Hi, I have long since sold my DS DAC and Matrix, but I view the Matrix as critical to getting the best sound from the DS (along with changing out the stock fuse). Views on optimal external PSU voltage for the Matrix are all over the map. I preferred 5v to 7v or 9v, but I think most people would recommend 7v or 9v.
Great, and thanks for the quick reply. I’ll likely proceed to order one tomorrow! Thx!
Stock fuse change? What’s the suggested fuse? TIA
I installed an Audio Magic beeswax fuse in my DS Sr. with excellent results. I did not do a fuse shootout, though, so I cannot comment on how the Audio Magic fuse compares to other aftermarket fuses.
https://www.audio-magic.com/audio-fuses.html
Here is a thread on the subject if you want to venture down that rabbit hole . . .
1 Like
SR orange is not a bad fuse also. I went from stock to HiFi Tuning Supreme to SR black to SR blue to SR orange with incremental increase in lower grain and grit and increase in transparency. Not huge differences, but notable. I just put the fuse in direction from back of DS Sr. to front and don’t bother switching them around. I feel if they sound right first time going in, why mess with it. Especially when it’s the direction the manufacture recommended.
1 Like
Sorry, I’m not a techie by any stretch. I found this diagram in the X-SPDIF 2 manual and was hoping that someone can decipher it for me. What would be the best settings to use with a DirectStream Sr.?
all switches off.
2 Likes
Thanks! That keeps it simple.
1 Like
I too had great results installing a Synergistic Research Orange fuse in my DSD Sr. Lower noise floor, bigger sound stage, and deeper, better defined bass. Definitely worth it in a $6k+ DAC.
Okay, I think that my Matrix just rolled over and died.
I’ve been wrestling with a problem, lately, where Roon would just cut out in the middle of playing, and only a reboot of my stack and DAC would fix it. Being that I have an etherRegen, an ultraRendu, two Uptone LPS 1.2 and the Matrix, it was hard to figure out where the problem was coming from.
Q: Is there ever a time when the front LED on the Matrix will just be dark? I’ve tried powering it with both LPS 1.2s, and it remains dark.
Until I figure this out, I can still get sound by going USB out from the Rendu to the DAC.
Never seen it dark, only when turned off. White with dsd, green when pcm.
Were you using 9v from your LPS to the Matrix. Ted mentioned the higher voltage makes the Matrix hotter and can shorten it’s life.
My set up is identical to yours. When this happened to me, I rebooted the Ultrarendu by disconnecting from the LPS 1.2. After 15 minutes, I reconnected power and the Matrix woke up within a few minutes.
I hope this helps.
Ha ha! When it is hot, I also fall asleep, just as the matrix. Only a cold beer can wake me up! 
Nope, running at 7V.
Further, I decided to give it one more go, and the LED came on. ARRRGGGHHH!
However, I’m still trying to get it to play without being squirrely. Full reboot coming up.
This stuff can drive me nuts. Despite all my efforts before, the Matrix is now up and running. I’m going to leave it running to see how it fares over time.
The symptom is that I can run for hours without a problem, and then Roon will stop playing. If I can get it to switch to another album or playlist, it will sometimes run through the entire album or playlist, taking about 1 second per track, and then will come up with “Nothing Playing”. Or, it’ll look like it’s playing a track, but nothing actually happens, and it eventually times out. Playing Roon to another device is not a problem, so it’s not related to Core.
Nothing short of a full reboot of the etherRegen/Matrix/ultraRendu/DAC will fix it. (I’ve tried cycling each component in turn.) Quite the pain, but it seems to me that something in the chain is acting flaky.
We’ve had a lot of ISP service interruptions of late. Could a drop-off of ethernet signal cause things to fall out of sync, like when you tickle a juggler? I’m wondering of there’s some sort of handshake issue that gets out of whack if there’s an internet interruption.
Did you try removing the UltraRendu from the chain? Maybe replacing it by another Roon ready endpoint, like a rasp pi, will help isolate the issue.
I had some similar issues but with microRendu in the chain. I used microRendu with DS Sr. and with another DAC. With the DS Sr., I used the Matrix. I do have Roon. Periodically, I would see issues where music playing would not start correctly or stop. When I would go to the Roon web control and press play, the selection would start and keep jumping to other selections without music playing. Sometimes complete restart of all in the chain would work, but found reseating the micro SD card (no power to the microRendu) and starting would fix the problem at the time. Eventually though, it did not. I ended up getting a new micro SD card, which seems to have fixed the issue.
Good luck.
1 Like
If you’re using an EtherRegen and Roon becomes flakey, reboot the ER. I have occasional issues with it that resolve with the reboot. I try to do this once a week to head off a problem.
1 Like
My EtherRegen did the same a few weeks ago. Would start to play a song and then began to stutter. Turned it off for 10 mins and it has been ok ever since. We did have a power cut early in the day which probably caused the malfunction.
1 Like