MK II HIdden Features

A wise ELK suggested a thread to document the various settings that are buried in the MK II control software that are not in the owner’s manual, i.e. lifting grounds and such.

I’ve copied Ted’s description of the procedure to lift input grounds to kick things off.

tedsmithChief digital dude

In the menus you can go to “Audio Inputs” (which is beyond the versions screen) and select it. Then you can go the “Ground Lift” menu and select that. Then you can lift or not lift the grounds on each of the inputs.

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From the DirectStream MKII DAC Production Launch Start-up thread.

Post 168
Mk II Menus (Firmware 2.3.5) compared to Manual Rev A-1

Trigger Delay: Listed in manual (pg 7) but I did not find it in the menus

Found in Mk II Menu but not in the Manual (default is BOLDED)

  • Pre Emphasis: Off/On
  • Audio Output submenu items
    Ground Lift: Grounded/Lifted (how is this different than Input ground lift?)
    Shell Lift: Grounded/Lifted
    RCA Balanced: Off/On

Ted’s Reply
Not all features in the UI were well tested before the release, Trigger delay is one of them. Among the others are Dual AES (XLR inputs), configuration of polarities for I2S, selectable default display on the UI, bigger font for display…

Preemphasis: CD’s have a preemphasis option (which some early CDs used). But not all rippers kept that information and there’s no standard for I2S or USB transmitting the preemphasis flag and not all players, sources provide it over AES3, S/PDIF or TOSLink. Also, some non-PS Audio I2S devices seem to trigger PS Audio’s I2S preemphasis indicators. A UI setting helps to clear some of this up.

Ground lift is an option on all digital inputs and the analog outputs.
Shell Lift is an optional lift for the Shell of the XLR audio output. That’s separate from lifting the ground signal.

aaronm’s reply
2.3.3 and 2.3.5 are exactly the same. With one thing we had to add for engineering for testing. …

The update is not necessary for the DAC’s with 2.3.3 in the field. There’s zero difference to the code other than the engineering update to the network module for in house testing.

NOTE: Per Ted’s video with Paul Paul and Ted discuss the DirectStream MK2 DAC - YouTube
The Ground Lift option is the Galvanic Isolation.

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https://www.psaudio.com/support/manuals/

Things might be a bit less opaque now. @Paul noted the manual was recently updated in another thread earlier today.

Check it out at the link provided above.

FYI.

Regarding Ted’s reply above on Configuration of Polarities for IS2…is that something that will be coming in the future? Will it deal with reversed channels when playing SACD’s using a HDMI to IS2 converter between an Oppo 205 and the MK2?

Configuring I2S is a feature that will come. I hope in the next UI code release, but if not then the one after. Yes, one of the configurable items in the I2S will be which of the incoming signals is left vs. right for native DSD signals.

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