Pro-JectAudiophile Home Audio/Video Product Black (Box - Pre Box S2 Dgt Black)

In short, for the price you really can't do much better than the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital I'm sure if at all! As someone who also has a much more powerful and roughly double the MSRP amp/DAC combo unit, I still think this is very worthy purchase!Brief breakdownI originally intended to purchase the Pre Box for it's MQA ability specifically, but was also interested in the potential updates I could see from the DAC in general. What made me decide to pull the trigger was a combination of a strong desire to have something cleaner, more refined, and more powerful than my Denon X2300W AVR for when I want to watch movies or play console games with headphones (Oh, the wonders of apartment living as an audiophile!) and an open-box unit being available for just a little over $300. This fits the bill perfectly! With a USB input for my PC and a optical input for everything else, this does everything I need it to. Now, to give a little more of a breakdown of my other equipment in use I will just list everything below to make things easier.Headphones: Audeze LCD-2 (70 ohm), Sennheiser HD 600 (300 ohm), Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro (250 ohm)Amp/DAC: Audeze DeckardWith that out of the way, you can kinda see what I'm working with the Audeze LCD-2s and the Deckard have been my daily drivers for the longest and I've always been very happy with both. I just wanted to see if MQA was all it's chalked up to be and see what benefits I could get from a higher end DAC aside from the additional option to use optical devices and this unit has really impressed me! I've been using it with the AC adapter and when comparing output quality and volume of the headphone output between the Pre Box at max volume (0db) and my Deckard at max volume (low gain) they sound identical to my ears (Note: Pre Box used as source DAC for Deckard as well). That's with all my cans! No distortion and ultra clear detail. The Pre Box can drive all my headphones without issue. The Deckard only beats it on those terms when bumped up to mid gain, but in all honestly I usually don't listen to music any louder than what I can get from the Pre Box at 0db. I think that's what impressed me to most. I expected to need my second DAC at all times to get any kind of volume, but I was dead wrong! My Deckard usually doesn't need to be turned on. Nice since it saves me a couple bucks not having to run a class-A as often.In terms of the MQA performance, I'm a Tidal user and while I do like having the ability to have the full master quality experience, I honestly can't tell if it's better than normal 16-bit/44.1Khz with what I've listened to so far. Most everything I listen to is just in standard "Hi-Fi" FLAC quality, but everything sounds excellent on this DAC!In summary, I love it! It's an excellent piece of kit and holds it's own against much larger and expensive pieces of gear. It gets plenty loud on it's own, but if you need extras juice it will can give your amp the high quality source it needs to sound it's best! The ability to input a PC and my entire home theater/gaming setup to it makes it indispensable for my needs. I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone who want high quality sound and to keep their life savings. You'd be hard pressed to find a better DAC for less than four figures I'm pretty certain.

En el tema del desempeño del equipo no tengo nada que argumentar, el sonido es limpio y claro compensando muy bien la perdida con archivos de menor bit.Con la calidad de materiales estoy muy decepcionado, el control remoto dejó de funcionar y el conector de toma de corriente se cayó afortunadamente se alimenta de la conexión USB.No viene con instructivo detallado, no es que sea muy complejo la conexión pero siempre se agradece que venga mas explicado y sobre todo que sea muy específico con las funciones que incluye y los filtros para que sirven.

I would consider this as a Entry Level Audiophile DAC. Entry level because of the price. Audiophile because of the specs. Audiophile DACs are usually somewhat way more expensive to say the least.This purchase was for the MQA cababilties and it ended up being more that I expected. It is specked out very high with regard to the Dual Sabre ESS90388 DACs. This means that instead of one DAC for both channels, it has a dedicated DAC for each (stereo) channel.Usually something specked out like this will cost $1000 more to achieve what this device specs out to. MQA, DSD512, 32 Bit and also Roon.This device will give you the gateway to High Res Audio if you have the other necessary pieces in place. If you have CD quality or higher audio files, then the better the headphone, the better the speaker or the better the amp, this will sound simply outstanding.The up-scaling of the audio file is very impressive. I am currently up-scaling my audio files to DSD256 with no problems at all. It has the capability of going up to DSD512. I would have to tweak my hardware a little bit to achieve this setting.DSD256?. DSD format audio with DSD64, DSD128, DSD256, DSD512, DSD1024 sample rates is one of high resolution digital audio formats intended for any audiophile enthusiasts. Quad DSD (DSD256) With a resolution up to 256 times better than CD, you will immediately realize the full potential of your playback system. DSD256 is the one of the higher audio resolution format available.MQA was the reason for this purchase. The above specs were a very nice addition. MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) can be carried via any lossless file format such as FLAC or ALAC; hence, it can be played back on systems either with or without an MQA hardware decoder however it will not allow the full high res playback unless you have a hardware decoder such as this. With regard to MQA, there are different opinions as to whether this is a true audiophile recording however to me in most cases it does sound better than a CD.Please NOTE though. Although out of the box it is capable of achieving this, you will need to have access to a streaming service such as Tidal (Tidal.com) or software such as Roon (RoonLabs.com) to be able to listen to MQA and or upscale to DSD quality. There are other software options like JRiver (JRiver.com) and others that will play your High Res audio files also.

If you own a Mac, STAY AWAY FROM THIS PRODUCT!!!! I attempted to hook this product up to my Mac Mini to play MQA. However, Pro Ject did NOT install the necessary drivers to decode MQA for Mac or Windows before shipping. Therefore, you have to download the drivers from the Pro Ject website in order to hear MQA. I attempted to do just that BUT the driver software did not recognize the Pro Ject DAC. My Mac Mini DID recognize the DAC but NOT the driver software!!!! Therefore, you are stuck with this DAC only detecting CD quality streaming from sites like Tidal and NOT MQA or even pre-MQA. In my opinion this is very disappointing and unacceptable!!! I send the DAC back and ordered the Audio Quest Dragonfly Red which also detects MQA. I just installed it and works like a charm no issues. This was incredibly careless of Pro Ject to release a product that does not work as advertised.

This unit offers a ton of features including full MQA unfolding. It souned wonderful. After four months in my audio chain the left channel cut out, no sound. Switched interconnects, with the same result. Totally unusable. Not my amp, preamp, or cables. Other components are perfect. Extremely dissatisfied

Play MQA as mentioned. But not to mention that MQA is a racket.. product quality and built is very good. Sound is clean and filter help to manage a bit the sound according to your gear around. I like it. Very good second DAC