Well i am by no means suffering here. Doing the Butterfly Lovers Symphony Violin Concerto. Gil shaham, Lan Shui, Singapore Symphony.
Last I played it was for my wife’s father visiting from Shanghai.
It reallv
does symphonic music with more vividness but ability for each instrument to be heard yet the full Grandiose Harmonies and standout percussion.
That is a nice one!
Thank you Beta guys, good job and thank you Ted for your work designing the MK II, for your kindness promptly replying on this forum (even on weekend or early/late hours and in some critical moments), for your competence solving problems, fixing issues and promising improvements!
How many of us would love so faithfully DS DAC I or II without the Ted’s geniality strictly related to this product in the past, now in beta days and most of all for the years ahead?
In my opinion DS SR is TSS 1 and MK II is TSS 2 undoubtedly and the name Ted Smith Signature should be printed iron and fire on the face of each unit!
Once more really thank you!
After said that I would be very curious to know if beta testers compared 179 actual improvements with vs without tweaks, it means stock naked as PS mom gave born to it vs every single tweak (isolators, shorting plugs, audiophile fuses), The aim reporting here incremental improvements on 179 related to each tweak would be useful for next firmware’s upgrades from Ted, like inspirational purposes I suppose.
Just thinking at how high valued this product is thanks to all improved upgrades coming in future, as well demonstrated over last years!
Yes there’s a heavenly harp in Op.35. MkII does harp exquisitely! The DS was more laid back with harp. This puts it out there thoughstill giving proper depth.
Luca, I have the stock fuse all morning today. It is a major improvement over DS. However, with its lower noise floor it is more sensitive towards tweaking in my brief experience. your AQ Dragon will be a killer to pair with it, and if you have a Purple or other audiophile fuse, I suggest you try them (although I did not like M-1 in it). Shoring plug will help too.
Wel my DS was not stock anymore and break in was long. But yes it is better. Out of the box and mediocre cables it reminded me of the DS. Which I loved when ai first got but felt it hit a wall after last mountain top. I still wished to climb. Ted had tweak suggestions to even it up with his MKII. But it responds to everything tweak wise better than the DS. I have not cracked its case yet. I will likely do that if software releases are dlow. Ted trains you to expect more and delivers.
Mine is fine, but I’d suggest trying a jewelers rouge polishing cloth.
It just had plastic left on it. I think someone tried peeling at factory and had no success . Then shipped it with fingernail scratches versus taking time. It was a rush job for sure and there’s no separate QC i doubt. Reminds me of work I get from suppliers who do self verification.
I know this isn’t right but I exceeded my allotted TAK time. I doubt they will notice.
Oh @dchang05 and @Vmax I will certainly try different cables, SR Purple fuse and Orea are already here while shorting plugs from Richards are on the way thanks to @Carousel (I have to publicly really really thank for his kindness, a rare example of patient and generous guy!).
Unlike you I’m still reading about MK II and dreaming eyes wide open listening to it “by your trusted” ears, thank you as always also @vkennedy61 for precious detailed informations provided along the beta days. So a little envious as you can imagine.
Can’t wait, I’m frying.
@jamesh and PS team do you know if EU dealers are already informed about first shipment availability? If a realistic date is really scheduled in Boulder, I mean. Here in Italy last rumors said “by the end of the year”, I suppose pretty improbable at the moment also taking into account holidays closures.
Anyway I was referring to stock non-tweaks vs each single tweak observations because of the new recent FW179 might play a role in the way the tweaks respond and most of all to give Ted more food for his thoughts related to next firmware upgrades on board of the final release.
Some Lynyrd Skynyrd. Simple Man. Oh my the cymbal crashes. Always buried before just a tad behind vocals. It is good this MKII keeps giving surprises.
Now Had to Cry Today. Blind Faith. This is a percussion loving DAC right in there with the lead guitar!
I cannot imagine how anxious you have to wait for the MK2, and I hope PSA can ship one to you directly now that the final product is almost ready.
The good news is the current 179 version is better than both earlier versions. You can experience it without any tweak, and it will trump over DS. The fun part is by adding each tweak, you will appreciate the improvement just like we did.
The MKII will be magical to you if you have not modded the DS. You won’t have a lot of waiting for it to shine since experience and expectations are not spoiled having not heard what separate power supply and upgrades to output transformers can do
I can say I have no regrets. Plus would purchase MKii agsin.
I have tested in what I believe was the spirit and intent of testing. I did no tweaks whatsoever. I also used the stock power cord (gasp).
Even Paul expects nobody to use that power cord defending why they even include those in his videos. What a patient man you are.
I am glad I missed the hippocratic Beta Tester Oath. I guess it was at the back of that fictitious feature laden user manual perhaps? Or in the package with the white gloves?
Now where is that email where they told us to do weird and strange things?
It takes a village to produce a product. So its all good. I respect what anyone thought was there duty. Let’s not silence the populace with opinions and policing and have fun. I said it earlier and I will ssy it again. It is all good whether a Beta tester or not.
Where I draw the line is where someone tells me what I should do with the product I paid my money to buy and post somewhere else. I thank God this is a free country still.
This all seems reasonable.
It’s my general philosophy that as long as you are happy with what you are doing that’s really what matters.
I wrote before and I will reiterate here, I wish we had kept this particular topic strictly for plain vanilla testing. Just to keep symptoms and advice narrowly constrained. Tweaks should have been from the beginning, by our collective agreement, in another thread, but somehow we missed that idea so it wasn’t brought forward. Water under the bridge, we can’t change the past.
My personal intent was to test out of the box, as plain as possible with the understanding that how I got data to the MKII would be based on my personal snowflake of a delivery system. To me that would help narrowly uncover MKII specific issues and seperately third party data delivery issues. For example I reported issues with Rendu’s being able to pass DoP but not Native DSD which I reported to Sonore and it’s now being worked.
This kind of narrow focus is just part of who I am. Years of working R&D and specialized technologies has resulted in me needing to eliminate variables. It helps me stay focused. I don’t like clutter, I don’t like crowds, I hate when my car is dirty, I can’t leave dishes in the sink, and I make the bed every day. I readily admit I am a person who may potentially pay attention to detail to a point that it becomes an obsession and be an annoyance to others. My wife is a Saint.
This is a fine approach. My take is both camps should be included in Beta testing. I am sure Ted and PSA want to know how power cord, cables, fuse, and other tweaks would affect the SQ on MK2 during Beta too (and I am not talking about how to conduct MOD, purely on how they affect SQ). People who do not care about tweaks will still be able to get bundle information from the thread without tweaking. But I also think some will be interested to know which tweaks make sense to try out themselves. I welcome both approaches.
I like my cars clean too, and it’s a good thing I live in California.
I 100% agree. My point was I wish we had two topics:
Alcohol would be better choice than deoxit. 
In the long run I suspect you will be far better off by having to wait for a while. By the time you get your new room finished the dust will have settled with the Mk II which will be to your advantage.