I like to give the Cascade plenty of time to slowly get up to operating temperature and approach the sonic optimum. It is also the signal supplier when working with the fantastic darTZeel pre/power amp combination NHB-18NS and NHB-108. Logically, the enormous capabilities of these exceptional amplifiers are easier to discover with sources of the very best quality - and vice versa: the MSB trio has certainly played a not inconsiderable part in the fact that I have enjoyed music files via the Swiss premium amplifiers more intensively than ever before in my listening room. But the Cascade also works its magic through the WestminsterLab Quest and Einstein's The Poweramp: albums newly acquired from Qobuz such as John Surman's Words Unspoken, Niels Kugelmann's Stormy Beauty and Julia Hülsmann's The Next Door simply come across as extremely coherent, flowing and homogeneous. The reproduction is free of any technical artifacts and simply "right" or "natural" - even if I usually shy away from using the last two adjectives. But I can't avoid it here.

With well-known albums such as Changing Places by the Tord Gustavsen Trio, I know, even without a direct comparison, that the Cascade, for example, gives the much-played first two pieces a suppleness and yet a high level of inner tension that I didn't know before. Suddenly you become aware of the different intensity of the attacks in a relaxed melody line, but this does not distract from the essentials. Gustavsen's playing is bursting with energy, but listening to ‘Melted Matter’, for example, you don't feel like you're witnessing a spectacle; instead, you're almost drawn into the realistic-seeming space. The rubbing of the brushes on the snare is extremely finely differentiated, while the head of the bass drum, lightly tapped with the mallet, still develops a certain pressure. The reproduction of the instruments is incredibly vivid. But you're not here to indulge in pure rapture. That's why I switch back to Auralic Aries, Chord M-Scaler and Dave with their various modifications and start the music file "Sunrise" from Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, ripped from the LSC CD: Over the rumbling of the organ, the brass instruments give an idea of the size of the recording space, the timpani solidify the first impressions, especially in terms of the depth of the stage, and the rest of the orchestra enters: What a grandiose beginning! The MSB then lends the rumbling more structure, the room seems even more expansive, the instrument groups are surrounded by more air, the reproduction has more urgency: there is not the slightest doubt as to which converter makes this short sequence a deeper emotional experience.

Up to now, the Cascade has acted purely as a DAC. And in this function it was first allowed to convert the beginning of the first movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15 with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra: It does this more convincingly than all the DACs that have previously played in my listening room – only the dCS Vivaldi came near to it, but unfortunately this has been back with the distributor for so long that I can't compare its fantastic performance with that of the MBS from memory. However, it is easy to describe what changes when the MSB takes on the role of a preamplifier instead of the WestminsterLab Quest: relatively little! The imaginary stage shrinks slightly in terms of depth, but the sound image is now slightly more powerful in the bass range. This may be a matter of taste for listeners with bat ears, but in terms of cost, the decision is clear: I would also entrust the Cascade with the tasks of a preamplifier in my chain.