anybody have any opinions on the bridge in aPW dacmk11 with ethernet connection to laptop using bubble UPNP vs the sound quality of a dedicated server such as Cocktail audio X50d or Innuos zenith mk3 through the I2S input
The Bridge only works with the DS DAC Mark 1. The AirLens is the component you need to go with Mark 2 (it is external, not an internal card like the Bridge) if you want to stay in the PSA family. Or of course, you can use one of the many other streamers on the market. If you search in this forum, you can find many comments about the AirLens versus other streamers.
Iām pretty sure there was a network Bridge option for the PWD MkII.
I think you are talking about the old PW DAC that was released before the current DS Dac. I am not sure how resolving the old dac is, but in my MK1 fully modded with APS transformer and VOCM, a good streamer server wins by a pretty large margin. At one point, I thought Bridge II was pretty decent, but once I cleaned up my power and network signal, the difference became very obvious. What makes the biggest difference is a quality linear power supply and clean network signal preferably isolated galvanically using optical fiber.
My apologies. I assumed, without reading carefully, that you talking about the DirectStream DAC, not the earlier Perfect Wave one.