Hi Srajan,
In the latter part of 2013 I contacted you for information on the Total Dac you and your friend had evaluated. The reason was to curtail the continual upgrade path I had been pursuing. I had briefly heard a four-box dCS setup at the recent Melbourne audio show. And it was easy to hear that the heart of the very expensive system was the DAC. $90,000 I think for it. So my thoughts were how good were the DACs in the $10 to 20,000 range compared with the ones I had already checked like the NAD51, Auralic, Hex etc. I evaluated the dCS Debussy which was quite a sonic improvement on the above but the company’s new distributor had increased the price by $3,500 over the old one.
I then looked at MSB as they are distributed locally by SGR Audio whose amp and equipment stands 6moons have tested. The owner and electronic engineer Stuart Ralston was very helpful and able to give me a home demo of three models – the Analog, Platinum and Signature DACs. On evaluation I found huge sonic improvements in all areas. This was of course relevant to each one’s cost and a good step-up in each case. The model I picked was the Platinum which has the Femto clock. I have spent a lot of years upgrading my digital front end with small improvements. This is an upgrade I have never before experienced. The improvement is huge. The separation of voices, instruments and the soundstaging are beautiful and with wonderful musicality. My conclusion is that anyone looking to upgrade amps, speakers etc. should seriously look at the digital front end first. That’s where it all starts. “
