Perfect Wave DAC Owner Unite - Page 57

Last night I came to the conclusion that I prefer the XA5400es optical out to PWD to the analog RCA out of the XA5400es into the Zana Deux.  In comparison, I felt the analog out of the CDP was brighter and more compressed to my ears.  Took my by surprise really, it's too bad I can't play an SACD through the PWD.

It's a freaky thing. Despite the Digital Lens / FIFO buffer, transports and digital transfer methods do have their own sound. Heck, I even think there's an "OSX" and "Windows 7 WASAPI" sound.

Hey, that last 2% costs us $3000 buddy!

If there's two things I do not want to have to shop for anymore it's a new DAC and/or CD Player!

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

Alex, you know how it goes! Sometimes you gotta sit for a month on it. After over a year, I feel #4 is the smoothest, and #5 is the harshest, and everything else sounded the same. But I wouldn't bet ten dollars I could tell the difference. Maybe one.

I found myself using 4 the most.

Yay! Of course I'm sure your life is much easier now with less options / bugs / features.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

 

Haha! There's really very little difference between the filters...

I think it depends on the person. With speakers I find it very easy to tell the difference between the filters. Particularly filters 4 and 5, which have a very significant rolloff past 18.3 kHz... the change in "air" of these filters versus filters 1-3 is definitely noticeable on speakers. I can tell the minimum phase versus linear phase filters apart fairly readily with spoken word recordings and percussion... less easily so with mixed music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

Yay! Of course I'm sure your life is much easier now with less options / bugs / features.

It will be once I sell the thing.  But yeah, I have enough decisions to make during the day--I don't need to tell my DAC how to be a DAC anymore.  I still like the way it sounds, though.  Just high maintenance.

I've been using a variety of transports with my PWD, but I never got around to getting a PWT.  

I use (1) the Bridge with a LaCie NAS and Twonky Server Mac for the best results, (2) a Nuforce CDP-8 via coax (quite good), and (3) optical input via Macbook Pro or Audioengine D2.  The D2 is a wireless USB to S/PDIF converter and DAC on our iMac, that I use to feed optical into the PWD at the other end of the house.  I really haven't had much need for USB, but I'll try the new USB with the Mk2 and see what I think.  I probably should invest in a 8 foot USB cable now, in advance.  

Note - Note having a Bridge isn't a deal-breaker for me.  With Amarra 2.4 the Mac via optical sounds extremely close to the Bridge, and I prefer to choose the music with my smart playlists in iTunes than using the eLyric software to run the Bridge.  So, I could live with a "Bridgeless" DAC other than the PWD if I had to.  Since we leave iTunes running all the time on the iMac upstairs as a home sharing server, it was easy to set up the Audioengine D2 to send all audio output via the USB (or optical) transmitter to the wireless receiver in the basement, where it has optical and analog output sound quality that beats the Airport Express hands down.  This way I can use the Apple Remote app to control the music on iMac and have access to all my playlists.  

Also, the Nuforce CDP-8 has impressed me to no end with it's RCA output sound quality, which I think is better than my old Apogee mini-DAC.  It's good enough that when I want to keep things simple I sometimes use the CDP-8 RCA out directly into my ZDT amp via the second input.  I still buy a lot of music on CD, and although it's ripped into my iTunes in lossless format I still listen the actual CD's too.  

So I'm sticking with the PWD for now, but if the sound goes south after the Mk2 and with changes in firmware I'm not totally committed to it.  If I had the PWT I might feel more attached to the PWD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jc9394 

 

Ever ties OPPO coaxial out to PWD?  It is very close to PWT I2S out, at least to my ears.

I notice a difference -- the PWT sounds better, offering better resolution than the Oppo. 

In my speaker setup, I actually have the PWT connected to the PWD in two ways -- using both PS Audio's HDMI/I2S cable and DH Labs Silver Sonic AES/EBU digital cable.  With well recorded CDs, I listen to the PWT via the HDMI/I2S connection.  With poorly recorded (generally older) CDs, I listen via the AES/EBU connection.  The DH Labs Silver Sonic is somewhat forgiving, although not as resolved as the HDMI connection, and it also offers really good bass, much better than some of the more expensive digital cables I have tried.  In any case, I still think the Perfect Wave DAC sounds best with the Perfect Wave Transport as the source, even though NativeX was supposed to make all sources sound pretty similar.

I am sure the group has seen the October Newsletter with PS Audio going back to a hybrid model where very few dealers but more direct.

When Terri and I restarted PS Audio in 1997 we were one of the first/few companies to retail high-end audio products direct to consumers.  We shipped Power Plants all over the world for many years.  It wasn't until much later that dealer demands for the products increased enough that we started putting on brick and mortar outlets who wanted to carry the line.  For many years our products were available both factory direct and through our network of dealers.

Several years ago we decided it would be easier to simply stop our retailing efforts and turn them over to our online partners Music Direct and Audio Advisor.  This model has worked very well for the last few years but two things have occurred in the meantime: a growing number of brick and mortar dealers have been going out of business or moving their focus from high-end audio to custom home theater, coupled with a rash of online unauthorized dealers cropping up to fill the void.  These unauthorized dealers have caused no end of grief for many of our customers.  To solve these issues and address the increasing requests from loyal PS fans to purchase factory direct, we decided to return to our hybrid model.  To do that we've eliminated about 300 marginal retailers from our dealer base keeping only the strongest, loyal and best for the brand.

We're very excited about returning to this model because in the end our customers are the ones that benefit greatly - and that matters a great deal to us. 

We are limiting our factory direct activities to the United States only.  We rely on our trusted international network of distributors and dealers for sales, service, communication and help.  One of the reasons we restrict it to the US is to make sure customers can get in-country service and communicate with PS people that can speak a common language.  Frankly my German is pretty bad.



In typical PS fashion we wanted to make sure that when we opened up our new US online store that we do so in an innovative way that really benefits our customers. 

We've actually modeled our store after an idea Terri had: that of the online shoe store Zappos.  Zappos is a great retailer and very successful because they make it super easy for their customers to try on shoes, find the one they want and send back the ones they don't want.  We decided to model our approach after theirs.

To do that we want to make sure our customers have a painless, risk free in home audition process because - let's face it - you really need to take one home and play with it in your living room to know if it's what you want.  The shoe store makes it super simple: order whatever you want and they ship it to your door for free.  Try them on, keep the ones you want and return the ones you don't want and they pay and arrange the return shipping for free as well.  That's what we're doing.

Whatever you order on the PS Audio webstore is shipped out to you via FedEx for free.  You can play with it for a month and then either keep it or email us and say "send me a call tag" and that's exactly what we do.  FedEx shows back up at your house, picks up the product and when we get it back you get a full refund.  It's really unique in our industry and we're committed to making it easy for our customers.