All digital signal processing in the Cascade therefore takes place in the Director. It then provides the optimally processed data at the interface called MSB Cascade Link. Diode lasers and optical fibers are used for data transmission in order to guarantee a noise-free data flow with a high bandwidth without electrical noise in the upstream. The raw, uncompressed data is transmitted directly to the converter modules. MSB Technology has designed the Cascade Link to transport not only the data to be converted but also the control commands from the director to the actual DAC and the clock data in the opposite direction. From a technical point of view, this takes place via SFP modules of the type SFP1G-LX-31 from FS, which are specified for a wavelength of 1310 nanometers and a maximum distance of 10 kilometers. The modules are connected via single-mode duplex fiber optic cables.

This brings us to the second part of the Cascade system: the Analog Converter. According to its developers, this is more of an analog than a digital component, as the data stream arriving via the Cascade link is immediately converted into the analog world by eight hybrid DAC MKII modules. These are fully symmetrical, high-precision ladder DACs that can process both PCM and DSD natively and are therefore called "hybrid". The parallel connection of four modules per channel is designed to improve the precision of the conversion and reduce the output impedance. It is part of the company's philosophy not to connect any active components downstream of the resistive conductors: MSB dispenses with any buffers or current/voltage converter stages. The ladder DACs only feed a passive resistor network with constant impedance for volume control. This is done in steps of 0 to 106. For this purpose, latching relays with precious metal contacts, whose coils are switched to ground when inactive to avoid signal distortion, connect various precision resistors in such a way that none of them has too high a power dissipation, which should benefit the maximum linearity of the signal. The level can of course be adjusted not only with the rotary control on the device, but also with the one on the attractively designed remote control. This is made entirely of metal and can be recharged via a micro-USB cable if required. If you select the "Startup Vol" setting in the menu, reach the value 100 and turn one more step clockwise, the converter switches to DAC mode, the volume control is deactivated and "Preamp off" appears on the display.

MBS has upgraded the DAC - or perhaps better: the housing with the eight ladder DAC modules - in the Cascade trio to a complete preamplifier: it has two analog RCA and two XLR inputs as well as an XLR output. Behind the inputs are buffers with an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio, extremely low distortion and a gain of either zero or six decibels. After that, the signal passes through the same passive resistor network that is also driven by the converter module outputs. MSB has also placed the Femto Clock MKIII in the same enclosure, right next to the converters, to keep jitter, which would increase with every additional distance between the clock module and the conversion point in the DAC module, as low as possible.