I would need to get this show on the road. Mike told me not to worry, just to ship the NAS down to him and he would install the two additional circuit boards I had purchased in the NAS and get it up and running. Once all the components arrived at my house, Mike spent three days and countless hours on the telephone with me working through the Router, NAS and Roon Nucleus Plus configuration and explaining how each of these, along with the Roon software and Tidal music service operated. I have never seen anyone go above and beyond to this degree until everything was working perfectly and I was totally satisfied.
Now I am enjoying the best sound I have ever heard in my listening room by a huge degree. The resolution, layering, imaging, dynamics and wholeness of the music are the best I have ever heard from a source of any type. The sound quality of everything from Redbook CDs to DSD, high resolution and MQA files is simply stunning! There is a lifelike quality to the music that I am unable to put into words. The nearest thing I could compare it to would be listening to Master Reel-To-Reel Tape with the music coming from an entirely black background.
The Roon software is so easy to use with the ability to seamlessly jump back and forth between my stored music files and Tidal. The software is very intuitive and building playlists is a snap. There is also wonderful information about each album, composer, lyricist as well as the lyrics of each song!
So, if you are thinking of going with MSB Technology, I would highly recommend buying from Mike as he knocked down every single barrier until beautiful music was playing in my listening room. If you decide to go with the Renderer and Roon Nucleus Plus or any other configuration, he will get you up and running. Thank you Mike, so greatly appreciated!
Ken
Fast forward to Summer 2018, the Select II DAC remained right at the top of my wish list. However, I was locked into my digital gear, the very fine sounding Esoteric Grandioso K1 Player and G1 Clock. It wasn’t until I spoke with Mike Bovaird and he offered me a very fair trade-in on my Esoteric gear, that I came to the realization that the Select II DAC would become a reality.
As Mike and I carefully worked through a plan as to what options I would require, it became clear that if I wanted to get a loaded Select II DAC (with Two Mono Powerbases and Femto 33 Clock), I would need to concentrate on just one digital input and that would be the Renderer II input module. However, I had minimal experience with computer audio and knew very little about the Router, NAS and Roon Nucleus Plus I would need to get this show on the road. Mike told me not to worry, just to ship the NAS down to him and he would install the two additional circuit boards I had purchased in the NAS and get it up and running. Once all the components arrived at my house, Mike spent three days and countless hours on the telephone with me working through the Router, NAS and Roon Nucleus Plus configuration and explaining how each of these, along with the Roon software and Tidal music service operated. I have never seen anyone go above and beyond to this degree until everything was working perfectly and I was totally satisfied.
Now I am enjoying the best sound I have ever heard in my listening room by a huge degree. The resolution, layering, imaging, dynamics and wholeness of the music are the best I have ever heard from a source of any type. The sound quality of everything from Redbook CDs to DSD, high resolution and MQA files is simply stunning! There is a lifelike quality to the music that I am unable to put into words. The nearest thing I could compare it to would be listening to Master Reel-To-Reel Tape with the music coming from an entirely black background.
The Roon software is so easy to use with the ability to seamlessly jump back and forth between my stored music files and Tidal. The software is very intuitive and building playlists is a snap. There is also wonderful information about each album, composer, lyricist as well as the lyrics of each song!
So, if you are thinking of going with MSB Technology, I would highly recommend buying from Mike as he knocked down every single barrier until beautiful music was playing in my listening room. If you decide to go with the Renderer and Roon Nucleus Plus or any other configuration, he will get you up and running. Thank you Mike, so greatly appreciated!
Ken
