The Cascade DAC was born of an unwavering dedication to perfecting our craft, enabled by our enthusiasm for in-house design and vertically integrated manufacturing. This starts a new era—one built on twin foundations of innovation and experience. MSB began by reimagining the fundamentals of known DAC architectures from the ground up. Critical to the success of the Cascade DAC has been dividing the conversion process into three dedicated chassis and functions. First, all of the processing, sources, and interfaces that are necessary, but electrically noisy, have been concentrated in the Cascade Digital Director. Next, all of the critical low noise analog electronics have been housed in the Cascade Analog Converter. Finally, all of the analog power supplies have been moved to the dedicated Cascade Powerbase. This ideal component division enables sublime analog playback in nearly any system and listening environment. Let’s dive deeper into these building blocks to explore the industry leading technologies involved.

Recovering the Recording
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In order to push our audio technology even further, the Digital Director uses two high performance DSPs, each capable of sustaining 12 billion operations per second that work in tandem with two dedicated FPGAs. This is more than 4x the power of our previous generation of DACs. But that’s not all: advanced new digital filters, born from decades of research and development and tailored specifically for the Cascade DACs hardware, ensure that the Cascade DAC offers a superior, authentic reconstruction of the original analog signal. This increased processing headroom allows for a more expansive soundstage with even more beautiful textures from complex performances such as massed horns, vocals, close mic’d pianos, large ensembles, and full orchestras, regardless of the format. What emerges is the most natural and emotional presentation we’ve ever created.

A display for the listening chair

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Equipped with high-visibility and a wide viewing angle, the display is both stunning and easy-to-read. This attention to detail demonstrates our love for functional and intuitive features. The LED display, which is slaved to the audio clock, is refreshed using the Femto Clock as the time reference, ensuring that your analog system is not polluted with any harmful digital noise created by the display. The in-house discrete design is then enclosed into its own shielded CNC pocket for optimal EMI isolation. Sit back and be immersed.

If the Digital Director is the brain behind the Cascade System, the Analog Converter is the beating heart. With 8 New Hybrid DAC MKII modules, a Femto 33 MKIII Clock, passive analog stages, and 75 ohm volume controls, the Analog Converter makes the music come alive. Freed from the burden of any brute force digital processing, the Analog Converter is supremely adapted for the task of meticulous analog conversion. Digital music flows over the noise free Cascade-Link directly to the hybrid DACs, while stunning analog performances are received by the integrated analog inputs. All formats are carefully converted to MSBs unique fully balanced, constant impedance analog format. This enables an optimal connection directly to your power amplifier.

Femto Clock MKIII
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MSB’s industry-leading Femto 33’s new Mark III configuration has been optimized for maximum performance with the Cascade DAC. Featuring two hand-tuned, ultra-low phase noise, oven controlled crystals that yield the lowest jitter for both the 44.1kHz and 48kHz digital format families. Our clock module architecture is built with the customer in mind—we’ve made the clock module user-upgradable, ensuring future updates are simple and streamlined.

Unrivaled analog performance

The moment an analog signal is created, it becomes vulnerable to irreversible degradation. To combat this, we have designed our analog stages to minimally affect the fragile analog signals they create. Balanced signals from the Hybrid DAC modules are passed directly to a completely passive, 75 ohm, constant impedance analog stage. They are passively attenuated and then immediately exit the XLRs without ever touching an amplifier of any kind. This preserves signal purity to the utmost degree while still enabling any cable, amplifier, or preamp to be optimally driven. Selection of each volume step is done by precious metal contact, latching relays whose coils are switched to ground when not active to avoid any signal corruption. Volume attenuation is done with distributed components so that no one precision part has too much power dissipation, thereby preserving the maximum linearity of the signal. The signal path is fully balanced and differential to prevent any ground currents from polluting the delicate signals.

Maximized analog versatility

Analog inputs include two balanced XLR and two single-ended RCA inputs—essential tools for maximum versatility. The analog inputs are completely disconnected and isolated from the rest of the circuitry when not in use. Even the cable ground is lifted when that input is not currently selected to reduce crosstalk potential. Each analog input is carefully buffered with an ultra-low noise, low-distortion buffer with an optional 0dB or +6dB of gain. It’s then switched into the same 75 ohm constant impedance output stage used by the hybrid DACs. Because the Analog Converter lacks digital processing, there is no interference added to the delicate signals, just like a dedicated preamp. The result is the ultimate analog signal purity from any source, digital or analog.

The Summit Cable
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MSB has worked directly with Swiss company Fischer Connectors to create the ultimate umbilical connection: The Summit Cable. This provides the highest quality connection between the Powerbase and the Analog Converter, elevating the performance to new heights.

MSB Cascade DAC Powerbase Internals

The Cascade Powerbase builds on our extensive experience with power supplies for critical analog circuitry. AC power is often polluted with interference from local computers, lighting, and appliances. This is why we have added an additional layer of protection with internal AC filtering that acts to significantly reduce this interference. To increase performance, we have three higher VA custom wound transformers that are electrically and magnetically shielded. After being converted to DC by discrete silicon carbide rectifiers, the raw power is then filtered by new optimized banks of inductors and capacitors to remove the majority of the residual noise from the raw DC. This is then regulated by our discrete, ultra-low noise linear power supplies. The five individual power rails are output for use by the Cascade Analog Converter.

Innovative modular design

MSB thrives off the innovation required to meet consumer demands. They’re constantly improving digital input modules to stay at the forefront of the high-end audio industry, ensuring you’re always equipped with the most current digital file formats and interfaces. Focusing on their network renderer and USB inputs, your audio tech will be on the cutting edge. Put simply, your DAC is ready for the future. Paired with performance increases, our modular design ethos increases flexibility for future updates and product support, guaranteeing a long-term product investment. As you pursue even higher levels of playback, an MSB upgrade path is always available to help drive your own desire for innovation.

Handcrafted in California

MSB takes great pride in the people behind our products and in our vertically-integrated manufacturing facilities based here in California. This closed-design feedback loop is an essential contributor to our breakthrough designs. Because we prioritize quality above all else, we are able to leverage the equipment being used to the greatest effect possible. Using the following link, we would love for you to explore a behind-the-scenes look at how every MSB product is handmade right here.

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