Your experience frightens me and honestly makes it sound like all those promises of "fool proof easy set up" are out right fraud. I would hold people accountable if there were a means to do so. |
Jeffatus...have you tried calling PS Audio's customer support and have them walk you through it. That should be part of the after-market support that they provide especially if their manual is outdated or not detailed enough to walk owners through proper set-up. I would call your dealer if you want first and if they are unable to help you then I would call PS Audio. Just my 2c. |
You've bought some great equipment. You need to download PS Audio's eLyric and the iPad or iPhone or iPad touch app from the app store. You will also need to download eLyric for your pc from PS Audio you'll find at their ite under community. After all is downloaded, you will need to hook your storage and computer unit via Ethernet to the bridge. I'd turn everything off, then turn on the DAC and computer. Then run ELyric from your pc. You'll have to point eLyric to your music files. Once it finds them it will create a library and depending on the size it might take a while. After this is done start eLyric on your iDevice. All three devices should find and talk with each other. On your iDevice in eLyric you'll see a tab marked devices. You should see two PS Audio listings. One for he server and one for the renderer. Activate both. Now you should be able to get everything going. If no iDevice you'll have to run USB from your computer into the DAC. Use eLyric or the free version of JRiver to connect with your files. I've not used the USB but I'm pretty sure this should work.
Go to the PS Audio site and find Gordon in the community section he'll be glad to help or contact PS Audio themselves on Monday. There you can also download the latest manuals if needed.
Rest assured you have purchased one of the finest units of this type available. I've owned mine since it was first introduced and would not sell it for anything.
You can upgrade to the MK II version and have a SOTA DAC and server that competes with anything out there. |
When I installed the Mk II upgrade to my PW DAC I could not use the usb connection from my computer until I downloaded driver software from the PS Audio website. Using the usb from my computer with Apple lossless cd derived files sound is excellent, not quite as good as the sound quality when using the bridge connected NAS but greatly improved over the original versions usb connections sound quality. The sound from the Mk II PW DAC is so good I wonder why I still tinker around with turntables, vinyl and such. Well I suppose because I can also get great sound from vinyl and tinkering can be fun. |
Disable onboard audio in bios. |
Seems like a lot of trouble just to listen to music. My opinion,nothing more. |
Oh BTW, why did you feel the need to belittle hill folk? :) |
Jeff, I copied the instructions I put together below from another thread. This guy had the same problem. Keep in mind that if as you stated "you will be setting up a network later", you obviously CANNOT use CAT5 and the bridge for now, and need to use the USB. In my experience, JRiver 17 is by far the most foolproof server platform. If you use the bridge and network streaming, you will need the eLyric client on your iDevice. If you use USB, stay away from eLyric alltogether!
Here are the copied instructions (again, without a network you can forget the DLNA server / eLyric / networking, and just need JRiver and USB drivers):
Install JRiver 17 on your PC
Install myRiver on your iDevice
Install PS Audio's eLyric on your iDevice
Store your music collection on your NAS, preferably as FLACs.
Connect your PS audio bridge to the network over ethernet
Connect your PC to the PS audio DAC using USB - You probably need to download and install PS Audio USB drivers for windows. Check on the PS audio site.
Point JRiver to the music directory on the NAS as your main library, and load the library.
Setup your JRiver as a DLNA server (this is an easy configuration option)
Setup your JRiver for WASAPI output
Setup myRiver to control your JRiver 17 remotely on your iDevice
Select the PS audio DAC as rendered and JRiver as source in eLyric on your iDevice
You can now play music both over the USB input and the bridge.
I know it sounds a little overwhelming, but every step I descibe here is well documented and instructions can be googled. I have gone through many permutations of software hardware, and this is by far the most robust, foolproof setup I have come across.
myRiver is more stable than eLyric, so USB may be your preferred signal path. The bridge controlled with eLyric should sound a little better though. If you cannot get the bridge to work, just forget it and stick with USB.
Good luck! |
Ok, full disclosure here, I had my tonsils out this week (30 years too late as its a completely different deal as an adult) and I thought it would be a great time to set up my new system.....I mean, I have time off work, some nice music and the new system would take my mind off the feeling of broken glass in my throat. Well, in didn't anticipate the amount of narcotics they would have me on so hooking up a computer server at this time is NOT a good idea. To make matters worse, I tried calling PS Audio and they had a very difficult time understanding me since I sounded like I had a sock in my throat....and I may have been sobbing at the time too. Lol.
Anyway, Mark at PS Audio sent me an email telling me to simply change the output device from PC Speakers to the PS Audio Driver. So simple anyone except a tonsillectomy recovering, narcotic taking twit could figure out.
First song I played was from Sia. I am not sure who she is but my wife likes her music and it showed the capability of the DAC in spades. I couldn't believe the level of detail I was getting from the standard iTunes tracks.....it really floored me. My wife, who usually is not all too interested in this stuff was almost speechless. I can't wait until I can finish the system off with good cables and get the server up and running (with the correct Lossless files that really should be running through then PW DAC). |
Don't feel bad, I had a similar problem getting the W4S driver to run my usb on my dac and I wasn't even on pain medication at the time. |
Jeffatus...i do my best work when "medicated". don't worry man...with some practice, you will too. =) |
So I have had some time to level off the medication and enjoy music just playing on iTunes. Now I need to look at my options for using the bridge. The most confusing thing I keep seeing on PS Audio's owners manual is the references to tagnplay. Has this been replaced by eLyric? If it has, then they REALLY need to update their manuals. I downloaded the manual last week from their website.
I would prefer to use a hard drive and router to connect to the bridge. Do you guys have any recommendations on inexpensive hard drives I can use? Once I have the hard drive, can I just hook it up to my current wireless router via CAT5 cables? Is there any real HiFi disadvantage to going this route? It sounds like a USB connection is the preferred way to go.
Thanks
Jeff |
TagNplay and Elyric are the same. Most consider USB compromised. If you had the DAC MK II update, because the signal will now go through the digital lens via USB it should be very close if not the same quality as the Bridge. Most people involved would claim the Bridge is superior and the preferred way to go. If you don't upgrade the USB route is not as good as the Bridge method. This is one of the main advantages for some to upgrade to MK II status, that and of course the MK II sounds at least twice as good as the original. I've listened to both at the same time in my system, and there is no doubt in the superiority of the MK II upgrade. |
My take on it is that NO, you will not be playing through Itunes (don't know why you would want to...) elyric is downloaded to your computer-you can get it from the ps audio website. elyric "app" on itunes app store for $9.99 is downloaded to some sort of Iphone, Itouch, Ipad anything with a wifi connection. Elyric acts as the music server now (just like itunes). I am sure there are some other ways to do it, I don't know them though.
You load a library to the elyric software on your computer and control that library with your "Idevice".
As far as i can tell, Tag N Play does not exist. The PS audio instructions are terrible and really need updating.
I do not know how to hook up a hard drive direct to elyric to the router although I know it can be done. Just make sure you are "hard wired" with cat 5 from the router itself.
One other stumbling block for me.... Elyic could not find the DAC and I showed "no connection" on the bridge until i PULLED THE SD PROGRAMMING CARD OUT!!!! Eureka!!! Again, either that wasn't it or the instructions just suck and I got lucky. That's how I fixed my issue with the bridge not responding.
I have a Western digital 2 TB Raid drive I save all my music to. Called a "my book" or something like that. about $150 bucks. They all (unless solid state) make some noise so keep it in a closet or another room from your stereo unless you just don't care.
You can call me if you want 7169824189- chris |
In order to be able to connect a drive to the network (i.e. to your router via CAT5), you need a NAS drive. NAS drives are quite a bit more expensive than a standard USB harddrive drive. I am using a synology NAS, but there are others that are probably a lot easier to set up. Once you have your music files moved to the NAS, you need three things: eLyric (fka TagNPlay) on an iDevice, a DLNA server on the network and a music server to manage your library. In my experience the easiest solution that gets you both the DLNA server and music server is to buy JRiver 17 for $50 and be done. It has a build in DLNA server. PS audio has their own server (also called eLyric), but I don't think it is quite ready for primetime (you could be lucky and never have a problem with it, or unlucky and have all sorts of issues - I would not risk it). |
Do I need JRiver? Isn't that kind of doubling up with the eLyric? Do they work together?
I have eLyric loaded on all of my devices. It has the music loaded into its library.
I have my computer connected to the router via CAT5. The PW DAC driver is loaded on my computer.
The PW DAC "sees" the network, but it doesn't look like the computer does (though I am not sure on that part). |
Score one for the hillbilly's, I got it working. I honestly do not know if I could re-create what I did, I just know it now works!
Now I need to re-download my entire iTunes Library to the lossless version and upload all of my CD's....I actually think that part will be easier than the network stuff I muddled through. |
Congrats!
Have fun ripping your CDs. Best of luck. |
I know you didn't ask, but let me also put my vote in for the Mark II upgrade. I ran into a dealer that was selling them for $700 and that was some of the best money I spent on my system. I liked the PWD before, but this created wildly better sound... although I primarily use the USB connection to stream audio from my computer to the DAC. |
Cal3713, could you share the dealer info if possible as I'm looking to upgrade my PW MKI. Thanks.
QN |
Sorry, I lost this thread... anyway, I'll provide a link to that dealer's audiogon listings. You should be able contact them through one of the active sales.
http://app.audiogon.com/listings?seller_id=309776&show_media=true |
FWIW, (and it may be nothing), I had a similar problem when i recently bought an HP 'wireless' printer/scanner to work with my new Apple stuff. Although the advertising makes it seem like it's plug and play, the manual is sorely out of date and the discs that came with the unit were also out of date. Only after I got on the phone with the HP help desk did I learn that the correct software had to be downloaded from the HP site and even that was not the end of the process. Lot's of configuring, etc. Two hours on the phone with helpdesk- thing works perfectly. I could not have done this alone (perhaps because I find most digital stuff not to be intuitive in the same way analog is) At a minimum, you'd think the manufacturer could pack a slip of paper in the box that directs you their site and support number in the first instance. |
