Have you been in touch with your sales representative regarding your disappointment, or only voiced your concern on the forum? It will come down to how long you care to live with the problem until PSA issues the fix.
As it has been for a bit. How long is the question.
I understand. The trade-in is attractive.
FYI - I need to poke at pricing the BartĂłk. But, right now I am approx $9.5K to $10K.
Didnât you just upgrade it to Apex a few weeks ago?
Okay. I think itâs time to offer some perspective on how ânot so easyâ this is. Yes, Ted is making progress. Each release for beta testing shows improvement in beating down these pop and white noise issues. But at least from what I can surmise so far, being part of this, is that the multitude of streaming solutions - with more appearing by the minute - is not making things any easier. Far from it - itâs making it worse. Turns out even with those of us helping Ted, the variety of streamers, or streamers/servers being used, is showing that the devices feeding the stream to the MkII are themselves, to some degree, part of the problem. One streamer? Certain transitions show no problem with a given beta. Another? Problems with the same transitions. Okay, letâs use the same streamer for another test. I2S output? Beautiful - send that beta to PS Audio for release! No, wait. USB? White noise! These streamers that weâre all peeing in out pants over - guess what? You canât bet your bottom dollar that theyâre all sending data to the MkII in exactly the same way. Theyâre not. Too many assumptions that these things are being made by geniuses who actually know everything theyâre doing. They donât. I am exaggerating a little bit to make the point, but this is essentially the reality.
Iâm not speaking for Ted or for PSA, but I hope you can appreciate that Ted is not a âthrow something against the wall to see what sticksâ kind of scientist. Heâs trying to find an algorithmic solution that will solve these problems - the causes of which are sometimes out of his control - in a way that does no harm to the quality of sound weâre already appreciating in the MkII. Heâs not sitting on his tuchus! But a bit of patience should be considered.
I know, I know. There are other DACs out there that donât show problems like these. I canât speak to that, other than to say very few probably sound as good as the MkII. Certainly most of the ones Iâve heard, do not.
@tedsmith and @Paul, I take full responsibility for anything said out of line.
I just received the MK2 on Friday. Since itâs Memorial Day Weekend, Iâll reach out to my sales representative next week to voice my concerns. Right now Iâm trying ROON conversions (DSD to PCM and PCM to DSD) to ascertain if remaining in a single encoding method avoids the issue until a fix is released.
Wishing you the best no matter which path you choose.
That is an interesting suggestion. Doesnât the MKII convert to DSD anyway? Wonder how much different it would sound by doing that. It probably will stop that sound that happens when switching modes
Given you have Roon, if you mostly listen to PCM, then having Roon put DSD into 24-192 PCM is probably a good solution to enjoying the new DAC until the new software is released and the real real enjoyment can begin. There is plenty of 16-44 PCM that sounds spectacular on the MK2 anyway. Though, if you have HQ Player embedded and a powerful enough server, you could put everything into DSD256.
Thanks for that information Tony. While I donât recall anyone making a similar comment, that seems pretty logical. Past problems with the DS Mk I were hit or miss, depending on the particular setup. I know Ted generally does not try a variety of components, beyond what he already has, to verify compatibility. I definitely will not hold that against him, he has enough to do already! I feel confident saying PS Audio is in a similar situation. Without actually checking multiple streamers, theoretically most should work, but we all now how well theory works out in actual use âŚ
What I, and presumably others, would like to know before buying a streamer for our Mk II, is which models are fully compatible? Personally, I would like to get one of those âboxesâ PS Audio made (but never released) for the Bridge II. The Bridge II is a known entity for me and a lot of other folks. From there I could verify if another streamer is truly better. Of course, the AirLens should be fully compatible and better. Downside is it is $2k for a basic streamer.
No, I didnât. I was planning to, but decided that I want a Rossini. The BartĂłk Apex was a stepping stone to Rossini Apex.
It will take me another year or more for my piggy bank to fill up enough after I get a Rossini to Apex it, but I think itâs the DAC I want to retire with⌠until an AI DAC replaces it.
Letâs first hear that AL, before judging its price/performance ratio.
Hopefully, PSA is drastically improving the design after its Axpona pre-debut, while maintaining its indicated price, as per Paul.
Then what will be your dac for that mean time? For nowâŚ
A non-Apex Rossini.
The plan is, buy Rossini, sell BartĂłk, wait twelve months or so, upgrade Rossini to Apex.
Ok thanks. I guess Iâve missed that âbuy Rossiniâ part and on the other hand picked up you already started the ~count down.
It worked! Since most of my library is PCM I used the Roon DSP Sample Rate Conversion feature to convert all DSD to 705.6/24 PCM thus avoiding the sonic assault at DSD to PCM transition.
I did this in the last few weeks of my ownership of the MK2. I may have mentioned this in a post, in a topic, in a land far, far away.
Tony, Iâm not one of the beta testers but I have experienced this phenomenon. I am fortunate to have DS MK2âs in two systems. The first is fed by an Auralic Aries G1 streamer and has not experienced any popping or static noises on transitions using either the USB or I2S input. The other is fed by a Sonore microRendu, which has experienced both when using the USB input. For that one I went back to using a Matrix X-SPDIF2 and the I2S input to avoid the problems until Ted figures this out.
InterestingâŚdonât mean to put you on the spot; but is it your belief the glitch resides, more or less, with the upstream components, the MK2 or both?
Regards.
Thanks Steve. Ted probably already knows, but Iâll report this to him.
Going only by whatâs been seen so far, the upstream device definitely has something to do with it.