Perfect Wave DAC Owner Unite - Page 7

All right, thanks for both you Yikes and jc9394. 

Yikes (no pun intended), when freight is considered this DAC costs almost as much as 1.5 times of the Audio-gd's Reference 7, another DAC that is in my short list. 

What are the differences between PWD and REF-7 (Audio-GD) in the categories of tonal balance, soundstage, transparency, dynamics - micro and macro?

Thank you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT 

All right, thanks for both you Yikes and jc9394. 

 

Yikes (no pun intended), when freight is considered this DAC costs almost as much as 1.5 times of the Audio-gd's Reference 7, another DAC that is in my short list. 

With the current PS Audio DAC trade-in program, you should be able to get the PWD for $1999.  If you don't have a DAC to trade in, there are authorized vendors that are selling it for substantially less than $2999.

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT 

All right, thanks for both you Yikes and jc9394. 

 

Yikes (no pun intended), when freight is considered this DAC costs almost as much as 1.5 times of the Audio-gd's Reference 7, another DAC that is in my short list. 

Unless a restrained sound and artificial smoothness is your cup of tea, I'd take the Reference 7 off your short list IMO. I heard it compared to an older Theta Gen Va and I greatly preferred the Theta.

Quote:

Originally Posted by computerparts 

Unless a restrained sound and artificial smoothness is your cup of tea, I'd take the Reference 7 off your short list IMO. I heard it compared to an older Theta Gen Va and I greatly preferred the Theta.

I don't have as negative an impression of the Ref 7, but the above does articulate very well some of my feelings about the Ref 7 (i.e., restrained and smooth).  I prefer the PWD to the Ref 7.
 

Monkey,

Do you know if your REF-7 uses DSP-1 V4 or V5 module?

I sold my Northstar M192 MKII, and now I´m looking for a new dac.

Some dac in my list: Reference 7, Reference 8 (Audio-GD), PWD, ECD-1 (Electrocompaniet).

My stereo system is: pre and power Cambridge Audio (840E / 840W), Paradigm Signature S6 and a computer + hiface stock

Thank you!

It's the loaner Ref 7 and I believe it is NOT using the v5 module.  I also have a hard time believing that makes much of a difference, but I have not compared the modules.

whoa whoa, ref7 upgrades?  Where can we find more info?

btw, how do you guys feel about affordable transports for the pwd?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Monkey 

It's the loaner Ref 7 and I believe it is NOT using the v5 module.  I also have a hard time believing that makes much of a difference, but I have not compared the modules.

Believe it.  Kingwa himself even said the difference was significant and he never says stuff like that.

But I haven't heard the v4 module that was in there so I don't know how close that one is to v5.  I had v2 or v3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jc9394 

That much more there?  Did you checked Audiogon.com?  They are a little more than Ref 7 when I brought mine.

Yeah, when freight and duties are taken into account and when you live in South East Asia and when your local PS Audio distributor is sticking stubbornly to the MSRP, things become much more complicated. 

Thanks for the Agon suggestion, that will be where I look first when the time comes. 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Monkey 

With the current PS Audio DAC trade-in program, you should be able to get the PWD for $1999.  If you don't have a DAC to trade in, there are authorized vendors that are selling it for substantially less than $2999.

Thanks! I will inquire with my local distributor about this program. Do they accept all DACs? I really don't want to trade in my beloved γ2 though if I can. I hope these vendors want to ship internationally.

Anyway, looking forward to your final impressions in the loaner program. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by computerparts 

Unless a restrained sound and artificial smoothness is your cup of tea, I'd take the Reference 7 off your short list IMO. I heard it compared to an older Theta Gen Va and I greatly preferred the Theta.

Thanks for your impressions, I will definitely keep that in mind. Artificial smoothness can be really annoying as the Phonitor/Auditor I auditioned back then had that symptoms where it glazes the treble in all of your music. 





 

I'm possibly looking at the uber cheap Sony bdp-s370 as a transport using a hdmi de-embedder to pull out digital signal to optical in to the PWD.  Or, maybe just forgetting the notion and holding out for a used xa5400es; in which case I think the xa5400 would just go straight into the pre- (or maybe go into the dac?).

Having a hard time justifying either decision though heh.