@Ess D/A coverters the same?
It doesn’t have a compressor built in, but it you crank the Vol + Distortion, it can distort, and distortion can cause compression.
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As far as I know this is a quite common myth. Of course the different time stretch algorithms always sounded different but if you turned warp off or used re-pitch it wasn’t a thing. I suspect a lot of the early complaints about the Ableton live sound came from people using the beats algorithm on everything
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No, but that has a minute impact on sound. Most converters these days are quite good, and you would have to choose some really bad ones to make a big difference (which we haven’t)
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I tried the Model Samples and the headphone volume was frustratingly low. Couldn’t stand it.
No that’s a whole different issue. God that was the worst, people releasing sample/loop driven records with the algorithm clearly set at beats 
On vocals too. Nightmare. No this was something about the sound engine, master buss and the summing. I read about it in more than a couple places, a long while back.
This is a very common myth but I don’t think anyone has ever proven it. People always use the word summing too, which I find funny. I might be wrong but isn’t summing digital audio just adding numbers together? How would you mess up adding numbers in a way that would make audio more ”cold” or ”thin” or whatever? Compared to analog summing, sure, but in digital audio?
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The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that DAWs don’t have a “sound” and, indeed, summing is just that. I used to work at a plugin/audio software developer and none of the highly-experienced DSP and audio devs there believed in any of it whatsoever, and they were building this stuff. We’re talking about people with PHDs in audio engineering and DSP and whatnot. Many DAW developers have joined the conversation on KVR (among other places) to say that there is no “sound” in their DAWs because the basic summing is just summing. If all things are equal (panning, levels, no filters, no envelopes, no timestretch etc) then it all sounds the same. Subconscious bias is a powerful thing! It often gets heated in these discussions, but it simply isn’t worth arguing about - if you’re happy with your gear then that’s all that matters in the end.
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Cool! Anwyay the MS sounds great and I love it. I thought I’d miss the DT much more, opting for this to save money, but not at all.
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For me, besides the sequencer, the sound quality of Elektron’s digital devices is the major strength.
Especially with the Model Series now competing against products like the Electribe and Circuit. The two things that are going to influence my enjoyment the most are 1) does it sound good? and 2) can I do cool things with the sequencer?
Extra FX options and Ableton Live export and this bell and that whistle, the things I can work around… these won’t really matter much if the Sound/Sequencer prerequisites aren’t met.
Having to work around core sound quality and sequencer capabilities is much more cumbersome.
As for the OT. I’ve been feeding my M:S and M:C into it quite a bit lately. It isn’t doing anything bad to them. And it’s a 10 year old MK1. Gain staging is key there.
Amen.
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same with OT timestretching
Could it be your headphones require higher amounts to drive them? On Cycles my SRH1840 volume is fine but AKG701’s less so
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The headphone volume is set quite low by default, about 60% I think, you can turn it up in the config menu by adjusting the “HP MAX” setting.
My HD650 headphones have an impedance of 300Ω and the M:S is plenty loud at 100%
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All of this talk about sound quality is making me miss my DT 
Objectively speaking, and certainly from the DSP developers point of view, the DAW doesn’t have “a sound”. However, the design choices and interface induce a certain manner of use that impacts decisions by the end user that certainly do impact the sound.
This might sound silly, but the graphic design and calibration of meters makes quite a difference in decision making, eventually affecting the sonic outcome. Floating point vs. Fixed point processing does not, in and of itself give the sound any particular character, but in actual use can have a major difference. Crossfade algorithms, implementation of latency compensation, are all neutral to the DSP engineer but have real impact on a musician working on a song and not in an engineer state of mind.
Though I agree that most converters these days are quite good, they can still sound quite different. So while they may score quite similarly on a list of measurable objective parameters the final subjective aural experience of the listener may be that one is significantly “better” than the other. This is before and regardless of the all powerful subconscious bias. Sound and music are experienced subjectively.
To answer the OP, I would say no, you are not necessarily crazy. If you really need an answer, run the same sample from both machines through OB and then from the analog outs. Does MS sound better in OB too?
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What about how some DAWs render files natively in 32 bit (Reaper) instead of 24 bit and that the dithering process on the later can cause artifacts. The difference in head room here as well may allow for a different sound I would have thought.
I noticed the same. MS sounds more pleasing and warm to my ears then DT. Would be interesting to record a DT beat through OB to the computer and then play it through the MS as an audio interface to see if it will sound different.
Could it simply be the single filter on the M:S? For example, if you want to low-pass something, you cannot simultaneously remove the low end like you can with DT’s base-width filter. So there’s more low end left in and that means a “warmer” sound overall?
Or could it be digitakt bumps the highs, (there’s an EQ bump built in there, cant get rid of it) and M:S does not.
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That could be. But isnt it likely they just used different DA convertors?