I suspect that what Ted means is his work on Torreys for the Jr is done but they are still working on the Bridge code, which Dennis handles.
Yep, I integrated the Torreys DS FPGA work into the Jr FPGA as we were going, but we could find a bug for me to work on at any time and, for argument sake, we may not like the way Torreys sounds on the Jr and I may have to address that should it happen.
A couple of questions with the Jr…
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what does the stepper motor volume give as an advantage compared to say any other encoder type devices? I know its got one as I saw it when I was at PS Audio facilities…must be a good reason for it but can’t for the life of me think what it might be.
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how does one get the current the track playing info to appear on demand or persistently when playing from LAN sources like Jriver?
I hope question 2 might be addressed with a firmware option to select alternating or fixed display of either bit rate or track info after any volume indication time expires. This will be even more important with the Roon integration.
wizardofoz said A couple of questions with the Jr...
what does the stepper motor volume give as an advantage compared to say any other encoder type devices? I know its got one as I saw it when I was at PS Audio facilities…must be a good reason for it but can’t for the life of me think what it might be.
how does one get the current the track playing info to appear on demand or persistently when playing from LAN sources like Jriver?
I hope question 2 might be addressed with a firmware option to select alternating or fixed display of either bit rate or track info after any volume indication time expires. This will be even more important with the Roon integration.
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I don’t have an answer for this question.
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Currently there is no way to do that. I was told to just display it for several seconds and then go back to the volume display. If more people would like this they need to let us know so we can change it or add an option for this mode.
Dennis
The stepping motor was used because it provides tactile feedback - it can be tuned to give a particular feel as it’s turned instead of relying on some mechanical click that will wear out over time… I’m not sure who at PS Audio came up with the idea but I like it.
Ted’s correct but there’s another reason. Quality and longevity. Typically a rotary optical encoder is used for an infinite digital controler like this and they have a relatively shorter lifespan than what we’re using. By employing a stepper motor in reverse you get a number of benefits: long trouble free life (they typically are rated for several million rotations), haptic feedback (the tactile feel Ted wrote about), and the ability to easily calculate turn rates to speed response.
The idea came from one of our engineers, Laszlo Juhasz. Laszlo, the designer behind the Noise Harvester, is a clever fellow and he always surprised us with his innovative approaches to engineering challenges. I remember when I first proposed the Noise Harvester to him - and challenged him to build something that worked the way I envisioned it but to do so at a low cost. Score.
A
Ted Smith said The stepping motor was used because it provides tactile feedback - it can be tuned to give a particular feel as it's turned instead of relying on some mechanical click that will wear out over time... I'm not sure who at PS Audio came up with the idea but I like it.As an engineer I love the idea too...never really though about the tactile bit. It certainly does have a solid feel to it, much better than the typical rotary encodes as Paul noted too. Might consider in the future for my own designs. Awesome!
Stepper motors have virtually endless uses, and I doubt the DSJ is the first device to reverse engineer a stepper motor for volume control. But DSJ stepper volume control has been reverse engineered very elegantly, I like it.
Stepper motors are also used in turbine engines to control the power output of the engine, usually using two stepper motors both connected to a single output shaft in the fuel control unit. The output shaft is connected to a resolver which checks that the stepper motor is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. The 2nd stepper motor is there for redundancy and is electrically isolated unless the resolver detects a malfunction, at which time output shaft control is automatically transfered to the 2nd stepper motor. Should the 2nd stepper motor fail things will get interesting. Fortunately that doesn’t happen very often despite the amount of work these things need to do.
So that magic little stepper motor you see in the DSJ has many and varied applications.
wizardofoz said ATed Smith said The stepping motor was used because it provides tactile feedback - it can be tuned to give a particular feel as it's turned instead of relying on some mechanical click that will wear out over time... I'm not sure who at PS Audio came up with the idea but I like it.As an engineer I love the idea too…never really though about the tactile bit. It certainly does have a solid feel to it, much better than the typical rotary encodes as Paul noted too. Might consider in the future for my own designs. Awesome!
If you do decide to incorporate it in your own designs, the way the tactile feel is accomplished is simple. We place a load on the motor. Depending on the amount of load, basically a resistor across the terminals (those we did some other tricky stuff), you increase the tactile feel as the motor becomes a generator.
I’m currently listening to this track on YouTube:
MacBook Air via USB to the DSJ. The DSJ is spinning some sort of magic because I’ve never heard anything sound this good streamed from a web browser before. Sure, I have Magico speakers, Halcro dm88 power amps, Crystal Cable Ultra Diamond interconnects and the rest of it. This hardware normally easily reveals flaws. I’m not hearing flaws. The DSJ is punching well above its price point. My DSD never sounded anywhere near as good as what DSJ sounds now.
I’m eagerly awaiting the LANRover to free myself from the limitation of a 10’ USB cable.
Since none of your other gear has changed, it must be the firmware in the DSJ ?
Which is Yale, since Torreys still t.b.released on DSJ ?
Your DSD, when you sold it, was it Pikes Peak or 1.2.1 (or earlier) ?
The DSD had Pikes Peak when I sold it.
DSJ still has the original production software, I’m not privy to the Torrey’s beta for DSJ.
I still prefer my Ayon DAC over the DSJ, particularly for coaxial input sources, but for USB they are very close. To be fair the Ayon is powered from a P3, connected with an AC-12. The DSJ is only connected to a Dectet with a stock power cable. So the quality of the juice feeding them is different.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned this nice review of Junior:
http://www.audiostream.com/content/ps-audio-directstream-junior
…I don’t recognise the colour of the DSJ in that review, is that stock black? It looks more like pewter than black, makes me wonder if it was a special order finish.
Can PS Audio do special order chassis finish? I’m thinking DSJ would look great in one of the M-Cast textured powder coat finishes that Magico use on their S-series speakers.
Like the BHK pre my DSJ also came with no gloves as indicated it should…have yet to notice if the remote is backlit tho
Page 1, Unpacking the Unit: “Use the included cotton gloves . . .” My unit had no gloves included.
brodricj said ...I don't recognise the colour of the DSJ in that review, is that stock black? It looks more like pewter than black, makes me wonder if it was a special order finish.Can PS Audio do special order chassis finish? I’m thinking DSJ would look great in one of the M-Cast textured powder coat finishes that Magico use on their S-series speakers.
It’s just the photography. It was black.
Hi all,
I’m interested in DSJr and my projected setup is to feed directly a power amp (very powerfull monoblocks) from the DAC (without preamp).
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Is there some output volume limitation ability in the DSJr to avoid potential damages on my Harbeth speakers ?
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My power amp have a 51K ohms input impedance, is the 100/200 ohms DSJr output impedance well suited ?
Thank you and regards.
Volpone
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No, I’m afraid not. On the other hand most preamps don’t have that feature either.
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That’s fine.
Ted Smith said 1) No, I'm afraid not. On the other hand most preamps don't have that feature.Thank you Ted. I was thinking Direcstream senior to have that "security" feature, correct ?
Can i confirm that other colour options are definitely not available for PS Audio products?
The reason for this is that I was speaking to the guy from DEQX at the Melbourne HiFi show on Saturday.
He was very clear that, for an additional cost of $450 you can have any colour that you want.
There was a red unit at the show which looks an absolute treat (think there are pictures of it around the internet).
If PS Audio don’t do other colours at present is there any chance of other colours being available in the future?
Will say that I for one would be interested.
Thanks.
Bruce