Mine shipped yesterday and FedEx says delivery Saturday, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that slipped to Tuesday.
Well the 512 arrived and is playing now with some effort.
First impressions? Sonically (just in the first few minutes of play), compared to the DS Mk2. The treble is smoother less of a harsh edge. The bass has more body and separate bass instruments are easier to distinguish. This is evident even though the overall sound is a bit sluggish which I am pretty sure is just due to not yet reaching thermal stability and not much burn in time. The improvement over the Mk2 is not dramatic but for me is in important areas. I expect the performance gap to widen with more time.
Functionally. Initially it did not boot up at all. On power up the logo at the left came on but the screen was dead. I recycled the rear switch several times (checking all connections each time), same behaviour. No response from the remote; also tried the logo but no change there either. I tried playing a disc but nothing (see below).
After more power recycles the screen finally came up. (Checked inputs and it was set to XLR; I use I2S so that’s likely why no sound earlier.) Tried a couple tracks and it played fine. Set the volume to 100 using the touch screen, it went out then flickered and came back on with volume at 25, so it seems to have power cycled itself. I then went into the menu and set max vol = 100, no problems. But wait there’s more.
I went back into the menu to check settings and while looking at ‘ground lift’ the screen got ‘fuzzy’ and was unreadable. I could still navigate the menu but none of the screens were readable. Another rear switch recycle fixed this and I could go into the menu and exit without problem.
My guess is there is a faulty connection somewhere or the screen is just crap. The preamp and transport have worked flawlessly so it was probably my turn for a goose flyover.
Not off to a great start…
FWIW, the volume issue and some of the initial “flightiness” you experienced MIGHT have been associated with a loose interconnect or speaker wire connection.
It has been my experience with PSA DACs that they seem to automatically lower the volume to protect your speakers if something is wonky with your connections.
Might be worth double checking all of your cable connections…
Just a thought,
Cheers.
That’s a possibility although I reseated connections at the DAC and transport and the pre was powered down. Still I suppose a downstream connection could affect the DAC through grounding.
On the other hand the DS Mk2 never showed any problems like this, or any others for that matter.
Anyway I’ll check all connections soon, they’re overdue for a cleaning.
Thanks
Will be interesting to see if you have anymore issues…
I’m letting it play for a while, then I’ll do some testing with the menu and power recycling. I’ll post the results.
Thanks for the initial review. I hope the issues are temporary and easy to resolve.
Key word ‘initial’. It’s an unfair comparison with only a couple of hours on the 512, but I couldn’t resist given the improvements I heard. I’m looking forward to comments from other 512 users.
I think most of us are really rooting for the PMG line to be outstanding and undeniable. I am growing a bit skeptical given various reports of some build quality problems. But, to be fair the MKII had it’s own bumps in the road upon first release. Let’s hope for the PMG quality issues to smooth out! Looking forward to your impressions of SQ as burn in continues.
I took delivery of my PMG DAC 512 on Friday afternoon. I had similar problems with the display and could get no output at all from my PMG Transport input to either of the I2 inputs. PS Audio’s Taylor suggested doing a Factory Reset. That solved all the issues and glorious music immediately poured from my speakers. I have been struck by the improved spatial localization of instruments and vocals, tighter bass and smoother highs. It’s been running about 28 hours now and continues to improve. I’m impressed. It replaces the MKII and clearly is a big improvement of my already good system. So try a factory reset.
wonder what happened….a factory version of the 512 vs a factory reset at home
This makes one wonder how the final QC check is done.
Is it just a visual check and is the firmware pre loaded on a chip/component? Meaning, the completed device isn’t powered up in the factory and some basic functionality checks aren’t performed?
Welcome!
As early adopters share their impressions of the PMG 512 DAC it would also be helpful to include any thoughts on its streaming functionality which is an important part of the package. Thanks!
I would love to know, since I plan to buy the DAC, what the steps are at final QC.
Reading this thread it seems like step one in the manual should be to do a factory reset.
This has my curiosity as well.
There was interest by a few forum members in having a shoot out between the new dac and the MU2. Did I miss they have set a date yet?
For me as a MK2 and a Hifi Rose rs130 owner, both dac and streamer functionality - and most of all SQ -matters in deciding to step into this new round of next upgrades.
Former rose 130/MKII APS owner.
Got my dac about 1/2 hour ago. Booted up. Had to do it twice. Streamer took a bit to init. Had to boot again as it was just spinning. That worked.
Roon found it. Great. Sounds great. Did not get far and discovered it skips every few seconds with 88.2/24bit songs. Edit: 96/24 too. Anyone else see that? Every last one. All other formats so far so good.
My daughter has my laptop I need to collect so I can enable muse for this device. Grrrrr. So absolutely no review until it’s apples to apples. I will stream in loop to keep burning in while I collect my laptop.
hmmm. Seems like only 44/48 seem to work in FLAC. All the higher rates skip. Going to do factory reset
Factory reset done. Got worse.
but it seems all FLAC fro qobuz via roon does not work. But anything local seems good via roon from my NAS. All worked but 192//24 work. They skip even on local. Eversolo used all same cables and setup yesterday was flawless. Don’t think it’s the rest of my setup. Sped test on iPad wifi 2
Was 380 down. Plenty of speed. And that was only iPad limiting it.
Something is broken. of course long weekend. Geeze.
Oh boy. So sorry to hear that you are having these problems. Seems that every PMG component so far has had some sort of issue reported by multiple customers. Good thing there’s a 30 day trial period! Hope you get this sorted. Please report back as things progress – or deteriorate 
as the case may be.
Just about to head out. Set up sweep for burn in. Seems that as it warms it’s getting less slipping. Will let it settle in.