[blitzxgene]

I need more time with it, but those problems are being blown waaaay out of proportion. This dac is the finest piece of equipment I've ever audio audio wise and I have no intention of selling it. The bass does not lack impact at all. The scene in war of the world with lightning striking was the most creepy/terrifying/What things i've heard come out of speakers. The impact from each hit pushed a wave of pressure out on each strike and I felt the fear one might feel if that actually happened. Simply incredible sounding. (and the transients might have blown one of my woofers...)
 
Engaging the 20db pad does take away any hissing, but I really have to emphasis the hissing is very faint. If you did not know to listen for it you probably wouldn't notice it. Adjusting volume does not affect the hiss, it's just there. Things are slightly cleaner when running the dac with the 20db pad and it works ok for most music provided it isn't classical. Everything is still breaking in and I might be around 30 hours now is all. 
 
I cannot find any listed ratings for my speakers efficiency, but I assume they are high efficiency. The chesky disks were the ultimate demonstration disk and 3 test disks called chesky test disc 1, 2, and 3. I really like the digital cable jitter test (drum test) and the line level test (chimes or something). 

 

[ALRAINBOW]

See what you started
Lmao
Al

 

[Crashem]

There was a professional review saying high noise within the DS DAC..

Google "Directstream Audioshark.org". Some info there and one of the members put it up for sale after 2 weeks bcuz of hissing problem..

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

Read through thread. Basically user loved it. Thought it blew away his dac (hugo). However later noticed there was hiss with his 104 sensitivity speakers. Could be fixed with the dac's filter and preamp, but user didn't want to use preamp as, my guess given his equipment, he is a first watt kind of guy.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

The DS is much better than the Hugo but of course no one wants to admit that in the Hugo thread though. Reg the hiss there is people with some hiss. Some it's very low others it's louder. I do not know exactly why but it does seem other dacs used to drive amps directly have this issue too.
Al

 

[buson160man]

  I'm waiting on the Direct Stream to burn in more/spend more time listening before making any critical judgments, but it sounds very very good. The main problem the airmotivs have is with how sharp the treble can be at times, but it's gotten comfy after just 4 hours of burn-in. Still a bit direct at times, but better than with the mk2. Detail retrieval leaves nothing to be desired and is excellent. Also just updated to the 6115 firmware, but everything is so new it's hard to tell any differences. The airmotiv 4's responded well to hifi tuning supreme fuses, so this time around i'm going with the much cheaper AMR fuses, considering i've read how they relax the sound without letting details slide. Not sure if the new herbies stuff is doing much of anything though. Or where to place them. Have one over the transformer and one over the digital stage. 
 
Also i got a second pair of gold fuses from ps audio in my kit, as I already had fuses installed in the power board and some in a little baggie.

I had airmotiv 6s for awhile and I have to tell you they take awhile to loosen up sound wise so be patient. They do get more relaxed. Also they loosen up more quickly after they are broken in sufficiently. I put hifi supreme fuses in mine too which was a worthwhile tweak. I would say the airmotives start sounding pretty good after an hour of warm up. So your break in process has a ways to go. Be patient and you will be rewarded the airmotives will open up and the sharpness in the highs will disappear. I used to use the hifi tuning gold fuses but after switching to the supreme fuses the sound is quite a bit better in every respect.
  I would have recommended the emotive power cord for the airmotiv speakers but it appears that emotiva does not offer them anymore. I got a useful improvement when I used them on my airmotiv speakers. For one thing the treble got less sharp and was smoother sounding. Actually the emotiva power cords are pretty decent for other things as well. For what they cost I thought they were a steal. They sounded way better than the pangea cords. But that is a moot point now. You might try to use better power cords on the airmotiv speakers the benefits are noticeable. If money is tight I would suggest you go to the cable pro web site and contact them and inquire about purchasing a pair of the stock power cords that they supply their revelation power strip. I ordered a couple on cable pros suggestion for my airmotiv 5s that I use on my computer sound system. They actually are pretty decent the airmotiv 5s sound  a lot better with them than the stock power cables. I believe the power cords only cost me about 30 usd each. That was a well spent 60 usd for the pair. You might want to try a pair on the airmotiv 6s. I think you would be pleased with the result.

 

[blitzxgene]

I'm planning on buying some copper cabledyne power cords for them once I free up some funds. As for the supreme fuses, I thought they could be a little too forward all the time with the 4's even after hundreds of hours on them. The AMR gold fuses are supposed to give more of a tube sound I guess, but I'll have to wait and listen. I know I do not want anymore upper treble emphasis though, which I thought the supremes brought out more. Just a tad too much with this particular type of speaker.

 

[Crashem]

DIRECTSTREAM received! Resisting temptation to listen to it. Just burning it in for a little bit. But sounds good ffrom ambient sound out of headphones. Just kidding. Well not really

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Listen to it now. It's great right out of the box. Don't forget to load the 6115 software .

 

[Crashem]

That's right. I'll check for that. Maybe they did at ps audio.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Tap the gear top
Left.
Top right is FPGA should say 0.61

 

[SearchOfSub]

Plz leave impressions crashem.

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

 

[Crashem]

Been burning equipment non stop. Trying to get one of these dual usb audiophile cards working so I can plug in two dacs at once and switch between as seamlessly as possible. I have hugo and lampi l5 around. Which comparison are you more interested in?

 

[blitzxgene]

I'm at around 142 hours now after near constant burn-in these last 5 days and everything is sounding extremely clean and musical. Popped the new amr fuses in my speakers, but that will take some time to make any judgements. The key for me personally is my ps3 sounds amazing now, as does my friend's wii-u! Long live fpga!

 

[Crashem]

Have so much new equipment as I was actively building out my headphone listening area (ie my office).  So actually doing ISOTEK burn in on 3 dacs, 2 amps, 3 headphones, switch box, zuma computer, PPA usb card, and all the cables (anti cables and 3 different USB cables.  Pretty awesome as zuma is feeding all three dacs.
 
So burn baby burn...Must resist tempation to play some music for too long.

 

[blitzxgene]

My initial impressions were not overly positive with the sound, but time definitely fixes anything I've perceived as wrong so far. Now I get the feeling things are just smoothing out and relaxing more, while still maintaining dynamics and prat. I look forward to the 300 hour mark!