My pieces update in all sorts of ways, including through an Internet connected interface. All of the methods work fine for me.
One nice thing about physical media is it typically is easy to revert if you would like.
Not all DSs (or other PS Audio products) have a network connection. There still has to be other upgrade paths for people that donāt want or canāt provide a network connection. Tho I appreciate that some like the convenience of a network connection for various things I donāt want one in my audio system for sound quality concerns. I know Iām not alone in this. So yes, one of the things PS Audio is working on is using the network connection on devices that have one as an optional upgrade path.
They are also working on ārubustifyingā current upgrade paths.
For the future: Starting with the DS Jr Iāve added hardware to support playing a music file to do an upgrade. Iāve wanted to implement that for a while but other things have been a priority. Thereās a remote possibility that a future DS Sr release will enable that as well, but until we have it working reliably in the field with hardware support in the Jr it would be silly to try to get it working reliably in the Sr which doesnāt have direct hardware support.
My old MSB Platinum Plus DAC could have different decoding algorithms loaded by simply playing a file.
@adminpaul Are we any closer to a firm release date for Redcloud?
Alcarp - he just leaked it Friday, and itās Sunday.
I do a couple of things for each upgrade. 1) I buy a new sd card each time. They are cheap and I like having the versions local and separate. 2)I download the upgrade to a directory on my pc hard drive - not directly to the sd card. This gets the files local and I feel the likelihood of a good transfer is higher to my pc hard drive over a network. I then transfer the downloaded files in the directory on my pc to the sd card (copy/paste) 3) right click on the sd card in file explorer and select āejectā.
Have never had an issue.
Itās all about sound quality for me. If Ted told me to skip rope during the upgrade process - Iād do it!! Lol.
I got an email asking
If you have the time maybe you can elaborate a bit on the Redcloud improvements. ā¢ Is the lowered noise established throughout the entire audible audio spectrum? ā¢ Is the jitter also lowered due to the FPGA coding changes? ā¢ Are PCM and DSD both improved equally? ā¢ Is the DSD noise floor comparable to the PCM noise floor in this release ThanksIt sounds like you are trying to compare this release's description to the earlier release's descriptions.
Unlike most previous releases the changes in noise in Redcloud donāt include a specific systematic lowering of background noise. Instead itās a lowering of a broad set of noise peaks into the background noise. Each release of the DS software has had a little bit different character of the color of the background noise. These very low level but persistent tones could vary from a specific coloration, say, a quiet hint of tone in a shhhhhh to a specific recognizable frequency.
In Redcloud the fundamental cause of these varying colored noises has been fixed so that the background noise that is still there is much more uniformly white without tones, whistles or other anomalies.
In some of the previous releases I completely rewrote large sections of various parts of the processing. The changes in Redcloud are quite localized. The sound quality related changes and the code I could delete are in the sigma delta modulator. The clicks and pops related code is mostly in the volume control code with a very few specific bug fixes in a few places.
Redcloud doesnāt specifically attempt to use any new coding techniques to lower jitter, but all new code was written with all of the tricks Iāve learned in past releases.
Indeed PCM and DSD are improved equally - the sound quality related changes were all in the final SDM after DSD and PCM have been unified.
āIs the DSD noise floor comparable to the PCM noise floor in this releaseā? This question confuses me a little. DSD and PCM take the same paths and the same math, etc. in the DS processing. So except for PCM getting upsampled (which doesnāt add any noise louder than about -150dBFS or so) the noise that the DS processing adds is the same for DSD and PCM. Incoming DSD already has some ultrasonic noise and that noise is filtered somewhat by the DSās analog output stage, but extra digital filtering of DSD would impact the higher frequency signal content and would do more damage than good.
Re āI thought you said in the past DSD recordings are more vulnerable to noise and jitter.ā here are some random guesses about things I remember talking about that may be relevant:
The precise place jitter matters is where digital signals become analog. I.e. the last place that a clock is used in the digital chain.
As clock frequencies go up the quantization noise floor goes down but the noise from jitter goes up. These two cross at about double rate DSD so that faster clocks than about double rate DSD donāt help with overall noise.
For many DACs that have the option of using native DSD or DoP there may well be a difference in final jitter or noise between sending the same data at one or the other clock rate. This is less of a problem in the DS.
All of the digital processing in the DS is immune from noise and jitter - DSD and PCM get equal treatment from the digital processing chain in the DS and the final bits are a deterministic consequence of the inputs.
But a side effect of any work in the FPGA is output jitter and noise and some of that jitter and noise isnāt perfectly canceled by the final reclocker. But this āleakageā of noise and jitter from the FPGA to the output reclocker isnāt related to whether the input is PCM or DSD.
Some of the previous releases have explicitly modified the PCM upsampling algos and this preferentially helps PCM but, in general, any work to lower jitter and noise in the FPGA affects PCM and DSD identically (tho the result is more or less apparent depending on the kind of music being played.)
Iām always looking for ways to lower the jitter and noise generated in the FPGA, but the changes in Redcloud arenāt specifically targeted to do this. Still to my ears Redcloud is cleaner that previous releases.
Awesome news!
Itās that time of year where some us start thinking about gifts from a man with a grey beard 
but I didnāt see this particular one coming!
Canāt wait to sample Teds latest work of genius 
Cheers,
Alan
@Ted Smith
I just received my DS with Bridge II and am running direct to my amp. I get some noise (hiss) and initially thought it was gain on my amp so I changed it from 34dB to 28dB via the software and it didnāt help. I called PSA and was told that Redcloud will solve this. I hope this is the case!
JT:
If you donāt mind, can you provide some more details for the prognosticators and ādiagnostersā on these fora. In my experience, PS Audioās DACs and Network Bridge cards do not introduce āhissā - at least not the kind of noise I think of based on your post.
Cheers!
I have essentially the same system as jtwrace (new PS Audio DSD direct to Crown DCI 4/1250N, JBL M2ās), and I have the same fixed level but very low level hiss (sort of like white noise) coming from the compression driver/waveguide. This wasnāt present with previous Mytek and Teac DACs direct to the amp though both do have analog volume controls.
While not exactly the same equipment, I do run high sensitivity horns and have to stick my head into the mid/bass horn or my ear right up against the tweeter horn to hear any noise at all.
I should also add that when listening, depending on the source material, the volume level on my DS is set anywhere between 80 > 100.
scotte1 saidJT:
If you donāt mind, can you provide some more details for the prognosticators and ādiagnostersā on these fora. In my experience, PS Audioās DACs and Network Bridge cards do not introduce āhissā - at least not the kind of noise I think of based on your post.
Cheers!
tms saidI have essentially the same system as jtwrace (new PS Audio DSD direct to Crown DCI 4/1250N, JBL M2ās), and I have the same fixed level but very low level hiss (sort of like white noise) coming from the compression driver/waveguide. This wasnāt present with previous Mytek and Teac DACs direct to the amp though both do have analog volume controls.
@scotte1 I think @tms says it all. Whether itās the dac or Bridge II I have no idea but I do know that two dacs prior havenāt introduced any noise whatsoever without music playing. Same cables etc and tms is having the same issue so itās repeatable and therefore a dac issue. I was hoping that @tedsmith could offer some insight.
Iāll try to summarize the posts and threads on this subject:
The DS has a higher noise floor that most PCM based DACs. That higher noise floor is inherent in single bit DSD DACs. E.g. check the review of the well received Playback Designs MPS-5 (https://www.stereophile.com/content/playback-designs-mps-5-sacdcd-player-measurements) One of the trade offs is that single bit DACs are also inherently linear and getting great linearity in PCM is costly. A ideal PCM DAC will have the same step size between all possible outputs (e.g. 65536 identically spaced steps for a 16 bit DACā¦) but this can only be done with exacting components or by using randomness to average out the imperfections in the components that are not quite so perfect.
If the DSD based DACās output level is matched to the rest of your system, tho you might hear a hiss with your ears to the speaker, you almost certainly wonāt at your listening position at any reasonable listening level. To help match the DACās output level to your system better the DS DACs have an optional 20dB analog attenuator. That attenuator will lower the output level, but it will also lower the noise by 20dB. Itās intended to be used if the majority of your listening is with the DSās volume at 60 or below. Some systems seem to fall in the crack where the noise is too high when the attenuator isnāt used and the music is too low when the attenuator is used. Some of the people in this boat have chosen one of 1) if they were using a single ended connection using the balanced output to get 6dB more gain (see below) 2) use 10dB inline attenuators in their analog interconnects out of the DAC, 3) use a good audio transformer to change the levels 4) use a preamp, 5) if they have a DS Jr they get a DS Sr. (see below)
For option 1: Some systems have a balanced connection on the amp/preamp and can use the balanced connection directly. Some users buy a balanced to unbalanced converter: that can be as simple as a good audio transformer. A few systems have a preamp or amp with an isolated input (an input which isnāt connected to the ground) and can use the balanced connection directly or they can use a XLR to RCA adapter which is directly wired to put the balanced connection across the RCA (DONāT do this if your amp or preamp doesnāt have an isolated input, few do.)
The DS Sr has a 6dB quieter analog noise floor than the DS Jr - it achieves that by having four copies per channel of the digital switch and analog filtering which join at the output transformer. The DS Jr only has one copy of this circuitry - thatās one reason for the price difference between a DS Jr and a DS sr.
On the other hand the digital noise in the output of all of the releases before Redcloud was too colored. The ear is very insensitive to while noise, but noise with any sort of character (a slight pitch, quiet whistles, changing tone, etc.) is much more noticeable and intrusive. Redcloud addresses this directly and sounds noticeably quieter.
Wonderfully clear explanation, Ted
Thanks for the @tedsmith My noise isnāt with my ear up to the D2 Compression Driver of the JBL M2ās. Itās actually from my listening position and can be heard during quite passages of music. Does Redcloud reduce it dramatically or what else should I do? Beta testing Redcloud would be ideal so I can decide as to whether or not Iāll keep the dac.
The M2s are very sensitive. This is likely why you are experiencing an issue. Very frustrating Iām sure.
Right but it didnāt do this with the other dacs so itās an issue with the DS. Thatās the problem!
Yes, I understand. See, Tedās post above.