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This unit will set you back $6k.
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Srwooten, please get back here with a review after you get it settled in. We'd love to hear about it.
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. Notes below are from someone on AudioShark that just got his DirectStream DAC. Drivers loaded......player playing (easy) !! First song "out of the box" impressions........(drum roll).......Diana Krall "Live In Paris" now sounds like she IS SITTING at her piano. This made an immediate impression. The distance/placement to one another was real, and it made me take notice. Piano strikes are very, very real in tone. Nice first song. OK, I will kick back and listen for a bit. I will send some more updates tonight, as things gel. More first hour notes. FINALLY.....a real hi-hat sound. As a drummer for 20 years, I finally heard an absolutely "real sounding" hi-hat, my first ever....via a stereo system. There is such a beautifully gentle sound quality to a hi-hat, as you compress and release the two cymbals via the foot pedal. It was there in spades on one of the tracks of the Best Audiophile Voices l CD. I cannot stop noticing minute details that flesh out as real sounding.....that I do not remember hearing before. I heard what sounded like very low volume oscillating (sp ?)sound, from a B-3 organ.....that was never there before.
A trumpet player squeezed off a note, and you could hear the note decay and fall apart.....bit by bit. I guess I should qualify all the above by stating that I am also using a "new, never before used" USB cable that Paul (PS Audio) suggested. It is the J-CAT cable, from the company making J-PLAY boards. So that could be contributing somewhat to the combination, who knows ?? But I have a few other USB cables of which, I am familiar with none.
I am having trouble just listening to the music, because exciting little details keep revealing themselves. The soundstage opened up immediately after a couple of songs. Presentation seems a tad closer, which I normally don't prefer. But this DAC is sounding very "small club intimate" in nature on vocal tracks. Very enticing for sure. The depth has gotten a few feet deeper as well. Kinda strange, as soundstage depth usually gets a tad less deep.....when the presentation moves forward.
Sound ??? First hour is showing a more full, robust sound. I do notice the "building blocks" of notes, voices, etc. as they are formed and decay.......if that makes sense ?? Sort of like using a magnifying glass on the music. You can hear more of the individual minute parts that make up each word, note and sound. I do notice a few more warts as well in the mix. Definitely not a step backwards in SQ so far. Will do some more listening, and give a few more impressions this evening. Stay tuned.....
More notes: great snap/attack on percussion, more defined "pluck" on bass notes, very natural overall sound. Sound stage can go very wide if mixed that way. There seems to be a greater number of layers in the sound stage depth. Some recordings sound like the lead singer and bass player are singing/playing from the middle of the bass drum (in other words....a very mono, one dimensional perspective). This DAC breaks up this perspective into many smaller depths, giving each performer more space. The reverb trails seem longer, deeper, and wider.
One aspect that is a bit un-nerving is when there are several instruments/vocals going on all at once. This DAC brings forth better separation and detail of these multiple things happening, and my brain is not used to processing so much detail/info. Sort of like walking into a room with 50 people all talking at once. Usually you perceive this as noise. Now imagine hearing every conversation individually, and understanding every word......all at the same time. Takes a bit more work for your brain to computate what you just heard. I hope everybody can understand my descriptions. I am not so good with the audiophile techno-speak descriptos. Back to listening....more later.
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Ozzy, blind faith is a fact of life in high-end audio today. Finding someone that stocks this stuff in a brick & mortar store is very rare.
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