DirectStream DAC General Discussion (was First Impressions)

Audio Components DACs
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Ted Smith said
Lonely Raven said Played The Waylin' Jenny's - Summertime and it gave me shivers.
Thanks for mentioning them, I'd heard them once on someone's system and wanted to get their CDs. I just got 4 of them and enjoy essentially everything on them.

I’m happy I could help. I hope you got the live album as part of that - the recording on that is wonderful!

Just FYI - I put a bug in Cookie’s ear to have the Jenny’s at Blue Coast for a session. She said she liked them and liked the idea. One can hope, right? If anyone could pull some nice direct to DSD recordings from the girls, it would be Cookie.

So, tonight I received a .5m Pangea USB cable to replace the el-cheapo 10’ that I had around. I swear it was a much bigger difference than I was expecting. Played Abby Road all the way through, Dusty Springfield, and even popped on Michael Jackson’s Thriller while my fiance cooked. We got so caught up in the good music, I forgot to test the Oppo bass vs the DS bass, and I realized I was tappin’ my foot more. I’m thinking a cheap cable was giving me a little bit of an issue. I had fewer hiccups with JRiver, but I’m still going to try Foobar or any other Windows option out there that is recommended. Really enjoyed my listening session tonight - got absolutely nothing done as proof. LOL

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Lonely Raven said Just FYI - I put a bug in Cookie's ear to have the Jenny's at Blue Coast for a session. She said she liked them and liked the idea. One can hope, right? If anyone could pull some nice direct to DSD recordings from the girls, it would be Cookie.

I had fewer hiccups with JRiver, but I’m still going to try Foobar or any other Windows option out there that is recommended.


That would be cool if Cookie could record them…

FWIW I’ve got a modified version of http://br3tt.deviantart.com/art/fooRazor-303120391 as the basis of my foobar2000 setup. I’ve added a lot more tabs to the top center box, but it’s a relatively straightforward skin.

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You

wim said This is about the time that I was supposed to give my first impressions of the DS.

Well, here goes. My first impression is that, at least in Japan, the DS doesn’t exist!

I ordered it about 2 months ago, after David Elias told me about it, and was told that it would arrive at the end of June. When that didn’t happen, I was told that the importer had “no idea” when I would get it. Meanwhile, Paul was kind enough to let me know that there was no delay in the shipment to Japan, so that was obviously not the problem.

Some days later, after my dealer again contacted the distributor, I was told that it would arrive in the middle of the second week of July, that’s why I thought I would be able to give my first impressions around now. Today, however, I learned that it would “probably” arrive next week.

Just as a chain is as strong as the weakest link, obviously the care and support that PSAudio gives (a very high level, judging by at all the postings here), is only as strong as the care that foreign distributors are willing to give. Which, in case of the Japanese distributor Kanjitsu, is obviously pretty weak.

If there is so much trouble BUYING the DS here, what can I expect from after care, support etc?

After reading all your experiences here for the last couple of weeks, I was really looking forward to trying the DS, and I think PSAudio is a great company, but right now I’m seriously thinking of giving up on it and trying to find a DAC that is actually being SOLD in Japan.

Or even better, Paul, is there a way that I can buy the DS directly from PSAudio?


If you can buy direct from PS then EMS courier shipping will get it to you in 5 days at a very reasonable cost.

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Good morning ted.

Something I have found out about dacs regarding CPU ,s. Almost every dac I have tried was affected by the cpu used. Although they all played, the sound can suffer. Of course in extreme cases they shudder and the like. I have two combos that give me constant good results. One is an intel I7 2.50 and up but 3.0 is better. The other is my iMac it’s is an I7 2.80. Even if I use a USB PCI X and battery or linear for the USB power the CPU still,matters plenty. Brining the DS to a few places and useing their stuff is how I found out. For me the dac sounds better on my surface pro mobile I7 than my desktop I5. . In fact, with the desk top I stopped all services and a it’s anti virus as well to get it to be it’s best. But the I7 still beats it. I know plenty of people swear about USB cables but no one talks about the CPU ,s we use to play our music. I have tried foo atnd or Jriver . I do prefer J river, not for sound but for convince . Also simple PCM plays better then complex or loud PCM given the CPU is not up to standards and moving up to dsd it’s the same. Once I connect the dacs to a faster CPU the music becomes more what it shroud be. Also a Mac book pro does not play the best with the DS for me my iMac far outperforms it.

I use audurvana plus with the Mac. This combo gets me close to the sound of my msb dac. Also same with my B7 lampi. Going below the CPU standard I have posted above makes a serious change in sound. Lastly I did not find the Pwd mkii to be as CPU dependent as the DS is.

Your are a PC guru and I feel your brain is excellent in hearing changes with devices I consistently love reading your posts. So in the end this is simply my obscure observation and not looking to in anyway infer the DS Is anything less then the great product it is.

Any thoughts on CPU effects?

Al

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Hi Al

do you disable hyper threading and other Bios settings I have heard these settings can also alter the sound.

if you are using an I7 4 cores is plenty no real need for 8

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Good morning honestly I do not change things in the bios. I would if there was a thread that discussed and why. I just figured by posting this as I did someone would respond and I thank you. I am in the process of setting up a caps system server 2012. But for now still,using the ones I mentioned. Any of your thoughts or others would be greatly appreciated.

al

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My guess is that the multi cores make a difference. I do not have much comparison experience but whenever I’ve seen a 2-4 upgrade on someone’s source computer, the SQ difference was remarkable. A much greater diff than ram upgrade. This has not taken into account the software variables of a virgin machine vs one that has had some in and out software installs. The i4 seems to feel less burdened and provides a more “relaxed” presentation while still adding a kick of immediacy to the rhythm.

i have been waiting patiently pulling-hair_gif For a new. Mac Mini to come out so I can upgrade myself.

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Good morning gordon. Thanks for replying and understanding . It’s funny how we post of some small detail in the music how it sounds or how the fog horn sounds on the boat . But then completely miss discussion about the sounds of the boat . It must be an ALRAINBOW thing .

Al

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You have quad core on your boat?

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But of course , dual quads hahahaha. Thanks for understanding.

Al

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My first impression with only a few hours burn in time. The sound is thinner in all regions and more analytical than the PWD MK2. No relais clicks which can cause pops. There’s a bit more detail. The bridge sounds much better than with the PWD. Jriver 18.0.194 is still the best Jriver version for the best Jriver sound. The Pink faun PC card connected with I2S works with all samplerates now and still sound better and stronger than the bridge.

What can we expect during burning in. Will bass get stronger? At the moment my Sub is set 4DB louder.

I think I like the PWD better, but it is disassembled.

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Give it some time and yourself as well. There’s no question DS is better but some of them take quite a bit of burn in to come into their own. I am sure others on this forum will chime in as well.

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Off course I will.

There’s light already at the moment I installed a Nad M50 streamer with coax. The sound became a lot stronger than with I2S and the bridge.

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wijnand said

What can we expect during burning in. Will bass get stronger? At the moment my Sub is set 4DB louder.


I suggest returning the sub setting to where it was as I believe there are two things going on with the bass.

First, the DS presentation of bass is more precise, more nuanced, with more accurate timbre. Thus, there is a sense there is less bass but in reality there is not; it is better, more precise bass. It takes a bit to appreciate this new and improved bass. You should find all the bass is there.

Second, as is well known, I find there is a lack of a certain type of bass presence which I miss. This is not a volume issue. It is possible it is a final artifact of number one above. :slight_smile: In any event, it cannot be solved by turning up a sub.

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I am glad it’s better with the change in input. I was going to say it. But I feel I say too much at times. Anyway aside form that try the USB as well system synergy rules over sanity or old trials. For me I think it works equally well with all inputs I have tried. I think if anything the I2S for me was not as good as the others. Again for me not all.

Overall I understand elk and agree but I cannot explain it but it does get effected by system too but overall I agree with elk

but I do agree with Paul as it is far better and just needs to be listened to more to equate the better. Does it seem to be easier to listen to. Meaning a sense of calming while hearing the music

al

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Elk said
wijnand said What can we expect during burning in. Will bass get stronger? At the moment my Sub is set 4DB louder.

I suggest returning the sub setting to where it was as I believe there are two things going on with the bass.

First, the DS presentation of bass is more precise, more nuanced, with more accurate timbre. Thus, there is a sense there is less bass but in reality there is not; it is better, more precise bass. It takes a bit to appreciate this new and improved bass. You should find all the bass is there.

Second, as is well known, I find there is a lack of a certain type of bass presence which I miss. This is not a volume issue. It is possible it is a final artifact of number one above. :slight_smile: In any event, it cannot be solved by turning up a sub.


Elk here is a thought to consider

could it be that before the heavy noted pwd simply bleads over to the lower mid giving the Extra detail some seek. As I do find the overall sound is very well balanced overall. Even dacs I have that seem better it is in different ways closer to the music Persay. I think it’s close to a vinyl sound but has better details as the music gets complex over some vinyl recordings. Now maybe ripped as ted says sounds the same but it is still being ripped from the TT.

a good redbook is as good or better than some vinyl systems

in some ways but vinyl has an ease that redbook does not.

Al

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As I said on the previous page, I had a great listening session last night. I just realized I’m already at the 100-150 hours on the clock with the DirectStream. I tend to break in by doing 5 hours on, 5 hours off - repeat. Though I did do some 8 hour burn-ins by playing a variety of DSD music, cranking the DS to 100, and just shutting off my tube amp. I don’t know if the on/off thing is beneficial or just slowing down my burn in, but I know with bigger caps like on my tube amps, they seem to form better and are more dynamic with on/off burn ins.

Also, I have no idea if the .5m Pangea USB cable (replacing cheap 10’) has anything to do with it, but what a great listening session! So I’m going to test a couple USB cables when I get around to it, and hopefully not get completely distracted by the great music and get nothing done! LOL

Re: Ted - Thanks for the link to that Skin - that looks nice. I’ll do some research and see if I can get that working this weekend. It’s a busy weekend already, not sure if I have time to give myself a crash course on new software. That said, this Tuesday I have a listening session scheduled with two friends. One I’ve been listening with for 15 years, he has no idea I got the DS, he just thinks it’s a regular listening session. I’m going to just press play and see what he says. :slight_smile:

Re: Elks Bass observation - I think you may be right again. That’s been rattling around in my head, I couldn’t quite place what and how to describe the bass and it’s differences beyond what you’ve said. But it reminds me of when I upgraded the sub-woofer in my home theater. I went from some beater 10" subs powered off a plate amp, to a 21", XBL2 motor sub-woofer driven by 2000 watts of pro-audio power. The bass actually seemed less and I kept wanting to turn it up. But then I realized it wasn’t less, it was more detailed, and DEEEEEPER. Something about that precision made it seem like there was less there, when in reality it was more accurate.

So I’m leaning towards that being what we’re hearing as well.

I’m still missing some sort of density though - again, when I can stop getting distracted by the great music, I’m going to A/B the Oppo vs the DS and see if I can more clearly define what I think is going on. The DS clearly crushes the Oppo on detail, air, and depth, there is no question about that!

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A question about burnin. How much time take the burn in of inputs?

During my work I like to listen Deezer in background using a RaspberryPi (with Digi card by HifiBerry) configured as a SqueezeBox. Coffee time, I use the same config to listen a Jordi Saval / Ostinato album, Romanesca track from my own library on a NAS. The DigiCard provides 2 new outputs to the RaspBerry, a coaxial one with an output transformer and an Optical TOSLINK.

On the moment I was amazed by the density of the timbres of the instruments and the articulation I can hear during the first seconds of the track. Reading all your comments on CPU, thin bass and so on, I was surprised on how a so small bow with a mono-core CPU (700MHz) can produce such sound. I use the Optical TOSLINK connection with the DS.

So I decided to switch on my CoreI3 Windows 8.1+JRiver PC on USB input. What a surprise, I get the filling that the level is slightly lower, but it is obvious that I do not retrieve this density and articulation which let you enter deeper in the emotion.

I ran my burn in sessions 70% of the time on the Optical input and I’m about 330 hours of running. I imagine I’ve less than 100 hours on the USB.
Do this mean the USB input on the DS is not yet optimal (burn in not completed) or the Core I3 CPU with JRiver and a Audioquest USB cable do not reach the same performance of the Raspberry??

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In reading the “bass” posts, I go back to my own listening and trying to understand what you guys are hearing, or not hearing.

Certainly, in my rig, when there is bass present on the source I get all that I need, including more pressure waves than I ever had before. The Wilsons [without their Pow-Whow sub are not known for much below 40hrz. I can however “feel” down to the mid 20s so there is "more being revealed to them. I agree with ELK that it is more a difference in the timbre and articulation of the bass that may give the slight impression of “less” but I also think there is less “bleed” into the frequencies slightly up the scale. It might be interesting to hear from someone with variable crossovers and if that shifts any of the emphasis?

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alrainbow said Good morning ted.

Something I have found out about dacs regarding CPU ,s. Almost every dac I have tried was affected by the cpu used…

Howdy Al

To a first approximation everything is about the electrical noise in the computer. For example a fast seeking disk is fast because it uses a lot of current when it seeks. This spiky current obviously comes from the power supply and those spikes show up everywhere in the PC. The same thing from graphics cards and each of the cores in a CPU. The pattern of code accessed in a CPU makes enough specific noise that in the right circumstances cryptographers can monitor the AC line at your breaker panel or the radiation out of your fan exhausts and figure out what passwords you are using.

To a first approximation the slowest computer with the slowest disks (or SSDs) and the slowest graphics, etc. that can play music reliably has a leg up on a state of the art computer.

Even more benign things like the fans are an issue. These days a lot of them are variable speed and that speed is controlled by pulsing the current to them. I.e. by adding gobs of noise spikes to the system.

In addition, unless you are using TOSLink, you introduce another ground loop by having something else plugged into the wall and also hooked up to your system (thru the DAC). The noise induced in a ground loop is proportional to the area of the loop. Most of us tend to plug our computers into outlets far from the rest of the audio system and hence make that groundloop bigger than most of the other groundloops in the systems.

This noise can affect people’s systems thru the AC power, thru radiation, and thru the cables to their DACs. In the case of the cables to the DACs the noise can cause problems both by conducted noise into the DAC and by causing jitter. That jitter from the PC depends on all sorts of things in the PC, but the PC is an incredibly noisy environment and having anything there that’s trying to talk real time have low jitter is asking a lot.

The DS is less sensitive to jitter than most DACs, but there’s still plenty of other things like the AC power, radiation, and electrical noise direct from the PC to the DAC that can affect the sound of the system.

There are also systems that are more sensitive to garbage on the power lines, or EMI in general than other systems. That’s one reason I have balanced interconnects where ever I can. That can get rid of most of the common mode noise at each of those connections: with the added benefit that things like different USB cables make a heck of a lot less difference.

The more work you take making your system less sensitive to power cords, interconnects, speaker wires and various other tweaks the less you have to spend on all of those tweaks to get a certain quality of sound.

But what really happens is that most people are always looking for ways to get better sound and after they raise the level of their systems beyond anything they ever imagined it could be, they start hearing new things to spark the imagination more.