New PS Audio Directstream DAC

[edorr]

According to Paul McGowan, this DAC is a game changer - certainly at its price point, but potentially in absolute level as well. It beat the EMM Labs (3x price) handily according to him. I am intrigued enough to give this a whirl, get my hands on one once it ships, and do a shootout against my MSB stack (6x price). I'll keep the PS audio if it as good, give or take a few percent.

http://www.psaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PS-Audio-DirectStream.pdf

 

[Ken Newton]

Those claims smack of sales hype. Make sure before you purchase that you can return it for a full refund it it doesn't perform as you expect. Caveat emptor.

 

[edorr]

Those claims smack of sales hype. Make sure before you purchase that you can return it for a full refund it it doesn't perform as you expect. Caveat emptor.

I won't be an "emptor", but an "auditionor", but "caveat" is always in order when auditioning gear.

 

[jap]

http://www.audiostream.com/content/...rectstream-dac-v-berkeley-audio-design-alpha-

 

[edorr]

http://www.audiostream.com/content/...rectstream-dac-v-berkeley-audio-design-alpha-

It is the same chassis as the PWD. The units will ne upgradeable - all boards and PS will be replaced.

 

[Alrainbow]

I wonder if Paul owns the technology. He said he has been 2 years in the making .
Al

 

[audioguy]

I've owned a lot of products from this company and liked them all - some more than others. And I like the company. However, while his products are excellent, his verbal marketing skills are over the top and more credit to him.

A game changer to one person can be a "ho-hum" to another !!

 

[MiTT]

The Colorado Audio Society held its February meeting at PS Audio this past Saturday, and we got to walk through a very thorough technical presentation and finally have an opportunity to listen to this DAC over Paul's IRS based system. It was a jaw dropping type of product demonstration. I believe they are going to sell a boatload of these things.

 

[wizard]

Finally a commercial version of Ted Smith's extraordinary sounding dac - link

 

[Bruce B]

Finally a commercial version of Ted Smith's extraordinary sounding dac - link

Ted was in my studio several times testing out his boards a couple years ago. They were attached to plywood at the time, but did sound amazing!

So I guess this thing just upsamples eveything to DSD... just like Playback Designs, EMM labs and a lot of others.

 

[jap]

In the video, the Colorado Audio Society meeting looks like an AARP meeting.

 

[rockitman]

It is the same chassis as the PWD. The units will ne upgradeable - all boards and PS will be replaced.

From Paul at the PS Audio forum. I wonder how much better it will sound vs the current Mark 2. The upgrade sounds reasonable.

The upgrade replaces all three boards and the transformer inside, so unfortunately it's the majority of what's in the PWD itself. All that remains is the chassis and the front panel display. Upgrades will cost $2995. Or, you can get $2K trade in for the PWD and get a brand new DirectStream for $3995. - See more at: http://www.psaudio.com/vanilla/discussion/6474/directstream#sthash.q9mTkYEs.dpuf

 

[Ken Newton]

Below, is a marketing 'whitepaper' addressing some of this product's technology. So far, I haven't read anything which indicates much in the way of an innovative approach. As is usually the case with DACs, the subjective performance probably is attributable as much, or more, to the implementation details as to the fundamental technology. The one thing that did stand out to me is the use of 24-bit @ 28MHz oversampling intermediate processing. However, this data density is then decimated down to 1-bit @ 5.6MHz DSD before being output.

http://www.psaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/DirectStream-DAC-white-paper.pdf

 

[Alrainbow]

According to Paul and others who have heard say it is amazing. I ordered the upgrade kit. It does solve one problem though
It sounds the same with all inputs , as only my msb can pull,that off. Not saying some might be better than others they are
But in a dac shoot out it beat all the others using it's spidif input. And the others were using spidif or USB.

Anyway I use my Pwd mkii with my offramp and it greatly improves the sound quality .
Edorr is looking for one too.
Al

 

[wizard]

View attachment 14222

Not the best picture, but here's inside of it.

 

[tboooe]

I too have always liked PS Audio products but lately it seems the company is favoring the typical audiophile hyperbole in their marketing. Maybe its just a sign of the times in an effort to gain our mindshare. Anyway, i personally think any company that comes out with expensive DACs is missing the boat. Of course there will always be a smattering of us who will pay $6k for a DAC but there is just so much choice now. Many many companies are coming out with relatively inexpensive DACs that supposedly sound great! That is the trend. I for one will be keeping my current DAC for a few more years and waiting to see where this portion of the industry heads.

 

[cat6man]

Al,

Which version offramp are you using?

 

[rockitman]

One of the best things about PS Audio is the fact you can upgrade and just change out parts inside the chassis. I did the Mk2 upgrade and it looks like I will be doing this one, once there is some feedback on it's sound performance.

 

[Alrainbow]

Hello catman. It's the offramp 5 with all,options and his new PSU. I am in for this Thursday. And how are you ?

Al

 

[cat6man]

Hello catman. It's the offramp 5 with all,options and his new PSU. I am in for this Thursday. And how are you ?

Al

I pulled the trigger on the TotalDAC D1-Dual. It is magnifique balanced into the BHSE. Still have some optimization to do though. USB from my windows 7 laptop creams the spdif or optical from the logitech touch (probably no surprise) but now I need to find out how much more I can push it, so the offramp is one possibility. I'd love to keep the convenience of the logitech music server if I can.

I may have been hallucinating, but with JRiver and the USB input last night, I thought I heard a big gain playing back WAV vs. FLAC of the same track...............have to follow that up.


Rather than hijack this thread, I think I'll move my optimization efforts to another thread.

Best wishes


Marty