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. We 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.
 
Part 1: The Digital Director
 
The Digital Director is the brain of the Cascade system, handling all the digital processes. It acts as an intermediary between digital players, transports, renderers, servers, computers, and the analog domain. It is able to identify, configure and process nearly any digital format with advanced new algorithms for faithful reproduction. It features a low noise linear power supply, elegant user controls, and a high visibility discrete LED display, along with user installable digital input modules. It then outputs a conversion ready signal over the fully isolated optical Cascade-Link to the Cascade Analog Converter. This allows you to easily place the Digital Director anywhere in your system with the reassurance that the analog processes are free of digital interference. 
 
Part 2: The Analog Converter
 
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.
 
Part 3: The Powerbase
 
The analog performance is only as good as the power supplies that support it, that’s why we have completely overhauled our powerbase technologies for the Cascade system. The Cascade includes smart power controls, like our 12V trigger system, for a unified power experience.