As in all things consumer driven…if a product does not live up to a required standard… the only true recourse for the buyer is to vote with his or her wallet… by not patronizing the manufacturer again…sad but true!
Guys, guys I get your many points about trade ins. Can we turn our attention back to the other features of the player.
Thank you,
Chas
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I think the features of the new player have been covered more than enough. What we need are beta tester impressions, but that could be weeks away.
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Not to go behind management’s back, but do keep in mind this is what will be on paper (website), unless something changes.
I’ve said this a few times before, but please do give us a call or shoot me a DM or email directly. I wear quite a few different hats at this company and the one I’m the most proud to sport is to ensure folks have a good experience working with me and an even better experience with our gear.
I’ve developed some great friendships with the folks on here. I plan to start cashing in my beer and listening session invitations once all of this weirdness is over. Sure hope those are authentic 
.
Don’t feel obligated to invite me over for a beer, but do shoot me an email. I’ll do my best to work with you on pricing. I want you to enjoy your system and not feel as though you’re stuck with something that mostly/kinda works.
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[quote=“jamesh, post:387, topic:18606”]
the one I’m the most proud to sport is to ensure folks have a good experience working with me and an even better experience with our gear.
[/quote],
I can attest to that. James has been very helpful over the years, and has gone the extra mile to ensure my overall experience with PS Audio has been a positive one.
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Thanks James! You seem to be the hardest working guy at PS Audio! I want to see what the beta testers think of the new player before I make any rash decisions …
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I just don’t get all this talk of supporting manufacturers. If they make products that do a good job and people want to buy, then they will succeed. If they make poor or pointless products they deserve to fail. Plus, PS Audio went direct before the pandemic and the two dealers I’ve spoken to have been busy during the pandemic.
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I watch my budget, PS Audio certainly watches theirs.
If it fit’s great, if not: tough!
Look at the discussion about a Stellar SACD transport above. For good reasons PS audio is not going to compromise their budget, so why would the customer?
There are enough alternatives.
The expensive part of the disk spinning transport is the drive. PS Audio did not invest in developing their own drive so they have to buy it from competition. Perhaps the drive in the DMP was cheaper and therefore more crappy. With the Perfect Wave PS Audio has to pay its competition a premium to get you a better drive, but the bill will be forwarded to the consumer in multitude like any other material costs.
If you like the Direct Stream DAC so much, which seems to be the main driver for the entire system, you need to fork out the extra money for the best fitted transport. Which only option is the Perfect Wave SACD Transport due to the proprietary I2S link.
If you can live with other DAC’s there are alternatives. Certainly if you add the cost of the Direct Stream DAC, extra power and interconnect cables. For that budget you can get:
- an esoteric SACD player including FPGA DSD upsampling DAC
- a really nice second hand car and a Marantz SACD player including DAC and including the same drive as in the Perfect Wave Transport
- these ar just 2 options, there are many more equally priced or cheaper, much cheaper but good sounding options: Luxman, McIntosh, T+A (SACD with separate PCM and DSD DAC and High End High Voltage analog stage technology is EUR 13.500 MRSP), Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer etc.
Supporting manufactures of products which are important to you is akin to supporting arts organizations, your favorite restaurants, or anything else you value.
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Couldn’t agree more. Price and value are rarely the same.
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A cynic, in the words of Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington, is “a man knows the price of everything. and the value of nothing.”
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The drive in the DMP is not crappy! The issue with the DMP has never been the drive but the programming to make it work with the PS Audio side of the design. The DMP sounds way better than most other drives out there and it is not just because of the I2S interface the PWT also uses that interface and the DMP exceeds the sound quality performance of the PWT. The programming for the PWT was much more effective, this because they utilized a computer DVD rom drive which was way simpler to write code for. The DMP issue was cludging code to make the Oppo work with the PS audio side. It has improved significantly from the early attempts. It still could use a little more polishing. When I traded in my PWT for the DMP I got $2000 credit which i felt was fair, it was half the cost of the original product. With the DMP they are only offering $2500 and they have increased the price of the PST by $500 over the DMP. This is only 1/3 the return on the DMP. This is disappointing to me.
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I can also attest to my many positive interactions with James over the years ! I gave me great help in going through the steps of upgrading PS Audio software !
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No it isn’t.
I give donations to various arts organisations because they are not independently commercially viable. For example, Covent Garden has an annual budget of about $150m and it is met in roughly equal thirds by a government grant, donations/sponsorship and ticket sales.
Restaurants are similar to audio companies in that if they make good food and provide good service they are likely to attract customers and be successful. If the food or service is poor they will not and they will fail.
People buy into branding and buy into PS Audio’s branding even if there are better products. That’s the reality and Paul regularly pushes it, often through these posts. Last night we were staying in a hotel with a lot of hype (Gleneagles in Scotland), it’s got three famous golf courses and has hosted both the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup in recent years. We didn’t buy into the hype and found the place a really depressing experience, the place was really tired and we checked out a day early this morning. Earlier in the week we stayed at a hotel that was an infinitely better product and does not have to promote itself at all. They are commercial operations and whether they get your money because they are the best, or convince you they are the best when they’re not, it’s business, not charity.
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I don’t dispute that. The PS Audio offers features that are attractive. But there are a couple of threads on this forum about jamming drawers or drawers that don’t open unless you follow recalibration. I am sorry, but I consider that crappy performance for US$ 6000 transports/players.
But, the subject of discussion was how much you need to pay for the hopefully better Perfect Wave SACD Transport. and that Somebody said that it would be good to pay the considered high price to give manufacturers like PS Audio some slack to get through COVID-19 period.
PS Audio is not a charity organization. If you like their products you pay what they ask. PS Audio will continue their price policy.
I have been complaining about their terrible EU price levels and am told to have to live with it.
So their prices are very high over here and they have a very hard time competing, as for that price level there systems out there that are equally good or better depending on your taste. If you are able to compromise a little, for much lower budget there is way more competition than PS Audio has to offer with their Stellar line in that price category.
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Rudolf,
I’m asking You very much
do not repeat the information about blocking of the DMP player tray again. Don’t suffer for other people, let the owners complain about the DMP player.
I have a DMP for 3 years and the drawer has ALWAYS worked fine. I listen to music almost every day. In my home, the only source of music is DMP and I am very pleased. Thanks to the new software, SQ is better than the day it was purchased.
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Whether or not you support a business or an organization of any type is simply a matter of preference. This is buying from a business you would like to succeed. This can be on the basis of excellent customer service, it offers a service which has become uncommon but is important to you (like a vinyl shop), it manufacture products locally, you find it the best in its field, you like the people that work there, etc.
For example, if I need a new helmet I will buy it from the local bicycle shop rather than on Amazon even if it costs $8.00 more at the shop. In essence, I am making an $8.00 donation and am happy to do so.
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I am going to agree with @Elk on the support of a company. I will purchase from companies whose policies I like as a way of support because I know the vagaries of the marketplace and the consumer. I am not saying I will buy a clearly inferior product but if things are comparable I am going with someone I like. I have been to many a restaurant that had good service and great food that went out of business because folks want fast cheap food and not quality.
I draw a different conclusion from your restaurant example. The owner clearly failed do their market research and were offering the wrong product, however good it was. I had a client who built a 5 star hotel expecting to get $400 per night, but the market would not bear $250. Great product in the wrong location.
The restaurant may have failed because of a bad business decision, but this has nothing to do with a desire to support it as a superior dining experience.
Restaurants fail for all sorts of reason, logical and not. But I still go to those I find the most enjoyable as I want to support them and hope they survive.
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