I don’t know the MSB but it seems like quite a balanced assessment from someone who sells MSB.
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They carry dCS as well, so any/every review from him is going to be balanced. These type of reviews are, IMVHO, practically useless because they’re driven by a 
motive 
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Haha, yes compare to different Ferraris, as long as you buy one you will be happy (and the dealer too).
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They are based in Toronto and these guys are my dCS dealer now. I wouldn’t call what they do on YouTube reviews, but rather community outreach. Like most dealers they are in the business of selling luxury goods. I think they take more of a lifestyle approach - helping their customers find a system that works for them.
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I don’t watch Youtube reviews but I have A/B’d my Vidaldi APEX versus the MSB Select in my room. Bottom line there are some things that the Vivaldi does better than MSB such as finding more detail in the sound. At the same time the MSB may do vocals better than the APEX. Until I spent time with the Varese I always felt that “my” dCS always came with some hash around vocals. It is only apparent when you quickly A/B against something such as the Select. The lack of this hash was something I noticed right away in the Varese.
I can see where different individuals would chose one brand over the other. I doubt if someone who owned one brand would jump to the other without moving up the the others food chain. For example Select II to Varese or Vivaldi APEX to MSB Cascade.
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I have a lot of respect for the MSB team and believe the Cascade has a compelling architecture. The Sentinel is likely to be a very high quality product too.
Given the number of Select 2s available on Audiogon now, it is probably a good assumption that the Cascade is meaningfully better than the prior flagship.
As previously noted in other threads, one key difference between the brands is the approach to clocking.
Though it has been offered, unlike Jim I have not demo’d MSB at my place. Right now I am satisfied with my one dCS box.
Cheers
My take from this video is.
You can tune a system to give more bass or treble, with matching to the correct amp and speakers to give you what you want. Then even fine tune it with cables.
You can’t tune a system to give you more detail and natural sound if the source has already coloured that too much and can’t give you the details to begin with.
I am sure both sound great, but for me the rossini is the far better product that gives a much truer replay. Isn’t that what we want? As iknow i do.
Cheers dunc
For me both great brands, don’t think you can go wrong with any of the two
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It would be interesting to hear the opinion of @PaleRider beacuse, IIRC, he has both MSB (I can’t recall which model) and a Vivaldi stack…
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Thanks for sharing this video. It was fascinating to watch and mostly represents my experience with the products. I currently have a Rossini Apex and clock and I demoed the Cascade for about 1.5 weeks in my home.
I felt that my DCS was more detailed and airy, had a much wider sound stage, better vocals, but less bass attack.
MSB was smoother, but really nice bass—really nice! It also had a deeper sound stage in my room and I could hear more details (but in a different way than DCS). DCS’ details can be a little harsh on certain tracks and it was not the case on the Cascade.
With that said, I chose to stay with DCS in the end. For the price difference, I would want everything to sound better (to my ears) and it didn’t. If I had to put a %, I would say it was better on 60-70% of tracks I listened to. That said, one thing I really missed right away when plugging in the Cascade was the wide sound stage that I get with my Rossini and the large amount of airiness on most tracks. I can see how he used the Ferrari 430 analogy in the video because DCS can be harsh and unforgiving at times. That said, if I can only own one car, I still want to drive the 430 overall (so I kept the Rossini)
One other caveat is that I have never tried Vivaldi in my setup as I’m waiting for a solution with less boxes / cables. So Vivaldi’s bass may be more to my liking than Rossini. Cascade was a very compelling option to me since it was in the league of Vivaldi and only required 2 power cords and XLR’s which I already had in my room for Rossini. Just my 2 cents…
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Have you considered the Vivaldi One?
They were released in limited numbers (250, I think?), so I’m keeping my eye out for one that is certified pre-owned…
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I have! Sadly, my shelf is about 3/4 inch too short for it to fit. If there was a Vivaldi One without a CD player (and smaller) I would be all over it.
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Surely you could get a bigger one…? 
Not in the cards in my current room/setup. There are a number of things I will change when a bit more settled.
For very similar reasons, my upgrade path ended with the Vivaldi One.
I don’t know about “certified pre-owned” but I did my diligence when I bought mine. I reached out to dCS to verify its provenance (@Phil was supremely helpful; thanks again Phil!) and I also validated that the Apex upgrade had been done by dCS. It also helped me tremendously to know that the original owner - who was local so no shipping involved - was even more obsessive with his equipment than me!
RyanB and Jonathan, I wish you both the best in your quest
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I am intrigued to know what the original owner bought next…?
Thank you!
What he said to me was that he was moving entirely to analog and since he gifted me a decent number of amazing SACDs, I have no reason to disbelieve him
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Hey Jonathan, i fear my observations would be a bit dated at this point. I sold the MSB Select II stack and integrated my headphone listening station into my living room listening room.
I previously posted my comparisons of the two, though it was anything bur scientific. The MSB was used exclusively to feed my various headphones, the Vivaldi solely a speaker system (Legacy Valor). And I never swapped them. I’m just too lazy for that. Both are wonderful, but in a nutshell, the Vivaldi felt more organic, the MSB more structured and analytical.
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Good outcome.
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