Opinions on PS Audio Direct Stream DAC (Mk 1)


PS Audio is clearing out factory refurbished Direct Stream DACs, the original version from 2014 or 2015, for about $1800. I'm wondering if I could get opinions on this DAC. It's old technology as far as digital goes, but it got nice reviews when it was new. It can do DSD64 and DSD128. It upsamples everything internally to DSD.

I'm interested in musicality and musical involvement, especially dynamics (macro and micro), accuracy of instrumental timbre and extracting the beauty out of the recording, low noise floor and high resolution.

magon

Showing 4 responses by jl35

Excellent DAC, I owned one for 5 years, and you can use any of the FPGA updates, as some prefer the older ones, though most prefer the last one...

It's The Music Room selling those at $1800 ... that model was current until a few years ago...

the PS had a reputation for a long break-in period, mine certainly did...but well worth it to me...I bought a used Aesthetix CD player some years ago, that had been unplugged for 6 months - Aesthetix told me it would need a month turned on to sound it's best...