I am using a BSG Qol from the Direct Stream which adds quite a bit of gain to my Amp.
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I know this is a old post but I wanted to give some feedback . I always looked at the Direct Stream as cheap and had it in my head it would not sound good . This went on for many years , I had around 12 DACS in those years . I ended up buying the Totaldac Twelve around 33k USD , after sending it back to france for upgrades costing 3-5k a shot it became old so I sold the Twelve . The bad part is I took a 18k loss because that’s all the open market would bare . I ended up ordering a DCS Bartok 15k last month and there was a 5 week min wait time . I was at my dealer last week that sells PS Audio and told him I have no source and I’m getting bored waiting for my new Bartok . My dealer again suggested I try the DS for the cost so I purchased it with the Bridge 2 . The next day I hooked it up and was shocked it was not bad at all , I gave it a couple days to warm up etc and came back to it . I ended up canceling the DCS Bartok and putting the 15k back in my pocket . Digital audio is moving so fast and I am completely satisfied with the DS at this point . Are there other DACS out there that sound better ? sure but for the money you will be hard pressed to find better . If the DS was 10k it would still be a bargain . If you are looking for a DAC/Streamer that sounds good for a decent price you owe it to yourself to try the DS . My System Luxman C-900u Luxman M-900u PS Audio Direct Stream NB 2 Shunyata Triton 3 Martin Logan 15a |
a1uc ...Make sure the DS dac has Snowmass firmware loaded into your unit...by far the best firmware yet...Then let it run in continuously for at least 750 hours of breakin time and let us know how much more it has improved .....You will be doubly shocked... 8) |
@a1uc Nice post, very interesting. I recently heard the Luxman m900u and the c900u with TAD ME1 speakers. I just loved it, so much so that the m900u will be the amp I get. I am hesitant to spend on the Luxman c900u preamp because this system is for my office and it seems like a little overkill cost wise for my small room. Have you ever tried any other preamps with the m900u? Have you tried the PS Audio DS directly into the Luxman m900u? I have realized that I prefer a preamp in the chain but it would interesting to hear from someone with your particular gear. |
A question for you PS Audio DS owners. I think I knew the answer to the a few years ago but want to double check. Can you connect an Ethernet wire to the DS bridge II and then stream from a computer using ROON? I currently have a microRendu Ethernet-2-USB converter. Can I ditch that if I use a PS Audio DS with Bridge? |
I listened the the DSJ. I don't know about the whole burn in concept. This is a digital device and any thermal stuff seems minimal (at least from my engineering background). I should have eval'ed a little longer. 1. Moving to a newer platform made me send it back. 2. Wanted an integrated (amp) solution. 3. Wanted room correction (Lygndorf, NAD). 4. Although, Roon's DSP may make #3 moot.. Still searching for a single one box streamer..... |
Well here is a quote from designer/engineer Ted Smith about his burn in preference... from PS Audio forums... tedsmith Chief digital guru Jan ’18 I hear the things I like about the DS and DS Jr right out of the box. Some others don’t like the sound as much out of the box. When I had my very burned in test DS and got another new one the new one sounded covered, muffled and a little dull. I let it play continuously for a week or two and then it sounded much better. The bass firmed up, the top opened up the presentation got more balanced, etc. |
My experience with the Directstream DAC: Out of the box it feels a little cheap. There's a glossy top with a ho-hum chassis and a touchscreen that even looks dated compared to a Wal Mart credit card reader. It's definitely showing its age. The sound is decent but does not distance itself from any other run of the mill DAC in say the $2k range that has come out in recent years. I will say the Directstream is a little more laid back than most (this was with Redcloud). It has good depth but presents everything with this laid back approach, even when the recording calls for more presence or brashness. I could go on and on but I'd rate every category for the Directstream as a C or B grade. I currently have a T+A DAC 8 DSD that retails for $4,500. It's $1,500 less at retail and sounds like it should cost 3x the Direcstream. It plays in a different league and costs less, but also "demands" a decent PC capable of upconverting PCM to DSD 512. I also compared the Directstream to my Fostex HP-A8 that I use in my desktop system. It's a decent little unit that I picked up for $500. Its build quality is outstanding, and in a blind test I don't know that the Directstream would beat it. Certainly it would be up for debate at 1/12th the price. YMMV |
Lilchris why is the sponsered content? Lets see T+A largest high end manufacturer in Germany 110 employees 14 full time German Engineers 40 year old company known for developling all of its own proprietary technolgies HV technology designed to emulate tubes with solid state devices running at high voltage rails.. Dac 8 DSD uses all in house decoding engine for DSD Quad PCM decoding Engine Proprietary filtering technlogies Designs and builds all of its own parts for its loudspeakers. T+A electronics are consistantly rated and compared to the worlds best products T+A products receive mostly best in class or among best in class rave reviews. Mike Lavorgina compared the Dac 8 DSD to dacs in the $10-30k price range when the DAC is running Quad rate DSD and found the Dac 8 perfroms at a ridiculous level of performance for the price. Do the reserach Lilchris, T+A gear is pretty amazing. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ T+A dealers |
Yes Lilchris I’m totally sponsored. I’m waiting for my full set of HV series T+A gear to show up any day now after that sick post on Audiogon. Fostex is throwing in some TH 909’s as well! 😉 I think PS Audio is a great company but I’m just being real and trying to cut through 5 years of hype, Directstream ain’t all that. |
Different systems, different ears, ymmv. Good things to remember whatever your experience with a particular piece of gear. That's one nice thing about some of the other sites where people have signatures on their posts that lists the full music chain. Helps you evaluate how well their experience will transfer to your system. |
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Ozzy chasing firmware is rather a sad indictment of a design. A mature design shouldn’t require or necessisate a constant every six month new magic firmware in order to upgrade the sound quality. Either you have a design figured out or you don’t. Compare the PS audio company to Chord. Chord’s Robert Watts came up with his trasients time aligned filtering design many years ago with the QBD 76. All of Chords future dacs all were based on more filter taps, due to improved hardware, his filtering designs and concepts remained the same. We are much more in favor of hardware based upgrades as you can do much more by changing hardware. One of our dacs is completely hardware upgradable and an original dac that is five years old can be competely brought up to modern standards for far less than trading it in and starting over. There is only so much you can fix with firmware and in reality you shouldnt have to. If you pick a design, its voicing and technlogy you need to have a constant vision of what your product is supposed to be only features based on new sources that weren’t available should be the norm. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
Ozzy you totally miss the essence of the conversation. Real innovation is accomplished by upgrading hardware if you have maximized your design then firmware upgrades in the case of PS is changing the flavor of the sound based on who knows what? Changing from one firmware, to another and having the sound change is a sad sign of an incomplete design or it is a gimmick to keep people talking about your product. The only reason for upgrading firmware is to fix incompatibility issues that arise from new changes in other hardware such as a new Roon upgrade that affects your product and then requires a fix. Did you ever notice that most companies very rarely upgrade their firmware in the case of the established market leaders DCS, EMM Lavs, Esoeteric, etc. Even Chord who uses a FPGA rarely offers firmware upgrades. As I final point upgradability in hardware means you will never have an obsolete product, tell that to all the previous Perfect Wave dac owners can you magically turn a Perfecwave Dac into the current Direct Stream Digital don't think you will magically be able to upgrade your firmware into an entirely different platform. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
Yes Caniebfrank, Lets looks at some companies using FPGA as part of their designs. It seems that almost every model of product that uses FPGA at some point comes out with new hardware to suppliant the older models. A FPGA means you can easily alter code which usualy affects the filtering process of the dac, it does not compensate or negate the fact that faster processing chips which run the code the FPGA is supplying, advances in analog boards or other improvements don’t come into play. If you notice we mentioned Esoteric, DCS, Chord, and if you notice most of these companies do not come up with constant Firmware upgrades every six months, most of these companies products are stable and don’t require a complete revisiting of the operational software and processes. In the case of Chord their models have all used FPGA and they keep on improving the hardware that runs the FPGA stored code which still requires a new hardware platform to implement that firmware. Look at Aqua Hifi’s dacs which use FPGA to provie the code to the R2R ladder dacs, stable, stable, stable, until they come up with a new platform and the model is able to morph 100% into the new model. The Lavoice started with the s1, then s2 and then s3 you could have purchased an original model and that can be completely upgraded 100% into the latest version how many companies provide a 100% true upgrade path? We aren’t saying the PS audio dacs aren’t good, it is just a fallacy to think that an FPGA based design doesn’t go obsolete and won't require a future hardware change to evolve into the next level. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
audiotroy said..."We aren’t saying the PS audio dacs aren’t good, it is just a fallacy to think that an FPGA based design doesn’t go obsolete and won’t require a future hardware change to evolve into the next level." PS Audio does plan to put the DS dac to bed in the near future for a new DS dac yet to be announced. Not the newTSS dac..... but a new DS dac 2. |
@audiotroy I don't have a DS DAC, but to imply that a company *not* creating a new hardware upgrade every year is somehow hurting the people who purchase that product is just ridiculous. Companies that do that are just milking their consumers for cash. Totally crazy that you are somehow framing PS Audio's FGPA code refinements as a negative. Just crazy. |
cal3713.....Ohh!!!!! You didn’t know that audiotroy is much more informed in the art of dac development than Ted Smith? |
aolmrd1241"You didn’t know that audiotroy is much more informed in the art of dac development than Ted Smith?" yes Ted Smith is ignorant in many areas of Music Reproduction Systems unlike Audiotroy who has vast, diverse, hands-on experience as clearly demonstrated here no disrespect to Mr. Smith intended. |
Thank you Clearlink. Aolmrd and Cal, please wake up and stop drinking the Cool AId. As we mentioned earlier the leaders in producing the worlds best digital front ends almost never upgrade their firmware and if so it is not every six months that a "magic" new sonic flavor of firmware arrives on the scene. Digital technlogy at this point is a very mature thing. There is nothing wrong with FPGA’s they are a good tool and are more changeable then a Ram based chip set, and yes we sell dacs which use FPGA’s as well, the Aqua Hifi Lascala MK III and the Forumula XD use FPGA.'s. The best sounding dac we have ever had the Light Harmonic Davinci a $35k dac, does not use a FPGA or if it does they don’t publicize it. Look at DCS, Esoeric, Chord, MSB, and you will see that firmware upgrades are a rarity, because these designs are mature designs. Why because the engineers spent year perfecting their technologies and only came up with a new product when the hardware advanced signfigantly enough to allow for a major improvement. Oh and if you look at the following post: PS Audio does plan to put the DS dac to bed in the near future for a new DS dac yet to be announced. Not the newTSS dac..... but a new DS dac 2. Guess that means that the hardware would also need to be upgraded or else you could through the magic of FPGA’s magically turn your current Direct Stream Digital into this new DS Dac 2 which doesn't seem to be the case now does it? Hardware is what leads innovation, not software, sorry but it is true. If you notice the continued breakthroughs in cell phones are all about increased processing power, new sensor technology, increased memory, faster charging, and longer battery life. It may suck having to purchase a new cell phone every few years but that is the name of the game with ever increasing technlogy comes greater and greater performance along with new features. Yes you can upgrade through software a Galaxy Note 5 and an older Iphone’s to newer opperating software but eventually you realize that your five year old cell phone just can not offer the same user experience as a brand new one and the cycle continues. The reason that people fancy the idea of firmware upgrades is that they are affraid to face this fact that all companies products wil eventually be obsolete. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
Audiotroy...the only koolaid being drunk around here is what you are trying to feed anyone who is short sighted enough to believe that a constant merry go round of hardware updates that give minimal increase in sound quality and ultimately suck the money right out of the pockets of the uninitiated is the only way to long term listening satisfaction...Bottom line is you are in the business of ‘selling new gear for profit’ and the use of software,as used in the DS dac...is out of your wheelhouse and you poo poo it because there is no way to line your pockets since the updates are free of charge. Stating that software is not the future in audio is living in the past and the future will eventually run you over... |
Aolmrd, Please answer the questions raised, does DCS, Chord, MSB, Esoteric or other major leaders in the field of high end digital have constant "new and supposedly better sounding upgrades" happening every six months or so? Please refute the point made by one of the other posters: PS Audio does plan to put the DS dac to bed in the near future for a new DS dac yet to be announced. Not the newTSS dac..... but a new DS dac 2. Certaintly looks like we are a bit on the correct side about eventually comming to a point where software upgrades can not improve older technlogies or does PS plan on comming out with a DS2 for no reason? Lastely please refute the points made about new cell phones vs older 3-5 years old cell phones that "can be upgraded to run new software." If you run an original Ipad on the lastest Ios even if you could the experience with an old processor would probably not be that satisfactory running newer much more processor and memory intensive apps. Technlogical improvements are responsible for pushing the envelope of all things and are a fact with any device which is performance based. Certain devices such as refrigerators, don’t change radically, but cell phones, cetain computer devices, high end dacs, and even loudspeakers can be improved sometimes radically based on new and emmerging technlogies. Please check out the Joseph Audio Graphine Thread, where Joseph Audio is using new Graphine drivers. Focal has radically improved their drivers, so has Radiho. and Wilson and so many others. Sure you can listen to a pair of Wilson Watt Puppy 5 but you can also listen to a brand new $5k set of speakers that will outperfom them. It is not a matter of selling something because it is new, we sell something because it is better. We point out to you that one dac we really like can be upgraded completely from a five year old version to a brand new one for far less than a trade in would allow. Have a good night Aolmrd, got to watch Game of Thrones on a 2019 Model LG Oled, please watch the same show on a 2010 Pioneer Elite and tell me how much better your picture looks than mine. Last point if hardware upgrades were minimum do you really think that most manufactuers would bother comming out with new versions? Enginers move into better hardware because that hardware is indeed better. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
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