Approaching 2 months with the DSD Snr

Audio Components DACs
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Hi all

I’m now approaching 2 months with the DSD Snr in my system, which underwent quite an upgrade, going:

From: sononore microRendu > Peachtree Audio 220SE Integrated (with built in ESS Sabre Dac)

To: Bridge II & DSD Snr > PrimaLuna Dialogue Premium HP with KT88’s

I loved my previous setup and still think that value for money, it’s right up there, but it was time for a step change (upwards) in outright sound quality and boy did I get it.

In both my previous system and now I used a sonicTransporter i5 with 4TB internal SSD, running Roon Server. My collection is mostly CD rips and Hi-Res and DSD purchases, with some older iTunes purchases.

I can’t begin to explain how happy I am with my new setup, in particular the addition of the DSD Snr with the Bridge II - the Bridge II needs a special mention here because it was replacing the very highly regarded (and quite rightly so) sonore microRendu and it really delivers.

It’s such a simple system chain in my listening room now, with just an ethernet cable (Blue Jeans Cat 6a with floating shield) coming out of the wall, into the DSD Snr and Analysis Plus RCA’s going into my integrated and then Analysis Plus speaker cables going to the speakers of course, and that’s it.

Roon works so reliably with the Bridge II. Perhaps once a week there’s a bug but there’s nothing that a rebooting of the DSD Snr and Roon Server hasn’t been able to fix - so no complaints there.

The 2nd half of last year was all about experimenting with upgrades. The only hardware upgrade I would remotely consider this year would be a Bridge III, if one is indeed in the works? Apart from that, this year (in terms of my system) is all about enjoying the music.

Thanks PS Audio for such a great product ! :slight_smile:

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Our pleasure! Thanks for writing!!happy-132_gifgoofy-heart_gif

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I’m obsessed with how good CD rips are sounding with my Bridge II + DSD Snr. Why is this so good.

Early pressing Fleetwood Mac CD’s sounding better than HDTracks, especially Rumours (DR of 15 vs DR of 10).

Is there a Bridge III planned Paul @adminpaul ? Any teasers that you could share? :slight_smile:

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We’re always working on the next generation of product. At the moment, a Bridge III is not in the works, only a warm thought in the back of our heads with many possibilities. Nothing yet to report.

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Em2016 said I'm obsessed with how good CD rips are sounding with my Bridge II + DSD Snr. Why is this so good. Early pressing Fleetwood Mac CD's sounding better than HDTracks, especially Rumours (DR of 15 vs DR of 10).
The problem is that we usually don't know much about how the various versions were made. Let's say you have an early CD that was handled by an engineer who was more skilled and/or more conscientious than average. Now compare that with a download that was sourced from a poor original and not processed with particular care. The former will sound better, particularly with the DS DAC that brings out the best in digital recordings. Unfortunately it's not always the case that hi-res downloads come from the best available sources and are treated with real care in the production process. I usually don't buy such reissues unless the vendor gives information about the production. Superhires.com (the digital arm of Analogue Productions) is often more forthcoming about these things than HDtracks.

We tend to think of early digital as not sounding very good, and that is certainly true with some recordings. But I have recently been playing some early CDs through my new DMP and have been very impressed in some cases by the sound.

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So true, don’t have a DMP nevertheless I am impressed at how good a few of my very old CDs sound as system upgrades better reveal their SQ.

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Paul McGowan said We're always working on the next generation of product. At the moment, a Bridge III is not in the works, only a warm thought in the back of our heads with many possibilities. Nothing yet to report.

No worries Paul. Is the Bridge II able to be updated to support DSD128 in a future firmware update? Has it been looked at or is it impossible from a hardware standpoint?

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Unlikely, but we can’t rule it out. We should be able to add MQA and we’re currently working on that for Bridge owners. But double rate DSD only maybe

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Well that’s interesting Paul. Why the change of heart re MQA? Just consumer demand or are you seeing potential sonic benefits? I assume that would mean full unfolding of MQA files?

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It’s their hearts that changed, not ours. We refuse to put it in the DACX because it makes the DAC sound worse. Logical.

They at first refused to allow MQA to be placed where it belongs, in the source. Under pressure they’ve apparently relented and have now agreed to allow it to go into the source - so when it outputs from the Bridge, it’ll be decoded and already in I²S so the DAC will be happy.

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Paul McGowan said Unlikely, but we can't rule it out. We should be able to add MQA and we're currently working on that for Bridge owners. But double rate DSD only maybe
Thanks Paul. I am already forever indebted, as per my opening post here. If your incredible team could work some magic and give us double rate DSD for the Bridge II, well my level of gratitude would lift the roof off lol @dennis @tedsmith

The only reason I would love DSD128 is to upsample everything through Roon (the new Roon 1.3).

I know the DSD Snr upsamples everything to 10xDSD internally anyway and then back down to DSD128 but sending it to the Bridge II as DSD128 should be better than Roon’s current upsampling limitation with the Bridge II (DSD64) right, or am I way off as usual?

Whatever I can do to do reduce the work the DSD Snr has to do, I am happy to do it. Less work means less noise internally?

Or is the upsampling within the DSD Snr so efficient and noise free that we don’t need to bother upsampling from Roon or HQ Player etc?

Much appreciated again :slight_smile:

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Thanks Paul. In the past they had given you an external board (which to me is analogous to using the Bridge) to use for testing with the DS which, if I recall correctly, you thought sounded like crap. Hopefully things have improved on that front. Do you expect the Bridge to be able to unfold all the way to, e.g., 192-24, or will it be limited to half that the way they seem to be limiting software-only decoding?

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Em2016 said Whatever I can do to do reduce the work the DSD Snr has to do, I am happy to do it. Less work means less noise internally?
FPGAs don't work quite the same as general purpose processors, they are (essentially) doing everything all of the time so there's no concept of doing less work based on any given input. You may be able to argue that fewer bits flipping around somewhere would make a difference, but the upsamplers are upsampling the input all of the time no matter what is coming in...

In fact I’d argue that the DS will do a better job of upsampling than most available software upsamplers, especially upsampling to DSD.

Of course which ever way sounds best to you is fine.

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I ain’t arguing with the designer of the DAC, that’s for sure. And with that, I’ll happily turn off upsampling in Roon :slight_smile: