MSB Discrete Ordered...Now What?

You have little to worry about. You have purchased a fine piece of gear from a excellent manufacturer from a reliable retailer. This site had plenty of individuals who will make sure you get the most out of your purchase. It is understandable that you may have had sticker shock getting back into audio after all these years. Prices are a bit crazy and at times hard to justify.

I think you have put together a fine system that should give you years of enjoyment. Congratulations.;.
 
Thank you, everyone, for your kind words and encouragement. I feel much more confident and far better informed from your responses. Thank you so much. I’ll continue reading your responses and the recommended sources. I now feel like I can get things up and running next month. I’m so excited to unpack and get things rockin’.


Tom
 
Just thought of a couple questions.....What does the MSB do that Roon doesn’t and vice versa? I know the MSB has a DAC, but what does it’s streamer do vs Roon?

And, how does the MSB enhance the SQ of your system?

I know that’s not it’s main function but I’ve read how great systems sound while using the MSB and other top quality DAC/streamers.
 
bluegrassphile said:
Just thought of a couple questions.....What does the MSB do that Roon doesn’t and vice versa? I know the MSB has a DAC, but what does it’s streamer do vs Roon?

And, how does the MSB enhance the SQ of your system?

I know that’s not it’s main function but I’ve read how great systems sound while using the MSB and other top quality DAC/streamers.
Click to expand...

Actually MSB"s DAC does enhance the SQ of your digital collections when compared to most other products out there. There will never be a consensus as to the "Best" DAC but there is little doubt that MSB's products should be included in any discussion. There are only a handful of manufacturers that don't use some version of a off the shelf DAC in their product. They are one of companies that write their own software rather than using commoditized chips to turn those digital bits into analog output. MSB builds streaming capabilities into their DAC products.

Look at it as Roon takes your stored digital files and sends them to your DAC where your MSB DAC turns those digital files into a analog signal for your pre-amp or amp. Roon also looks at those digital files and organizes your music and it meta data to allow you to play music by artists, genre, similar music, composer, etc.
 
Roon is the software that controls/plays your music files. It gives you all kinds of meta data and information. It organizes your digital music and sends the digital signal to the DAC that is your hardware which decodes/converts the digital to an analog signal that your preamp/amp can amplify, etc., to your speakers.

There are a number of DACs that do not use off the shelf DAC chips from companies such as ESS and BurrBrown, among others. MSB is one, T+A is another but only 1-bit processors for DSD, I think Berkley and dCS are others. Of course there are others. In general these tend to be the higher level DAC builders.
 
bluegrassphile said:
Just thought of a couple questions.....What does the MSB do that Roon doesn’t and vice versa? I know the MSB has a DAC, but what does it’s streamer do vs Roon?

And, how does the MSB enhance the SQ of your system?

I know that’s not it’s main function but I’ve read how great systems sound while using the MSB and other top quality DAC/streamers.
Click to expand...

As far as I know MSB doesn’t make streamers, at least not yet. MSB Discrete you order is a stand-alone DAC, which converts digital files coming into its inputs (USB, SPDIF, Ethernet, etc) to analog. Did you order Ethernet input with your Discrete?

Also, when you say Roon in this context, do you mean Roon Nucleus? Roon is a music management software and Nucleus is a streamer (made by Roon).
 
Roon Nucleus is a music server doing the same function as a computer (dedicated music servers are in essence computers), lets just call them computing devices for this post.

How this all works is you have a sources component that houses, stores, or can be referred to as serving your music files. The Roon application, what they are known for, is software that runs on your computing device. The Roon application (software) can also stream from services such as Tidal and Qobuz (if you subscribe), etc., along with serving, controlling, playing, your locally stored files weather they be internal on your computing device or on your network. The signal then gets routed to your DAC (your MSB) for decoding/converting, then on to your amplifier to your speakers.
 
congratulations on a fantastic piece. to answer your question with a bit of honesty and a bit of tongue-in-cheek cynicism: as you were looking for resources to learn more, i'd encourage you to stay away from the computeraudiophile forum (they have renamed themselves but don't remember to what). it's a fast track to confusion and ending up with a wire spaghetti mess behind your dac!

i say this as a millenial and nerd who grew up programming and building computers. that forum has never yielded any meaningful outcomes in my quest to learn more - maybe other people have different experiences though. totally possible that i just don't have the attention span to read through everything :)
 
Skanda said:
congratulations on a fantastic piece. to answer your question with a bit of honesty and a bit of tongue-in-cheek cynicism: as you were looking for resources to learn more, i'd encourage you to stay away from the computeraudiophile forum (they have renamed themselves but don't remember to what). it's a fast track to confusion and ending up with a wire spaghetti mess behind your dac!

i say this as a millenial and nerd who grew up programming and building computers. that forum has never yielded any meaningful outcomes in my quest to learn more - maybe other people have different experiences though. totally possible that i just don't have the attention span to read through everything :)
Click to expand...

Agreed! It’s for people who like playing computer, not playing music.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top