I’ve seen this happen in two ways, neither I believe is the Junior’s fault. First is a power blip. Don’t know about your home environment but here in Jersey a little flick in power is not uncommon and for whatever reason, more so during the wee hours of the night. Along with Junior being back on when I awake I’ll usually find one or two devices in the house showing a power reset. Junior appears to be more sensitive than the other electronics because if there is a power hiccup it is always Junior and one or two other appliances, never other appliances and Not Junior.
The second is Roon. As noted in an earlier post Roon will wake up your equipment. To help fix the volume change make sure you have Roon set to Fixed Volume for your Junior.
Good theory, except. My mains power is blip free and rock steady. I don’t have Roon. Yet my DSJ decides it wants to go to vol = 60. Or vol = 80. Or vol = something else I didn’t ask it to do.
I had 3 consecutive DSJ’s in my system over a period of 5 weeks and all three were returned due to the same instability of the volume control where it jumped around when I would adjust it remotely.
At that time (March-April) PSA tech support could offer me no explanation and were totally mystified by the issue.
PSA ultimately offered me a DSD as replacement. It’s volume control has been completely error free in the 12 weeks I’ve had it.
Does the DMP work with Roon? Other streaming services? I see an Ethernet jack, how about Tidal or Tidal Masters? Nothing in the spec, but figured I’d ask anyway.
Yes. I did the same thing. Traded up for a DSD and so far it’s been plug-n-play in a manner that the DS Jr. never was. For example, DHCP setup, connecting to a Roon core through my intranet was a breeze and the DSD works seamlessly with Roon/Tidal/Foobar, and the infamous power button issue - all totally issue free now. Glad I made the switch and hope they can eventually work out all the bugs in (some) DS Jrs.
Besides a very pronounced hiss coming through my speakers from the DAC jr. I seem to be having some weird low level distortion when playing SACD’s, but only when the DAC is set to Stereo SACD, not Redbook. I only have one SACD to test at the moment, so don’t know if it’s just this disk, but somehow I doubt it since it only happens when playing in the DSD mode. Hoping that reinstalling the firmware corrects this.
Edit: Reinstalling the firmware has corrected the issue I was having playing SACD’s in the DSD mode.
First post here. I was very interested in the DSJ, until I visited this forum. The DSJ seems to have lots of problems! Maybe Paul should outsource the software development?? I can’t see paying that much money for something with such bad software, hardware failures, etc. I’m too old to want to tinker with stuff to try to get it to work. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would buy a DSJ after reading this forum. I wish you all the best of luck getting your DSJ issues resolved!
You are getting a very myopic view of the world of PSA if all you are doing is reading forums. Any manufacturer has issues and returns, you just don’t read about them. There are many, many people like myself who have had multiple pieces of PSA gear and are very happy and not experiencing anything you may be reading about. You should experience a Jr for yourself to make a decision. PSA supports their product and the sound is exceptional.
Thanks and welcome. I think it’s easy to read forum posts and get the wrong impression about a product. We have thousands working perfectly and a few that are problematic as with any product. The problem with forums is they publicize the unusual rather than the norm. People don’t write about how their DSJ is working without a problem. It’s kind of like the news. Pick up a paper and you think the world is falling apart at the seams. But, step outside and you see things are pretty normal.
The DSJ is a great product with very few problems.
My DSJr is working without a problem. I had issues with stuttering, track skipping and just plain stopping streaming Tidal through the Bridge II, and always thought the bridge software was responsible. It was, as the latest update works (almost) flawlessly. The frequent glitches using Mconnect are gone!
How many here run their DAC jr without a preamp, and have a noticeable hiss coming through the speakers as a result? I was told that the hiss is because of line noise, and that it would go away with a line conditioner like the PS Audio Dectet, or if I used a preamp. The hiss usually doesn’t bother me, as I can’t hear it most of the time, only during quieter passages, but it still bugs me. If I was to add a preamp, I’d get the BHK pre, but can’t swing that purchase at this time, as I just sprung for the DAC jr, DMP, and BHK 250. So it would be nice if the affordable Dectet line conditioner did the trick.
Np Charley. At the end of the day, get the best sounding equipment you can for your setup that you are comfortable with. Best of luck and happy listening.
Thanks for the reply, Paul. I recently read where you offer a 30-day, risk-free home trial, money back (and free shipping) guarantee. This really shows you do stand behind your products! Quick question before I order a DSJ, I have a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.13.6 streaming Tidal via Roon. I currently have an Oppo Sonica DAC going to a Crown XLS 1502 Amp, driving SVS Ultra Bookshelf speakers. Will changing my Oppo DAC to the DSJ work well in this configuration? Will Roon recognize the DSJ as a Roon endpoint? Will the DSJ unfold an MQA stream beyond the first unfold (96kHz) done by Roon? TIA for the info!
If you want to connect a MacBook to a DSJ via USB you might find, as some of us have already found and reported here, that the two devices can stop talking to each other requiring a reboot of the DSJ. So if that behavior still fits within your definition of “working” then yes, what you propose will work. If you use the DSJ as a pre-amp make sure your levels are tweaked so that 80 on the dial of DSJ doesn’t play too loud.
And about MQA unfolding and what happens where, just don’t think about that too much. DSJ is a Roon supported device. Roon is a supported Tidal device, but according to Tidal, DSJ is not.
Edit: So after discussing this with someone who owns the DAC jr and reviewed it, it’s obvious that line noise isn’t the issue, as he used the jr direct to amp along with a good conditioner, and the hiss was still noticeable. The hiss is intrinsic to the circuit when running without a preamp. This is something that should’ve been pointed out to me by my dealer and PS Audio, after asking numerous questions in regards to how the digital volume control in the jr compares to the Stellar Gain Cell Dac/PRE, which I was considering first, but ended up going with the jr, based on answers to my questions.