Listening now. A little chatty for my taste, but informative. 
They can be long and chatty but there is some hidden tips and gems in some of the episodes. It can be tough to understand the technical jargon at times but I love their passion towards the Audiophile hobby!
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For this one in particular I get the jargon, IMD when explaining it with respect to two frequencies is rather straight forward. Unfortunately music is significantly more complex and the IMD can express it self as hash or noise across a wide frequency band. It can literally be rather chaotic. Maintaining linear power amplifier operation with minimal feedback can result in low IMD. Operating device selection (fast transistors for example), simple circuits and robust power supplies can be a path to lower IMD. Over utilization of feedback can make matters worse. In college my lab project was application of new, at the time fast transistors yet to be readily available, in an amplifier circuit with minimal feedback based on a technical paper by Matti Otala. It was a fun project and replicated design work by Otala. It demonstrated Otala’s thesis, (published in an AES Journal), regarding reduction of SID with fast transistors, among other things. Darren explains it rather well in the PodCast. A topic I moved on from post college, preferring Electrical Power Stability analysis and protective relaying for utility applications in the long run.
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Do you guys notice that during DSD playback the Left and Right channels are swapped? PCM playback will be normal. Switch 2 on should fix that???
Yes, I fixed DSD channel inversion by pushing dipswitch 2 to ON.
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Thanks for verifying this.
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hmm i’m having all DIP switches in default (OFF) - do i have reversed channels for DSD sources?
PCM is for sure fine as I have few tests discs which confirms channels are where they should be…
Thanks for the post - had been pondering one for a while but hearing them talk about the matrix i had pulled the pin by the end of the podcast …
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I just purchased one of these Denafrips Hermes DDC. I’ll let you know how it does when it arrives. This should clean up the USB signal from my mini PC Running JRiver. This unit has 8 configurable I2S out settings and works with the Directstream DAC. Denafrips is working on a new firmware for the less expensive Iris DDC to make it compatible with the PS audio gear. It cost under $600 and should do a great job of cleaning up the USB signal also.
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Wonderful. The photo shows more electronics than a Matrix 
It would be great to hear your impressions when it settles in your system.
That’s an interesting looking rig.
You can validate that by testing identical tracks in both formats.
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Happy cake day Serhan!
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Snaps! Serhan
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Yes. In JRiver you can setup Zones. I can then link the zones and they will playback (in sync) to whatever DAC / DAC’s are setup for that zone. This is how I A/B the DS and the Denafrips DAC. The Hermes outputs to all the Digital outputs at the same time so I also could A/B different Digital inputs on the DS. I2S vs coax SPDIF vs Optical vs AES.
I just finished the external power supply mod and am enjoying that until the DDC arrives. The transformer mod was also a big improvement. It just keeps getting better and better sounding. It’s getting scary real sounding. Very large sound stage with tons of space between all the instruments and vocals. I have never heard anything like this before. I can’t imagine the DDC will make the same kind of improvements. I’ll report back when the DDC arrives and is burned in.
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I like this expression!
I checked Denafrips website. Interestingly, their top DDC is 3x the price of their lowest one.
IRIS US$ 514
HERMES US$ 1,250
GAIA US$1,692
I would say go for the top at that price.
It’s like 1/3 the cost of a decent audiophile fuse.
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Hmm… my Dragon HDMI cable cost much more than this GAIA. Maybe I’m wasting my money on the wrong stuff for improvement.
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A chain is as strong as its weakest link
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I keep up to date on Jriver cause what is $20? It’s on a machine I used to marvel at. I don’t think my Grimm MU1 can accept Jriver, but I am pretty sure my Pink Faun can. I should try that again. I could feed the Pink Faun output to a Matrix and feed the MU1 with a nice AES/EBU cable and let the MU1 work it’s FPGA processing Magic. I’ll bet it would sound fine. I’ll let you know.
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