MSBs Hybrid DAC and Prime DAC modules are unique to MSB. They’re a custom in-house design with over twenty years of discrete DAC development knowledge behind them. MSB has designed and manufactured discrete ladder DACs since 1999, discovering and implementing many unique and innovative improvements over the years. It’s best to think of our DAC modules as a black box: the modules take the raw digital data in and output a continuous voltage. They’re not limited by audio formats, sample rates, or even speed. We can operate our current DAC modules at up to 6 MHz for PCM and up to 50 MHz for DSD. This gives us lots of headroom for future sample rates and audio formats. The other unique characteristic about our Hybrid and Prime DAC modules is they’re fully balanced. In today’s noisy environment, having the audio signal stay balanced to the point of conversion is key for maintaining the highest amount of noise rejection and resolution. Each one of our DAC modules processes both the positive and negative phases simultaneously in synchronicity.
 
The key highlights of both our Hybrid and Prime DAC modules are:
Fully Balanced design down to the conversion point.
No buffers, IV converter, or transistors in the signal path. No active devices after conversion at all.
Dynamically configurable between a discrete native DSD, or discrete native PCM DAC. The DAC has two modes:a multibit PCM mode and a massive parallel single-bit discrete DSD mode.
Based off a discrete ladder DAC design far beyond the performance of a basic R2R architecture.
Each DAC module is individually shielded and thermally bonded for a stringent temperature control.
Multiple DACs per channel for increased performance and lower output impedance.
Each DAC module is individually tested and then hand-matched with our rigorous automated measurement system.