Can anyone from PS audio please give an update on your working progress on a gapless solution via NAS?
In this forum I can read a lot of other projects PS Audio is working on and it would be great for all PWD owners if you would finish one task (=gapeless) before you start new ones. I think over 2 years should be enought time.
Josch
@pepe68
Josh, Do you get the impression that gapless via Bridge is a myth? If your answers is “yes” then you are not alone.
Paul has stated that he wants to provide a solution for NAS users, of whom I am one. Right now the priority seems to be getting WaveStream to work, and that’s taking longer than anyone anticipated. Nobody knows if PSA can figure out something for NAS after that. So if you really want gapless from your NAS, you probably need to buy another piece of hardware like a Moon MiND or a Sonore Rendu. (I bought the former.) Not the answer you wanted, I know, but that’s life on the cutting edge of streaming music . . .
This may be an affordable solution. Lost of buzz out there about this unit.
http://us.marantz.com/us/Products/Pages/ProductDetails.aspx?CatId=hificomponents&ProductId=NA7004
It will happen, but as I’ve mentioned in the past, it won’t happen via the Bridge itself. When we designed the Bridge we never considered gapless as a requirement. I know, I hang my head for not doing so, but that’s the truth. It was never part of the spec in the first place and thus, the Bridge does not have the memory to support gapless.
That’s why we are working on external methods to achieve gapless, like WaveStream.
I share the same frustration that everyone who has been waiting for gapless shares… I can not, however, help but come to the defense of Paul and Co, when I read something so impulsive… Obviously, any reasonably well managed company - restrict it to just high end audio - fully understands the necessity to stay progressive in the market, To implement the type of policy/production restrictions that the poster assumes reasonable ("…finish one task (=gapeless) before you start new ones…"), would be foolhardy to say the least… I know he was just making a valid point; but it was unfoundedly disparaging to the owner of the forum… I’m just saying…
As an aside; I believe the above referenced term “gapeless” is a reference to a desirable body trait more evident in younger adults; whereas, “gapless” (or gap-less) is really the relevant focal point for this thread… The other topic could undoubtedly be “Googled” very quickly… :-B
@birddogthecat’s reference to Marantz: My first network streaming product was a Marantz NA7004, later replaced by the PWD + Bridge. I’d describe the 7004 as a very good mid-fi product or a lower-end audiophile product; decent sound, certainly better than most of the mass-market stuff, but if you’re used to the SQ of the PWD you would be disappointed. Overall functionality worked well. I was a newbie to digital audio and didn’t understand the whole gapless issue, so I can’t say whether or not it does gapless. Music Direct has had it on sale for a while, which suggests it may be discontinued (but therefore all the more affordable).
Paul,
thank you for your clear statement that gapless via the bridge itself will never come.
When limited bridge memory is the reason, then I had a wrong interpretation of the discussion about PS Audio is working at this (I´m no native english speaker) :(( :(( :(( :(( :((
But now it´s clear and I can decide what to do.
If paul was not such a nice guy I would have gone see elsewhere (Maybe LINN). I do not know a CEO so much involved in the forum and I like to receive his marvellous email everyday, but I think that sooner or later You have to find a solution. I am a surgeon and I know by experience that sometime you have to take difficult decision and cut something on what you have spend a lot of time. If the bridge does not work as it should with Gapless: build a new one with 5 hours of memory (when you see the price of the RAM actually…) At PS audio you are really better for the hardware than for the software…
Yes, I believed last year it was time to scrap the current bridge and birth a new one that had plenty of memory and horsepower with its own separate PSU inside the PWD dedicated to it. Then allow a generous trade in of the old bridge for the new. Selecting new programmers for EMM and eLyric would have been welcome as well as the Silent Server.
I believe these things could be OEMed by at least one well known company that is now making similar products.
While designing the new Bridge, the PWD III and ripping transport would be great additions as well. Putting these new projects off for another could of years could be disastrous as the natives are indeed getting restless. Many dedicated ps Audio fans have sold their bridge and PWD and moved on I hate to say. Not sure they will be back either.
Steven B-)
@magister0 No intention re buying tha Marantz. Gapless is of little to no concern of mine. What is a concern is being able to stream Radio stations thru the PWD2/Bridge. DSD would be cool but also not a priority…especially after reading @Elk recent brilliant posting.
I am one of the fortunate ones. My PWD2/ Bridge work beautifully. However, I am getting the W4S MS 3TB as soon as released and run through the PWD2 in NativeX bypassing Bridge & eliminating the computer.
I had thought for a long time that the Bridge’s limitations were a hardware/memory issue. It was refreshing to have that confirmed by Admin.
birddogthecat said: No intention re buying tha Marantz.
Sorry for my confusing use of the pronoun "you." I realized that you were mentioning the NA7004 for general information, not because you were planning to get one. For those interested in internet radio as well as gapless playback: the Moon MiND that I bought to solve the gapless problem also provides internet radio as an additional benefit. It works well with my NAS setup (no computer), streaming into the PWD via its XLR input. SQ is very close to that if the Bridge.
@sgrowan
I agree Steven. Let’s just get the hardware right this time and bring out “The Son of a Bridge.” Makes a hell of a lot more sense than designing a software solution to a hardware problem. And, you know that some day that is exactly what will happen.
Sorry I missed your call yesterday. Building an Ikea Bookshelf for The Skirt. I was NOT enjoying the experience.
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFAn0D3x9U
It’s really frustrating to be having the same conversations over and over… We’ve talked about Bridge V2 so many times… If PSA knows what the Bridge needs to do gapless ( more memory faster processor) and play hires without issues why not just freaking build it… more than a year has been spent ( I wanted to say wasted) on wavestream, the aborted Silent Server, and other work around’s… I understand not wanting to say oops we didn’t get the V1 bridge right… so admit it and use some of the resources that are available to build a V2 bridge … I’m sure that Jesus at Sonore could help, I’m sure the folks at Cullen could help… and I suspect that a V2 Bridge could be done in less than six months… probably less time then wavestream will take… Please PSA lets fix the Hardware problem with better hardware…
Let’s not get too carried away with our emotions here. I have said from day one that we never designed gapless into the Bridge and that’s the reason V1 doesn’t support it. I have said “oops” I should have thought of that 100 times over. I am saying it again. But I have also said, and stand by my statement, that the Bridge is a great product. It does what we intended and it’s one of the very best sounding products out there. I will defend it because I believe in it.
WaveStream is needed to support the Bridge and allow users to get the benefits of gapless as well as play anything they want on their computers. Just because we want a V2 that does gapless, don’t think for a moment that I am just going to abandon all the V1 owners that are quite happy. Plus, even if we make a V2, it won’t be able to play everything on your computer like WaveStream will allow you to do.
As to the comment about 6 months. Remember that the guys at Sonore and Cullen are using off-the-shelf single board computers to do the work. That’s fine, but it’s going to be very difficult to make that work on the form factor we have to deal with on the bridge board. This is not, and has never been, an easy project that can be done in a matter of months. The Bridge itself took several years, a V2 will take easily that.
Work goes on towards a V2, as well as WaveStream to support V1 owners. We’re also engaged with eLyric’s programmer to solve the IOS 7.0 issue.
I didn’t think about the form factor of the Bridge… my bad… if that’s a limitation why not change it? make the Bridge an outboard unit that plugs into the internal slot? Would that make it easier to implement ?
the devil is always in the details >:)
having spent a good portion of my life in production/manufacturing, i can attest to things almost NEVER being as easy as most outsiders presume. worked for one of the worlds leading automobile mfg’s (Honda) in the late 80’s and early 90’s and saw first hand what it takes to revise/improve/implement and produce a “new technology”. it was mind numbing work and we had a staff of 125 people in the new tech group alone!. many millions were routinely spent on single aspects of a revision and even then… something would inevitably screw up.
i can recall reading countless articles/comments in the automobile press asking/saying “why doesn’t Honda offer/change X” and laughing about the lack of understanding the writer(s) had. i often thought… if they only knew all the ugly little details involved, i doubt they’d be so quick to question X. sometimes things seem way easier then they actually are. it’s all those tiny details that make/break many products and some of them are completely unexpected and appear from nowhere.
not knowing/understanding the details can cause HUGE problems…especially if one moves ahead regardless of the fact…because that’s where the devil hangs out.
i’m just sayin… 
I have always applauded Paul’s and PS Audio’s employees efforts to support the bridge and PWD. It is easy to become impatient and frustrated both for custys and staff. It would be easier on all concerned if WaveStream gets finished and works flawlessly. It does sound amazing when in the Beta Tester’s systems. I hope the next iteration due hopefully this week can solve the final problems with high res files and be available for all. And of course I’m looking forward to Bridge II and PWD III!
Steven B-)
I appreciate all of the efforts going into fixing this, however I’m very suprised to hear that gapless wasn’t part of the project at the beginning. More than half of my music collection is live music, and the idea of several seconds of dead silence between songs during a concert would ruin the experience. Many common studio albums such as Dark Side of the Moon would also be unlistenable. I’ve been using a Logitech Transporter fed by Ethernet for many years (it supports gapless). I bought a new PWD-MKII with bridge as an upgrade this spring. As a patch, I’m still sending music to the Transporter and using its S/PDIF out to the PWD. My main reason for purchasing the PWD was to switch to standard software, namely JRiver, which supports a convolver for room acoustics compensation. Hopefully Windows WaveStream will make it out soon.
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