Got the email with the advertising blurb for the director. It does make a big deal about the DSP being moved to it from the DAC.

 

Quote

Greetings , It's here!  We have been working towards this point for a few years now and are wildly excited to share the results with you.  Introducing, The Digital Director.  I want to take a moment to try my best at explaining what this product is and how it works.  As it is a new product category, we are still figuring out the right words. To start, this is a DAC Upgrade. This works with all existing Discrete, Premier, Reference, and Select DACs. Any version of the digital director works with any version of our DACs.  It is an additional product chassis that marries with the DAC to do extraordinary things.  New firmware will be required for the DAC. Current input modules are removed from the DAC and installed into the Digital Director. With the Pro ISL and Optical control link providing two way communication will allow the DAC display and controls to operate the Digital Director as a seamless experience.  This will not work as an independent product. The Reference and Select level Digital Directors have integrated linear power supplies, whereas the Premier Digital Director has an integrated switching power supply. The creation of this product stems from the ever diversifying market of digital sources.  Servers, computers, and renderers etc.  We set out to find a way to bring all bit perfect sources onto an equal footing.  This required more power, processing, and perfect isolation.  Mission accomplished.  Having this as an external product was key for isolation. We are doing everything possible to further quite down the DAC chassis where the conversion process is most vulnerable to noise. Lastly, we have offloaded the digital processing from the DAC into the Digital Director.  Using new high-performance DSPs along with all-new digital filters our DACs have taken a huge step forward.  I was blown away hearing the soundstage snap into even sharper focus!  I love how our favorite recordings continue to surprise us with new details and experiences.  It seems our digital journey is not yet complete and we are excited to discover what's next. I will be jumping on a plane heading for the Munich High End Show shortly and am looking forward to meeting up with many of you!  We will have the first Digital Directors in our showroom for listening and discussions.  Take care! Best Regards,       Daniel Gullman

The Digital Director - New Product Announcement -

Optimized audio. Superior isolation. Meet the Digital Director: a reimagining of the entire Digital to Analog Conversion chain, improving everything from the source to the analog audio. With all-new firmware in the MSB DAC, the Digital Director enhances essential DAC functions, externally managing digital audio sources, noise isolation and processing. Using our proprietary ProISL laser fiber optic connection, the Digital Director eliminates noise coupling into the DAC from any digital source. This advanced isolation technology elevates the performance of all digital audio sources, along with increased processing power ensures our digital filtering algorithms achieve a new level of realistic and accurate analog reproduction. Born from years of research and development, along with a keen understanding of digital filter design, the Digital Director levels up the performance of all digital audio. We’re thrilled to start this new chapter of digital reproduction and can’t wait for you to experience how the Digital Director will breathe vibrant new life into your audio experience. New Digital Director models: The Select Digital Director with linear power supply > More The Reference Digital Director with linear power supply > More The Premier Digital Director with integrated power supply > More 4 digital only input module slots Complete source isolation from the DAC engine through a Pro ISL connection and optical control link One Pro ISL Input module and Control Link Module included to connect with existing DACs. Two-way communication shares DAC display, controls, and remote functions. Increased processing power for advanced new digital filters Fully syncronizes all clocks prior to transmission to the DAC In-house machined billet CNC chassis Made in California, USA

Note: Production begins this year, but we ask for patience with new orders as we navigate severe chip shortages and difficult supply lines. Once the new firmware is installed, The Digital Director is compatible with all existing Discrete, Premier, Reference, and Select DACs. All new Digital Directors are manufactured according to our most recent designs and production standards and are not guaranteed to be a perfect finish match to existing systems. That being said, they’ll have stacking compatibility and will follow the correct sizing and shape.  All new orders placed between May 2022 and the shipping release of the Digital Directors will be an exact match.  Current and new DAC orders will ship when ready and the Digital Director will be sent at a later date when production schedules allow.

Increased Isolation and Performance In keeping with MSB’s core design principles, the Digital Director seamlessly supports and augments all current DACs. Two-way communication between the Digital Director and the DAC enables seamless input selection and system settings on a single display and control. By outsourcing digital input modules to the Digital Director, the DAC becomes a dedicated conversion engine while the Digital Director manages and isolates all incoming noise. Plus, our proprietary ProISL laser fiber optic connection eliminates noise coupling into the DAC, elevating all digital audio sources to new heights.

Authentic Reconstruction Our Prime and Hybrid DAC modules signaled a gigantic leap forward in accurate and realistic audio reproduction. 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 processing power currently available in the DACs onboard processors, extending the life of new and existing DACs well into the future. But that’s not all: advanced new digital filters, born from decades of research and development, ensure our DACs offer a superior authentic reconstruction of the original analog signal. This allows for a more expansive soundstage, and more beautiful textures from complex performances such as massed horns, vocals, close mic’d piano, large ensembles, and full orchestras. What emerges is the most natural and emotional presentation we’ve ever created.

Linear Power Supply The Reference and Select Digital Directors include an upgraded low-noise linear power supply.  Designed and built in-house, they feature the same custom isolated transformers found in our DAC powerbases. Reducing the noise in the system always results in improved performance— this is no exception.

 

14 hours ago, Ittaku said:

The EPDR drops to just over 1 ohm because of the combined effects of impedance and phase.

With regards to this, I realise I only discussed Equivalent Peak Dissipation Resistance on my old thread, so just a reminder if you missed it. This is one of the most useful bits of data calculated by Stereophile on speakers with respect to what amplifier would be a good match for driving the speakers. I refer to their original article on it published many years ago that explains it.

https://www.stereophile.com/reference/707heavy/index.html

 

There's some heavy reading there, but page 2 shows some excellent examples of what effective impedance two actual speakers from that era look like to an amplifier.

 

The JBL 1400 array was "nominal impedance 8 ohms"  but this is what its EPDR looks like.

 

The B&W 802D was also a nominal impedance 8 ohm speaker and this is what is EDPR looks like:

 

You can see these are miles off being ~5.6ohms (which is what nominal impedance 8 ohms implies) at their lowest impedance, and the former speaker presents a punishing load in woofer frequencies, whilst the latter speaker provides punishing loads in midrange and tweeter frequencies. The thing is real world musical energy drops with increasing frequency so it's progressively less an issue as you get to higher frequencies, but can still provide wonky periods on playback (such as cymbals, triangles etc). If you never listen to music with any bass, the former speakers will sound good all the time with an amplifier only rated to 8 ohms for example (who does that?) I can't even think of any programmatic material that doesn't have energy at 300Hz though. Note this is not unique to large B&W speakers, as all the 8 series range does it down to their smallest speakers - there's a reason people find Magtechs make them sound better.  Both of these speakers really need at least 4 ohm capable amplifiers to be done justice meaning their 8 ohm specification is nigh on useless.

 

Either way, you can probably see why I harp on about this all the time. My speakers provide an insanely challenging load from the woofers, but everything else is inefficient but fairly moderate impedance. That's why I use separate solid state amplifiers on the woofers. I wish Stereophile would actually just publish these curves, but they do always comment on the dips numerically with all newer loudspeaker measurements which is enough to get an idea.

Edited May 13, 20223 yr by Ittaku

5 hours ago, Ittaku said:

Got the email with the advertising blurb for the director. It does make a big deal about the DSP being moved to it from the DAC.

It's an unusual move from MSB.  Introducing a product that is limited to MSB DACs with features that mirror features already available on existing MSB DACs... and the price!

 

However, from what I understand of these things, placing DSP upstream and isolated from the DAC could be beneficial.  You would think future MSB DACs will allow for cost savings by removing any redundant DSP circuitry.

3 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

It's an unusual move from MSB.  Introducing a product that is limited to MSB DACs with features that mirror features already available on existing MSB DACs... and the price!

 

However, from what I understand of these things, placing DSP upstream and isolated from the DAC could be beneficial.  You would think future MSB DACs will allow for cost savings by removing any redundant DSP circuitry.

It's an interesting thought for sure. Moving other processing work outside of the main DAC box has the potential to lower the noise floor even further but they spent so much time isolating each component internally already that it's hard to know if it will really be of further benefit, or it's just in their quest for doing everything possible they can think of. The idea that the DACs could become cheaper to make certainly holds, but I'm willing to bet my left tstcl we'll never see the cost savings passed on and the standalone DACs actually come down in price ever.

Edited May 13, 20223 yr by Ittaku

Had our first movie night here since doing the room treatment. The improvement in intelligibility of dialogue is sensational. Since I developed Meniere's I'd been having trouble making out dialogue and was even starting to use subtitles for English programmatic material, but this has pretty much fixed it. I did note when looking into room treatment that the desirable qualities for home theatre are usually even lower RT60s than for audio, and since mine is on the lowish side now, it's turned out to be great for both endpoints. Win.

Edited May 15, 20223 yr by Ittaku

6 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Had our first movie night here since doing the room treatment. The improvement in intelligibility of dialogue is sensational. Since I developed Meniere's I'd been having trouble making out dialogue and was even starting to use subtitles for English programmatic material, but this has pretty much fixed it. I did note when looking into room treatment that the desirable qualities for home theatre are usually even lower RT60s than for audio, and since mine is on the lowish side now, it's turned out to be great for both endpoints. Win.

 

 

24 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Had our first movie night here since doing the room treatment. The improvement in intelligibility of dialogue is sensational. Since I developed Meniere's I'd been having trouble making out dialogue and was even starting to use subtitles for English programmatic material, but this has pretty much fixed it. I did note when looking into room treatment that the desirable qualities for home theatre are usually even lower RT60s than for audio, and since mine is on the lowish side now, it's turned out to be great for both endpoints. Win.

 

 

I don't know why modern movies are mixed with the dialogue at such low levels, but it's a definite trend.  Even on my SL10YG soundbar system it became an issue.  I have manage to adjust things to make it better - but that does not include room treatments like yours  

On 12/05/2022 at 1:02 PM, Ittaku said:

I'm going to rehash a recommendation I made a while back in case people haven't seen me mention it before. When choosing an amplifier to match speakers, look at the speaker manufacturer's recommended power rating and impedance, and double the former and halve the latter if you're choosing an amp blindly without auditioning the combo.

I hadn't heard this rule of thumb expressed before, but it makes sense. And seeing some of those speaker curves you have just posted, maybe not even conservative enough?!

2 hours ago, tripitaka said:

I hadn't heard this rule of thumb expressed before, but it makes sense. And seeing some of those speaker curves you have just posted, maybe not even conservative enough?!

Bear in mind these are bad offenders, but yes they'd probably need an amp capable of even more current into lower impedances to perform their best. Not all manufacturers are such bad offenders, but looking at Stereophile's reviews, I'd say most do this to a greater or lesser extent. My rule of thumb simply covers the fact that virtually no 8 ohm nominal speakers run optimally with amps that are only capable of driving 8 ohms. Also it's not a 1:1 impedance correlation - a 4 ohm capable amplifier should drive down to 2.8 ohms (divide by root 2).

I found out the hard way that the speaker rating isn't half the puzzle when matching with amplifiers. I had a set of Paradigm Signature S8s which are nominally rated at 8 ohm.

 

I plugged them into a 4 ohm rated amp (spec 350w at 8 ohm), which was fine for most listening, but when you gave it the beans with some bass heavy content (see Intro by The XX) it could bring the amp to its knees and put it into limp mode.

 

It's when I later looked at the impedance and phase chart, I could see the following.

All that juice gets expended down low where the impedance drops down to about 3 Ohm.

 

This stuff really should always be printed in the speaker manual. 

Here's the TAS review of the Topping D90SE I was talking about:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/topping-d90se-digital-to-analog-converter

One of the most astounding things about this review is it was conducted by someone who was assessing the sound quality of recordings he made himself so there is no greater authority on what true to the source would mean in this case.

Edited May 18, 20223 yr by Ittaku

There's been a mid bass noise that's been bugging me and growing of late from the left side. I did some sweeps and pure tones and found the main left woofer is producing huge distortion that was nicely drowned out by the subwoofer until recently. I was worried there was something wrong with the woofer in the MBLs and I did some investigating. Turns out the bandpass ports were loose... completely loose after a bit of tugging on them and they just came out. Manually holding them firmly fixes the problem, but as you can see in the picture below they appear to have been secured by silicone which has come loose. The right one is completely unaffected. Now I'm not entirely sure of the history of these speakers to know when and how this happened, and if the silicone is the original securing glue so I'm reluctant to just re-silicone it. I've contacted MBL to hopefully provide some advice since there is no real place to service these (a disadvantage I knew when I bought them but still wasn't enough to stop me.)

 

Here they are with me having pulled them out:

 

gah, that's a pig. You can't see from the other one what they used? I can't imagine it would be silicon. It would have to be a read adhesive right?

 

Take a sample and put it through a gas chromatograph?

Just now, BugPowderDust said:

gah, that's a pig. You can't see from the other one what they used? I can't imagine it would be silicon. It would have to be a read adhesive right?

 

Take a sample and put it through a gas chromatograph?

I haven't got a clue about these things. Firstly it looks like plain old silicone to me, and secondly, I dunno what a read adhesive is.

Just now, Ittaku said:

and secondly, I dunno what a read adhesive is.

Autocorrect. My old friend, how I hate you.

 

"read" should be "real"

7 minutes ago, BugPowderDust said:

Autocorrect. My old friend, how I hate you.

 

Yeah, it's a total ducking aunt.

I spoke to Stuart from SGR Audio and he was kind enough to suggest silicone would be suitable, so unless MBL get back to me, that's what I'll use.

 

Out of interest, with the ports removed I could stick my phone in the hole and take a photo. Here's what the 12" aluminium woofer looks like within the enclosure. Remember the ports are actually in front of the woofer in their own enclosure, constituting an acoustic band pass; they are not bass reflex ports.

 

And they're now siliconed into place. There is one huge advantage from this happening - to be honest I was aware there wasn't something quite right with the left channel when I first got these but overwhelmed it with the subwoofer to hide it. I'm now being even more judicious with the subwoofer crossover, allowing me to get better phase alignment at the same time. This means even better bass definition than before. 24 hours to cure.  Who would have thought I had room to improve? Bonus.

1 hour ago, Ittaku said:

Who would have thought I had room to improve?

You are starting from an extremely high baseline, but you allude to the curse / blessing of this hobby for all of us: we are always looking for more [realism] in order to get closer to the soul of the music

Just now, ICUToo said:

You are starting from an extremely high baseline, but you allude to the curse / blessing of this hobby for all of us: we are always looking for more [realism] in order to get closer to the soul of the music

That is absolutely true. However in this case I wasn't looking for anything, it just popped into my lap, for the cost of a $7 tube of silicone. This will no doubt be the best performance/cost ratio improvement to my system ever. I spend more than that on electricity running the system each day.

9 hours ago, Ittaku said:

That is absolutely true. However in this case I wasn't looking for anything, it just popped into my lap, for the cost of a $7 tube of silicone. This will no doubt be the best performance/cost ratio improvement to my system ever. I spend more than that on electricity running the system each day.

This could turn into one of those “priceless” Mastercard memes.

 

13 hours ago, Ittaku said:

Out of interest, with the ports removed I could stick my phone in the hole and take a photo. Here's what the 12" aluminium woofer looks like within the enclosure. Remember the ports are actually in front of the woofer in their own enclosure, constituting an acoustic band pass; they are not bass reflex ports.

 

Fascinating photo… just don’t drop the phone!

19 hours ago, Ittaku said:

This means even better bass definition than before. 24 hours to cure.  Who would have thought I had room to improve? Bonus.

 

Nah, mate - if you haven't done a DBT ... you're just dreaming!  

 

Andy

 

Here's what happens to distortion plots when you secure a completely loose pair of ports. Yes that is a frequency response to 10Hz, and the woofers cross over at 105Hz. This is an unsmoothed frequency response plot and the microphone was in a slightly different position so don't pay too much attention to the differences between those. Bear in mind this is after they'd gone completely loose so it had been getting progressively worse for some time, so if you came to a get together you probably didn't experience too much of the distortion, but it is still better than it was at the GTGs.

 

Wow, big change! That 40 Hz hump is just gone.

(and the 10Hz response is insane, btw)

Con, distortion is not a word that came to mind at the GTGs anyway! But good when you get a cheap win like this for sure