Thanks for having me, Paul.
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Phil,
Regarding the records on the wall, I wish that you had thought of some clever way to keep Badbeef guessing. He is a good man but we like to have fun here.
Chas
I remember this grey Madrigal CD transport/DAC ā¦ so cool looking and sounding at the time!
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Iāll keep that in mind for next time!
Question for everyone- When I stopped listening this morning, I put PS Connect/Qobuz in pause and just left the Strata on. Iāve just come into the family room and the front panel logo light is blinking. I re established the wifi connection for the iPad to the network the Strata is connected to, opened PS Connect and Qobuz and the Strata plays fine. The light is still blinking. Iāve pressed the front panel button several times with no change. I donāt recall reading about this. Oh, BTW, the display is showing the metadata info from Qobuz. My inclination would be to cycle power but Iāll wait to hear if anyone wants me to do anything to help diagnose this issue. Thanks in advance.
Itās timed out you are going to have to re-start it.
Yes, itās gone into never never land, Phil. We have a fix that will release via software upgrade next week. Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks Paul. Cycle power?
Cycled power. Strata came back as normal, connected to Wifi automatically. I opened PS Connect, found the Strata and weāre back in business. Very nice!
Thank you for remembering. I believe youāre referring to the Proceed PCD. Distinctive industrial design by David Barson and a very good sounding DAC and audio output section. And we had a two piece Proceed transport and DAC.
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Yup. Fixes it right away.
David Barton was an amazing industrial designer. I loved his work.
Hi All,
I just want to say thanks to PS Audio for the chance to beta the strata. Iām a long time audio geek (most of my lawnmowing money as a kid in the 90s went to audio) but relatively new to the world of modern hi fi. I started out with some Sennheiser HD6XXS and a Schiit magni in early 2018 and have gone on from there.
Paul - I love your YouTube videos, entertaining and informative.
Iāve had the Strata hooked up for the last 2 ish weeks (after it sat for a week of quarantine). Until tonight I have focused strictly on the amp/preamp portion. I have been feeding it via balanced cables from a Schiit Bifrost 2, and via RCA with a class A tube amp as a pre/buffer, also fed by the Schiit Bifrost 2.
Up until the Strata arrived my basement system was a Schiit Bifrost 2 --> Schiit Saga --> Schiit Vidar --> Zu Omen DW (with snubbers)
Upstairs I have some KLH Kendalls and a Marantz PM6006.
As far as the amp portion goes, this is my first differential amp. Its very nice. The Strata is a nice (if small) upgrade over the Saga/Vidar combo in terms of detail/imaging/separation.
I understand the concept of class A pre/output and Class D driver/power stages.
I am hearing more detail with the strata, without a total loss of the fullness/body I get from vidar and/or the tubes.
It is quite enjoyable.
It seems like the HP portion and the 2ch portion are boyh always on? That is very disappointing. There are lots of cases where I want HPs only and no Speakersā¦ actually thatās most casesā¦
I would hope you revisit this arrangement, either through a software update or some other meansā¦Iām a relatively young audio enthusiast and have 2 kids under 6 with another bun in the ovenā¦
Analogue sound quality is exceptional on 2ch via balanced and SE.
I have not tested vinyl yet. More to come.
Regarding digitalā¦ so far the PS Audio app on Android leaves much to be desiredā¦
Connecting via WiFi was a huge pain. I had to forget my normal home networks to allow my phone to stay connected to the amp. Lack of 5ghz wifi was very very surprising, and a bit disappointingā¦ on 2.4ghz Iām at 96 percent signal strength, but experiencing buffering delays/pauses with regularity. And this is via IHeart Radio and Amazon Music (not HD)
I am unable to connect to Qobuz or Tidal and I even reset my passwords, to no avail. Spotify only works with premium, which Iām not currently paying for.
I did notice that iHeart Radio and Amazon redirected me to login pages for each app, and Qobuz/Tidal kept it within the PS Audio app, with nothing opening that showed integration between PS audio and the respective services.
I did notice tonight that the visual options are very very tiny. Volume control is visible from 15ft back, but nothing else is.
Good luck knowing what filter is selected untill you put your nose to itā¦
Fit, finish, build quality all appear to be first rateā¦ Very good quality.
It would have been nice for speaker jacks to be on either side of amp, but I recognize this allows Power supply to be aways away from output areasā¦ Also it might have been nice to have the jacks orientated vertically instead of horizontally, but thatās a minor quibble.
The owners manual is very informative. Filter info is good to know.
Tomorrow Iāll be hooking up an additional Chromecast audio to compare the dac portion to the Bifrost 2.
I will be able to jump between the two endpoints without altering songs volume, attention, etc.
After over 125 hours of music and three weeks of being powered up I swapped out the power cord for a smaller gauge shielded design with gold plated copper connectors. Great improvements in detail with out any harshness. Looking forward to the software update for the streaming glitches.
Regarding the headphones, this is a bug they are working on. You should plug/unplug/replug the headphones and the speakers will indeed shut off.
not necessarily in the market, but do you have a link?
I remember selling those it was a hot product back in the day
I made mine from scratch.
I used a similar geometry to the Wireworld Electra power cords.
Mine are not OCC wire but twisted ribbon cables.
It seems to me that Class D is more about speed and grounding, not thick guage and copper purity.
The Nordost products might be a good match as well but Iāve not tried those.
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Thanks for the tip I will check it out.
Does anyone know the bit rate Spotify Connect app plays with the Strata? Is it the max 328 ogg vorbis rate? Or a lower rate?
I know my Chromecast Audios only do 256kbs through Spotify, but Tidal and Qobuz play CD quality with the CCA.
a comment , if I may! not a beta tester but following along. I hope all these software glitches are not a precursor/indicator to many more on a project as large and multifaced as the upcoming Octave Server/streamer!!!