I notice that many modify their new PSA gear with new cables, fuses and power supplies.
Does PSA ever adopt what may be good ideas of owners?
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The adoption option means months of talking to lawyers to prove youād be a good parent. It takes like a year and a half to complete. This is the number one impediment to adopting fan adaptations.
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a good ideaā¦absorb the best of customer R&D
particularly convincing are the mods of @jkrichards
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hope the answer is not ānoā
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I canāt imagine the answer being other than No.
Product development and testing mean a huge effort precedes releasing a product. To change that on a whim might sound interesting to us, the consumer, but a manufacturer would have to test it thoroughly and make sure itās consistent with U.L. safety standards (likely, though not mandatory, to do that) as well as practical in the sense of component logistics.
Why would a manufacturer devote effort to developing an existing product rather than put their efforts into the next version?
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PSA product buyers have spent, at least, hundreds of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of hours pursuing modifications, ie customer R&D, that have found many improvements and identified problems
Hopefully, PSA is listening
Developing an existing product is what best leads to better new products
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Iām confident that the engineers at PS Audio are aware of all these potential areas of improvement, before the modders get to them. The thing is that when youāre designing a product for large-scale production you have to make compromises which determine how many you can build in a given timeframe and at what cost. And you have to keep the product compliant with all the relevant regulations.
Thinking about the Directstream DAC MkI in particular, I think most if not all the common and effective mods were actually suggested by Ted! And most if not all of those have been incorporated into the design of the MkII.
I have jkrichards nickel transformers in my MkI and they are absolutely leagues ahead of the XS4400ās that Ted made provision for in the MkI and which are shipping as standard in the MkII. Itās not that PS Audio doesnāt know about how good a bespoke transformer can be in these DACs, they almost certainly canāt source enough of them cheaply enough to make them viable for the product theyāre taking to market.
The DAC is the only PS Audio product I own, so maybe Iām missing some counterexamples relating to other products. But I believe the basic constraints Iāve just outlined would apply across the board.
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I am always ālisteningā and am here. Are you mostly referring to the mods people did on the DAC?
As you must know, we are constantly working on testing and improving and learning. And all that knowledge and work winds up in new products and new directions, though you donāt see that until quite a ways down the road. It takes an easy year to develop a product from start to finish.
But yes, we are listening.
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yes, thanks Paul
at some point, would seem smart to take advantage of āoutside R&Dā to develop an even better āmousetrapā (aka, audiophile dream machine)
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As good as those transformers are, supplying enough for inclusion in a production DS would be a serious challenge. More importantly, they would incur a significant price increase. I wouldnāt be surprised if it didnāt add at least $1k, more likely $2k to the price. Iām sure some (many?) would willingly pay that premium, but it would cut into sales. PS Audio does work to a price target based on what they think the market can bear. The decision to not include the XS4400 transformers in the Mk I is an example of that. Quite honestly (in hindsight) it was a poor decision. A few dollar higher retail price would have been worth it.
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agreed, especially because it is marketed as the best
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