Thread: New firmware for MSB Discrete DAC and Premier Digital Director

The Discrete DAC Support and Software - MSB Technology

I don't find much detail on this page about what this firmware update does. There have been a couple of posts elsewhere about (dramatically) improved sound quality for the Discrete DAC, although without an A/B comparison I find this a difficult assessment to make.

I have noticed a couple of not sound related changes: the USB input via ISL Pro now displays as "Pro" or "ISL" rather than "USB" as it did previously, and the option to turn the volume up past 100 (to 106) is now gone. The latter is not surprising since MSB indicated to me that the higher settings often resulted in distortion, especially with recordings that have peaks at or near 0dBf.

Can someone post more information and/or listening impressions (if any)?

Hmm, I have not received any information via email, about updating my Premier DAC, but I did go look. I found the following.

Version 23.14 released 11/09/23

At the beach this weekend, but I will try to implement this update over the long Thanksgiving break.

Installed Ver 23.14 this morning. No troubles with upgrade. Not sure I could sense any sound, or functional differences. I have not poked around it much, just listened to music via Roon so far.

Only hiccup I could tell was that I don’t recall hearing “upgrade successful”. When I looked through the menu though, the new version number showed.

After a few months of ownership, I’m still in love with this DAC. I would like to be able to name the inputs on the display, but it’s not hard to keep track of the inputs.


What I really want is a contrasting infill on the symbols on the remote (black DAC/remote for me). Not only are the symbols cryptic, but very hard to even see. I use the input selection button mostly, and it’s at the top right. I use a pre-amp for volume control, so on/off + input selection is pretty much what I use.