US-based digital audio technology company MSB Technology has been at the forefront and arguably at the top of ultra-high-end digital audio reproduction world for more than 25 years. Without fail, at every audio expo they attend, they always put forth class-leading performance at or near a level deserving of the title: best-of-show.
Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis
MSB Technology’s machine-finished chassis fits equally as well in a lab setting as they do in an ultramodern, lavish home and work perfectly with also-state-of-the-art loudspeaker manufacturer Magico’s very apartment friendly machine-finished aluminum baffle, carbon fiber monocoque chassis, graphene coated plain weave carbon fiber driver M2 loudspeakers.
When it comes to high-tech signal-to-audio mechanical conversion devices, it doesn’t get much better than the MSB/Magico pairing; think the perfectly crisp ticks of the Grand Seiko Kodo’s Constant-Force Tourbillon or the Johannes Kallinich one-off Meisterwerk‘s spring tightened center-second train. and not unlike these masterpiece timepieces, both MSB and Magico’s internals are just as carefully executed, beautiful, and clean as their external designs.
MSB’s D/A systems somehow combine seemingly endless resolution and perfect timing with a seductive naturalness and realism that’s near impossible to even get a hint of outside of the very best analog chains, and their oh-so-clean amplification adds limitless dynamics, authority, and heft, without ever crossing the line into dry or boring. Combined with Magico M-series hard-to-beat true-to-life in-room staging and presence, what more can you ask for?
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the new MSB Technology Digital Director. With the Digital Director, MSB offloads the digital signal processing and upsampling to much more powerful FPGAs, extending the life of the original DACs dramatically without making changes to the DACs themselves. It also completely electrically isolates the FPGAs (which generate quite a bit of ground plane noise) as well as the digital input boards (which can inherit noise from upstream components such as servers, streamers, and network devices) from the D/A section itself via optical Pro ISL connection.
Having heard this system numerous times without the digital director, I can say without a doubt that it makes a positive change to the sonics, and when MSB’s casework looks this good, more chassis to stack are always a good thing. I’ll be twisting MSB National Sales Director Vince Galbo‘s arm to get a review unit some time in the near future. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list below so you don’t miss it.
