The Cascade DAC was born of an unwavering dedication to perfecting our craft, enabled by our enthusiasm for in-house design and vertically integrated manufacturing. This starts a new era—one built on twin foundations of innovation and experience. We began by reimagining the fundamentals of known DAC architectures from the ground up. Critical to the success of the Cascade DAC has been dividing the conversion process into three dedicated chassis and functions. First, all of the processing, sources, and interfaces that are necessary, but electrically noisy, have been concentrated in the Cascade Digital Director. Next, all of the critical low noise analog electronics have been housed in the Cascade Analog Converter. Finally, all of the analog power supplies have been moved to the dedicated Cascade Powerbase. This ideal component division enables sublime analog playback in nearly any system and listening environment. Let’s dive deeper into these building blocks to explore the industry leading technologies involved.
The Digital Director acts as a link between digital players and analog domain, capable of handling various digital formats with advanced algorithms. It has a discrete LED display and user-installable digital input modules. With high performance DSPs and FPGAs, it offers a superior soundstage and natural audio presentation. The Cascade-Link technology ensures noise-free analog conversion, and the display is refreshed using the Femto Clock to avoid digital noise. The Analog Converter has 8 Hybrid DAC MKII modules and passive analog stages for a pure sound. The clock module is user-upgradable and the analog inputs have optional gain. The Analog Converter offers the ultimate analog signal purity from any source, and is powered by the Cascade Powerbase. MSB constantly updates digital input modules for compatibility with current digital file formats. The modular design allows for future updates and upgrades. The Cascade DAC comes in a silver or black anodized unibody chassis with customizable accent finishes.