2. digital
  3. 189415-19946

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 1 response by rbstehno

rbstehno
1,406 posts
 

Old technology? You are dead wrong! It’s fpga based. I preferred this dac over many others costing 2-3x more at the time. I used Ethernet, never usb. If you want to increase the sound quality of the mk1 DS sr dac, get their airlens and use the i2s interface. I’m using the Revelation Aufio Labs prophecy i2s cable. Maybe next steps would be to modify some of the internals of the mk1, but in no hurry.

Also, with the later firmware releases, I think you can get dsd256 and higher resolutions. 

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