Been away a while but I’m back and I have a (silly may be!) question for those who may have an opinionated answer.
My current set up is:
MSB Reference DAC
MSB Premier Headphone Amp
MSB S202 power amp
Now, I have two XLR cables, of which one I reckon is better than the other … so, the connections I need to make in order to choose between playing the Reference > Premier Headphone Amp (no S202 involved) or Reference > S202 > speakers (obviously no headphone amp involved) are: one XLR pair from the DAC to the headphone amp, and then the other XLR pair from the headphone amp to the S202 amp.
Where would you use your best XLR cable, from the DAC to the headphone amp or from the headphone amp to the S202 power amp?
Easy, you use the best cable between the DAC and the headphone amp. Garbage in is garbage out, a cable can’t fix anything that has gone lost in the steps before.
I guess you’re right, I use the speakers vs headphones on a ratio of easily 10 to 1 in favour of speakers, headphones listening is for the occasional evening treat. But I am just too lazy to swap cables when I do
@jvdijk thanks. That’s actually what I have been doing on instinct (best cable DAC to HA) and did not even try the other way around yet, but I was still wondering.
In that case, in your shoes, I’d prefer DAC to Amp for the best cable. It means IMO a better choice due to the benefit you’d get most of the time.
And no, without swapping the cables when you use headphones, of course!
Luigi! My advice would be to have the best cables between the DAC and headphone amp, then the second set between the headphone amp and the S202. This is of course only if you are wanting to keep the entire system setup and use the bypass mode when switching to two channel. It is always best to start at the highest performance and step down, otherwise both the headphone amp AND the S202 would have the lower quality connection, vs just the S202. Hope that helps! Cheers.
Thanks Daniel I guess if I win my laziness and just swap cables when needed I can just go direct with the best XLR cable from the Reference DAC into the S202 for speakers playback, and only insert/use the secondary cable in the system (as you suggest above) only whenever I feel like listening to the headphones rig! In fact, I think that’s what I’ll do from now on lol
Yes! We have plenty of stock and will make more if we see enough demand come up. Headphone amps are a small part of our business and the electrostatic is even a smaller percent of that. Fantastic product, but very niche. It was taken off the website only because we are trying to focus on the more traditional 2-channel setups currently.
and I have a (silly may be!) question for those who may have an opinionated answer.