Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital

I sold my Benchmark DAC1 for this little beauty and, coupled with an iFi PS, it’s a step up in both audio quality and feature set. The Benchmark is admittedly a little long in the tooth but very happy with what the S2 offers at this price point.

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I’m not an “enthusiast” only (what did you call me very kindly) - I’m an engineer also; so I approach this in the cold light of day… :slight_smile:

I found the S2 (distortion compensation set to off, slow roll off filter) with a vary slight edge over the Bluesound node. A little wider soundstage. I don’t listen thru heaphones, this is thru my main system. If one is happy with the Node 2 internal dac, I do not think the price of the S2 would be worth it. I like the DSD capabilities and the improvement over my Oppo 103 with DSD files. I have purchased a few DSD downloads, plus I’m in the process of converting my many SACD’s to dsd digital files. The biggest difference was the Node2 and S2 sound improvement over my older Peachtree Nova Pre Dac. The PT sounded very thin and narrow compared to both.

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Thank you, Dale. Very helpful summary.

I am eyeing one of these. This would be good if:

  • Your current DAC does not have DSD capabilities
  • You want MQA

Personally, I am waiting until Roon has MQA, so I don’t have to switch back and forth between Roon and Tidal. I have a good DAC (Marantz HD-DAC1), but want MQA playback.

The S2 has full MQA capabilities, so it can play MQA from Roon as well.

I have had mine for a couple of months now, and with the new firmware (2.11) that fixed a couple of issues its a great little dac. Sounds great, practical with volume control and input switching, nice color display, and for me that listen from computer it fits below the monitor and does not take up much real estate.

I don’t use MQA though, since I have digital room correction and MQA cannot be used with any DSP.

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Just got my S2. Sounds nice. Not sure it will beat my W4S DAC2 but of course the price points were different; nor does it sound markedly worse, so this may be a nice little acquisition. I am getting the MQA blue light! I will spend some quality time with it and report back my findings. So far, sounds nice - not sure yet whether MQA is any sort of revelation…

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A question. When you say that MQA will not work with DSP, is that just with Roon? I have an Onkyo AVR and have Audyssey room correction set up with it. Will I have to turn Audyssey off to use MQA?

Apples to oranges. Right now with Roon (or I should say, unless you use the Tidal app alone), you will not get any MQA decoding unless you have an MQA capable DAC. That DAC can feed the analog signal to your AVR and the AVR will do room coorection. However, that is not an optimized audio chain as that means digital to analog conversion, back to digital in the AVR for room correction, then back to analog.

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MQA uses information hidden in higher frequencies, which will be removed when signal is modified by for example DSP. This is not a limitation in Roon but for MQA. Basically, the signal has to be bit-perfect from the source all the way to the DAC for full MQA to work (a first unfold in for example Tidal Desktop App will work though, or in Roon if/when it gets that functionality).

I use room correction myself, and even though I have the Pro-Ject S2 DAC I never use MQA since room correction does so much more. I hope that Roon will get the functionality for the first unfold in software, that way you should be able to combine part of MQA (the important part) with room correction.

Thanks for the advice! I just ordered the S2 from Amazon (they have it on stock now, through Audio Advisors) and will try it. Currently, I use a Marantz HD-DAC1, so it will be interesting to see how they match up against each other. If the sound is similar, I would probably keep the S2 (for the MQA compatibility) and sell the Marantz. We’ll see, because I love the sound on the Marantz, which I use to upsample to DSD.

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There is a new firmware available, download from here: http://www.box-designs.com/main.php?prod=preboxs2digital&cat=s2-line&lang=en

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New windows drivers available as well, which fixed the sample rate detection issue. Someone who uses MQA maybe can report of the MQA drop.out is fixed (its supposed to be). There is also a firmware update utility.

USB volume is also implemented, although the DAC display does not update from changes in USB volume (which would have been neat).

Hi,

Is anyone using a microRendu or ultraRendu, into this DAC?

Are both PCM768k and DSD512 (Roon upsampling) currently supported with this chain:

MacOS RoonServer > micro/ultraRendu > Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital?

I’m thinking of getting this DAC for my old man (my dad) but I’m just concerned about MacOS and the micro/ultraRendu (Linux) and full PCM768k and DSD512 support.

I know these aren’t an issue for Windows direct to this USB DAC.

Cheers

hi @dabassgoesboomboom,
full PCM768k in vanila linux is supported and works. Therefore is going to work on Sonore.
DSD256 via DoP also works out of the box on all as well.

DSD512 works only with 1-2 month old kernels (not sure if Sonore has updated kernel) and only in Native mode.

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Many thanks @gahabana !

Sonore are pretty good with updating their kernel but I can double check with them, regarding Native DSD512 support with this DAC.

Avoid getting a DAC that is self powered by a single USB 5V. Most full size DAC has multiple split linear power suppllies for both digital and analog sections. This resulted in low noise and avoid the pitfalls of using switching power supply. A single +5V supply means it needs to undergo voltage boost and also split into +/- supplies for analog section, all these require the use of switching power supplies to accomplish.

This DAC has a separate external 5Vdc input though?

The S2 has an extra 5V input and auto-switching power (if external power is connected, the USB power is not used). I run mine with an iFi iPower to get more stable power, which improved the sound quite a lot.

I asked Westlake the same question, as the manual is confusing. This is his answer -