[RedBull]

I have never seen a comparison to Invicta? DAC performance alone, as pwd does not have head amp.

 

[Senn-Fi]

Quote:

New owner. For those of you using the Bridge, which is preferred - aiff or flac? Is there any discernible advantage to using aiff?

If you are using elyric as your server and turn on the transcode function, it will convert them to .WAV prior to streaming and there will be absolutely no difference.  If you have a bunch of MP3 or other lossy stuff transcoding really slows it down.  I have tried both transcoding and non-transcoding and I think I like the transcoding a bit better.  Personnally, I don't think there is any significant difference to AIFF vs ALAC vs FLAC as far as sound quality goes even if you don't turn on transcoding.

 

[bcwang]

Anyone know if the pwd uses the wm8741 or wm8742 dac chip, and does it use one or two?  I've seen it reported differently in different places and wonder which is accurate.  Maybe some of you doing the mk ii upgrade saw the dac chip?
 

 

[valer_valer]

Quote:

Anyone know if the pwd uses the wm8741 or wm8742 dac chip, and does it use one or two?  I've seen it reported differently in different places and wonder which is accurate.  Maybe some of you doing the mk ii upgrade saw the dac chip?
 

One WM8741.
http://www.psaudio.com/vanilla/discussion/4268/pwd-ii-technical-questions-.../p3

 

[bcwang]

Thanks! Glad to know they went with the top end chip rather than the cost reduced version.

Does anyone know a way to use MOG with the bridge?

 

[givemevinyl]

Bridge owners: Knowing what you know now, if you could start over (streaming via ethernet), what would be your preferred system (ripping/encoding/storing/Mac vs Windows vs NAS/etc)?  Is there a best-practices thread somewhere?

 

[Senn-Fi]

I have two systems that stream digital.  The first is the PS Audio PWD2 + Bridge.  The second is based on a Logitech Media Center and the Transporter and SBT.  The digital files are ripped as FLAC and stored on a windows home server (home made) that I keep in the basement.  I run the Elyric server software as well as Logitech music server on the server.  Control is by an ipad with the elyric control app for the PS Audio system and iPeng for the squeezebox.
 
Both of the systems work nearly flawlessly, but the Logitech system is a little bit easier to set up.  For example, to get the gapless playback to work properly on the PS Audio, you have to either check "Play all albums as gapless" or go through your music and individually and select which albums to play as gapless.  If you choose "Play all albums as gapless", it all works fine, unless you want to stream an MP3 album.  If you do this, it takes a long time (minutes) before the music will start to play as the server software basically has to transcode the the MP3's to a single WAV file and then streams that.
 
With the Logitech, it all just works without messing with too much.  But on the other hand, the Logitech media server has to have all of the track numbers as 01, 02 etc.  If they are 1, 2 it will play them in the order: 1, 10,11,12, 2, 3 ... where the PS Audio does not make the same mistake.
 
The other thing that the Logitech has going for it is that it has an easy, built in way to play things like Mog, Spotify, etc.  With the PS Audio, I actually hooked a SB touch up to it to cover this aspect.  It would be nicer if I could just control those things through the elyric app without needing another piece of hardware.
 
The PS Audio does sound better than the Transporter though.  They both sound fantastic, but I give the edge to the PS Audio by a small margin.  
 
In all, I have no regrets.  When I added the Transporter as a second system, I did give thought to getting another PWD II because I liked it so much.  But in the end, the curiosity of wanting to try something different and the fact that the Transporters were on closeout and were about a third of the price of a "discounted" PWD2 w/ bridge made the decision easy.
 
I am still curious about the Resolution Cantata and could see myself adding one of those at some point as well.  The fact that it does not support Balanced has been the biggest turn off and probably why I have not done it yet.

 

[givemevinyl]

Thanks for your detailed response.  You have a great setup.  I think my first step is to decide between Mac and Windows (I'm OS-agnostic).  I'm somewhat drawn to Windows mainly due to the availability of J River and dBpoweramp, but I guess I'm not sure whether they would work with the Bridge.
 
Quote:

I have two systems that stream digital.  The first is the PS Audio PWD2 + Bridge.  The second is based on a Logitech Media Center and the Transporter and SBT.  The digital files are ripped as FLAC and stored on a windows home server (home made) that I keep in the basement.  I run the Elyric server software as well as Logitech music server on the server.  Control is by an ipad with the elyric control app for the PS Audio system and iPeng for the squeezebox.
 
Both of the systems work nearly flawlessly, but the Logitech system is a little bit easier to set up.  For example, to get the gapless playback to work properly on the PS Audio, you have to either check "Play all albums as gapless" or go through your music and individually and select which albums to play as gapless.  If you choose "Play all albums as gapless", it all works fine, unless you want to stream an MP3 album.  If you do this, it takes a long time (minutes) before the music will start to play as the server software basically has to transcode the the MP3's to a single WAV file and then streams that.
 
With the Logitech, it all just works without messing with too much.  But on the other hand, the Logitech media server has to have all of the track numbers as 01, 02 etc.  If they are 1, 2 it will play them in the order: 1, 10,11,12, 2, 3 ... where the PS Audio does not make the same mistake.
 
The other thing that the Logitech has going for it is that it has an easy, built in way to play things like Mog, Spotify, etc.  With the PS Audio, I actually hooked a SB touch up to it to cover this aspect.  It would be nicer if I could just control those things through the elyric app without needing another piece of hardware.
 
The PS Audio does sound better than the Transporter though.  They both sound fantastic, but I give the edge to the PS Audio by a small margin.  
 
In all, I have no regrets.  When I added the Transporter as a second system, I did give thought to getting another PWD II because I liked it so much.  But in the end, the curiosity of wanting to try something different and the fact that the Transporters were on closeout and were about a third of the price of a "discounted" PWD2 w/ bridge made the decision easy.
 
I am still curious about the Resolution Cantata and could see myself adding one of those at some point as well.  The fact that it does not support Balanced has been the biggest turn off and probably why I have not done it yet.

 

[m2man]

I believe the PSAudio Virtual Soundcard (streaming from player to Bridge) is coming out on Windows first if that helps.

 

[setamp]

Has anyone found a power cord they really like with this dac?  I have tried several and haven't had much luck.

 

[dj nellie]

Which have you tried? I'm not fully convinced the power cable is that crucial for DACs, but I'm using the Moon Audio Black Dragon and like the look and feel of it. I've also used the Shunyata Venom, but I haven't done any in-depth comparisons.

 

[Todd R]

I Ike the Soundstring Gen II power cords a lot, and they aren't that expensive.

 

[setamp]

So far, I have tried Triode, Sablon Gran Corona, Pi Audio and WyWires. So far, I like WyWires the best. I find the power cable affects the sound of this dac more than the interconnects.

 

[preproman]

Quote:

So far, I have tried Triode, Sablon Gran Corona, Pi Audio and WyWires. So far, I like WyWires the best. I find the power cable affects the sound of this dac more than the interconnects.

 
 
http://shop.emotiva.com/collections/interconnects/products/xiec

 

[Sahara]

Could someone tell me the dimensions of PW DAC Mark II. (width, height, deep, please) ?
I, m looking for them but I can not find them in any site.
 
Thank you very much..