Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital: MQA HW decoding at reasonable cost

[creativepart]

Long time lurker and even semi-regular poster LOOOOONG ago (in 2004 I was an Ack! dAck! DAC  owner!). I just wanted to drop my $.02 into the conversation.

 

I've been using a Benchmark Dac 1 USB for something like 8 years and basically enjoying it (Musical Fidelity A5 integrated and B&W CM 6 speakers). I mostly listen to vinyl (VPI Classic 1 TT).  Once I heard the difference between Spotify and Tidal I switched my streaming to Tidal and when MQA came out I got a Meridian Exp2 to give it a listen.

 

I recently, well, last week, heard about the Pre Box S2 Dac. I got one this week and replaced the Meridian. I'm running it into the Direct inputs of my A5 integrated to bypass the pre-amp. I mostly stream Tidal MQA Masters through it. Years ago I copied  745 CDs I owned to a HD in ALAC at full-resolution. So, I still use that library, as well. I'm a Audirvana Plus user on an iMac.

 

This s a great little Dac. Compared to the Benchmark it's a tad forward, but not fatiguing in my system.

 

Hey, it's $300 buy one just to play with. If you don't like it you can sell it for probably close to the purchase price.

[creativepart]

On 4/30/2018 at 1:05 AM, PowerAudio said:

 I have a macbook and manually set it to 192k under the "audio devices".

The problem with the Mac is that when you set the output to anything - like 192 under audio devices it will upsample EVERYTHING to 192 and the upsampling engine on the Mac isn't very good.

 

You really have only two choices. Manually change the settings in audio devices to mirror the resolution of the source material on every file OR use software that will take care of this for you. Audirvana Plus does this for you. You set your mac at 16/44.1 in audio devices and Audirvana will adjust this on the fly for every file you play.  I assume Roon does this too, but I've not used it. There may be others that do this for you, I'm just aware of Audirvana Plus. And, current versions support MQA and work with both Tidal and Qobuz.

[creativepart]

That's certainly not how mine works. Out of the box failure?

[creativepart]

Miska, outside of build quality - how does the S2 compare soundwise to the B-Dack+ overall? Big difference?

[creativepart]

I'm not having any firmware issues - I have Roon set up upsample 44/16 to DSD 64 and all else I run through the S2 is MQA. I've had no problem running through mixtures of both kinds of files for hours on end. In fact, I've never had an issue.

 

All in all my S2 experience is completely positive and I find it a great option for under $400.

 

I switch between my S2 and my Benchmark Dac1 USB and and always return to the S2 for the main. If JW did offer improvements for purchase, I'd probably be standing in line.

[creativepart]

Thanks. It seems when I set this up DSD64 was the only option. But I just checked and it was changable to DAD128. Hopefully, my aging iMac can handle it. We'll see.

[creativepart]

You must use the USB connection to get MQA. Are you using something else like S/PDIF RCA or Toslink Optical connections?

 

And you have to have Masters box checked in the Tidal account settings (and of course pay for "hifi" services).

[creativepart]

When I had one of those dacs the MQA "light" would light up and and it would show the file's resolution on the Dac's screen. You might have some windows setting that is overriding the throughput to the DAC. If I read your post correctly you say:

Quote

Set Windows properties for S2 to default which resulted in it selecting 24/192.  Everything is scaled to 24/192 including non-master recordings.

That right there sounds like it is upsampling all of your files and doesn't seem appropriate for MQA throughput.

 

I use a Mac, so I don't know what the Win settings might be.