No free stuff to play with if they are negative and btw if you pay my premium you can hear my honest opinion.
I’ve seen some users here compare the AL to the UltraRendu. I had one of those and upgraded to the OpticalRendu a few years back and thought it was a significant upgrade.
The optical isolation makes a big difference, and the AL has galvanic isolation so it should be just as effective, right?
I’m wondering if anyone has compared the OpticalRendu to the AL?
In my system, I am using both an Airlens and an optical Rendu, into the PS Audio Directstream 2 DAC; the optical Rendu into USB input, and the Airlens using I2S.
Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 cables are used for both devices, with a Farad Super3 LPS powering the optical Rendu at 7V - all powered by a Powerplant P10.
In my system, the Airlens wins in terms of overall dynamics, sound staging, and bass reproduction, the bass being tighter / more impactful, with more leading edge definition. The optical Rendu has somewhat less impact, dynamics and “punch” in the way it reproduces bass, IMO. I am using a Roon Nucleus plus, (powered by a dedicated HDPlex 300 LPS), and an EtherRegen is used for the incoming Ethernet, all devices hardwired.
Thanks for sharing! Was interesting to hear a comparison of how the AirLens went against more expensive and the less expensive streamer options. I think this is the first one I’ve seen / read to do so.
Thanks, that’s very helpful.
Years ago I used the AURALiC Aries using usb to nice dac. I thought the sound quality exceeded the lumin and aurender units I auditioned at the time. Then I heard the DS dac with the bridge ii card and I sold the Aries, usb AQ diamond cable, and the dac and went with the PSA DS jr dac, then within a year I got the DS sr dac with the bridge ii card.
I bought the Airlens along with the Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy i2s cable. Big improvement in sq like other people have referenced above.
I’ve never heard of any “rules” per se, but these are a subset of rules applied to YouTubers only. And I tend to agree with the video–having negative press does a disservice to everyone involved. Especially for a young start-up company–with today’s cancel culture and tribalism, a bad review gone viral can kill a company.
My first foray into digital music streaming began when I purchased the Squeezebox Touch in 2010 or 2011. I began ripping CD’s and storing the music on a Dell laptop, which fed the data to the Squeezebox wirelessly. There was so much about the process, and factors, and technology that I didn’t understand then, yet I felt like I was at the forefront of something new and exciting, beyond just popping a disc in a player and pressing play. The sound quality was better than any disc player I had owned and having the extra freedom with ease of access and playback options from my collection made it all the more worthwhile for me. I continued using the Squeezebox Touch until 2018, when it finally broke. By then, there was no new model to take its place and I had been so out of touch with what was happening with audio products, more specifically network streamers, that I decided to take some time to save up and figure out what direction I wanted to take.
Flash forward to 2020 where I purchased a Marantz slimline receiver, simply because the new cabinet I bought wouldn’t allow my larger sized Marantz receiver to fit. The slimline model came with a built in HEOS streaming interface and that began my new adventure in network music streaming. I stored my music collection on a NAS, all FLAC 16/44 or higher, largely from CD’s and the rest were downloads. I knew back then that the HEOS is a low cost, mediocre sounding streamer, but it was better than nothing and I frankly had no idea what direction I wanted to take with building a dedicated music system. I never intended to use the HEOS streaming interface for as long as I have, but life doesn’t always work out the way we’d like it to. So, it was only recently that I could finally begin to look at the numerous options available to upgrading my network streaming set-up. I ended up focusing primarily on two units, the Eversolo DMP-A8 and the AirLens. In the end, I chose the AirLens for not only being a more practical solution for my system, a stepping stone towards what I ultimately want, but also because PS Audio dropped the mic with that 20% discount and the rest is history.
I’ve only had the AirLens playing for about 30 hours now, but I’m already very impressed. Here are my initial observations:
The unit was ridiculously easy to set-up. I had no problems connecting to my NAS and using MConnect. I am using an Acoustic Zen MC2 coaxial digital cable that hadn’t seen any action since the Squeezebox died. It feeds into the Marantz Cinema 70s, which is handling the DAC duties and outputting to a PS Audio S300 stereo amp powering Martin Logan 60XT speakers. Other cables in the chain are from Audioquest. As music began coursing through the Airlens for the first time, I noted much more low level detail and instrumentation on a decade old hi-res download of a Daniel Barenboim Beethoven Symphonies collection. Definitely a good first impression.
Within the first 24 hours the Airlens trounced the HEOS in so many ways. These were my observations as I listened to various recordings of differing music genres:
Much better soundstaging
Much better bass performance
Music comes from a very quiet space
Smoother, fuller sound with loads of detail and texture
Far more energetic than the anemic sounding HEOS
Vocals now more distinct and emotionally satisfying
I had no idea what to expect with the Airlens, but I gotta say, the awesome team at PS Audio knocked it out of the park. It has provided the biggest leap forward in sound quality and presentation I’ve experienced with a single component in a very long time. Even though I know there’s plenty more break-in time coming, I’m in that stage where I just want to sit and listen to everything in my collection and forget a tumultuous world exists outside of my little haven. Thank you PS Audio!
Thanks for the detailed review, I love mine too
Welcome to the forum. If you are new here let me encourage you to look around and explore. I remember when I first started I was overwhelmed with all the interesting exchanges from people around the globe who all shared my passion for hi-fi.
I remember the pre streaming days when the closest thing was FM radio. It was a given back then that most respectable systems would include a tuner of some kind. Now we have streamers instead. I for one would never want to go back. It’s easy to want compare the two technologies because both seem to extract music from the ether. Today we have total control over the material and, with lossless and high res music services, the quality is beyond compare. What’s not to love about that?
not happy with the price drop of the airlens. Discounts on products de-value our equipment. not fair to those of us that paid full price, If a products price is lowered it indicates to me that there is now something else on the market that is competing or has better sound quality.
I don’t agree with with this observation. Can’t see the logic in it.
However, I respect your perspective w/r/t potential impact on the resale price of products in the PS Audio line, if not the value.
FWIW
Looks more like a brief sale price, not a price drop…
Supply & Demand. I don’t believe we should expect manufacturers to hold prices just because we paid a higher price. They have to take care of business. If stock is rising and sales are down, then they need to do something about it. All that aside, the price drop of the Airlens and most other PSA products is part of a special sale they’re holding at the moment to coincide with Axpona.
yep good point. I just believe the Airlens is worth the original asking price.
Hi guys I’d like your advice.
Currently I am playing:
Minimserver → dual PC JPLAY Femto → USB → Singxer SU-6 → i2S → DSD mk2
I use JPLAY IOS as control point
I wonder what I can expect if I would go for:
Minimserver → Airlens-> i2S → DSD mk2
Will that work? Anyone with experiences or advice?
Thanks!
Hi Herman,
I have in the last week tried
Minimserver→ EtherRegen→Airlens-> i2S → DSD mk2 using iPad/MConnect as a controller.
(i) It works with all resolutions of PCM & DSD I tried and (ii) sounds OK.
I first compared this path (also JRiver & JPlay) with Sooloos (Roon is the son of Sooloos) and there was no comparison in terms of user experience and a small win to Sooloos in terms of SQ.
But that was many years ago and things change. Products evolve.
So I thought I’d revisit, mainly because I was toying with the idea of a dCS Bartok and Minimserver UPnP seems to be their preferred option for network streaming.
I was hard pressed to detect any SQ difference between Roon & Minimsever. And Roon still offers a far superior user experience. IMHO of course
Hope that helps.
Mark
This is exactly what I use. MinimServer is installed on my Synology NAS, which is where my audio files also reside. Works with no issues. Sound quality did benefit from cable upgrades (Tubulus Concentus from AirLens to Mk2, SR Foundation ethernet from network switch to AirLens).
Thanks a lot Mark! Good to know that it works.
I’ve been looking at Roon but am quite happy with the JPLAY iOS control point.
I will definitively get the AirLens.
Thanks Magister! I’ll update you when I have the AirLens up and running.