The new new upgraded Torrey’s ++ is fantastic. Above and beyond my expectations, thanks to Paul, Ted and team for this. Great job Now onto Roon Bridge
With all the switching of firmwares over the last few days, I have inadvertently noticed something something about the DS that I had never realised before.
On my system, there is a distinct difference in sound depending on whether the SD card is plugged in or not. With the SD card IN, the sound is brighter and more open; with it REMOVED, it is warmer and a bit more expressive. I have tried this several times and the results are repeatable.
Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just imagining it (after exposure to too many firmwares in one week)? If it is different what on earth might the technical reason be? If you don’t care about Album Art this may be another way to fine tune a system?
assisi said When I tried the Torreys 1.8.7 a couple of days ago it did not work with USB straight away. Yet it was fine from the Network into Bridge 1. I took the SD card out and turned the DS back on a couple of times. USB worked I put the experience down to an aberration. Now with 1.8.8 USB does not work. I have gone through the card removal and back on a few times etc. No change. I never had an issue with USB and Yale. USB works fine from the server to another DAC.What do I do?
John
Hi John. When you say it doesn’t work with USB do you mean it doesn’t see USB or do you mean it sees USB but no sound come out? Wghat are you connecting with? Windows or Mac?
Although I only had about a day with the beta build released recently, I do seem to hear an improvement with Torreys C. No Bridge, just CDs played through a coax connection. I’m going to refrain from making any general, blanket exclamations until I’ve heard much more. Very encouraged, though. Quite.
I have been listening to the New, new Torreys and have these initial impressions:
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An immediate and significant improvement over TorreysB. It is very hard to analyze at first because of how immediately engrossing it is. In fact, it reminds me of when people hear my Shindo 301 Record Player for the first time. The Prat and immediacy is so compelling people have a hard time picking it apart. So I’m going to say, this version is more analog, among other things.
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It seems like the noise floor went sub rosa. Gone is the hi-fi like aura to acoustic instruments (which I sometimes mistake for ambience). Everything I’ve thrown at it so far sounds more natural, relaxed and deeply rooted in place.
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This version just seems so much more integrated, all the previous improvements having gelled together. And I haven’t heard any of the previous treble forwardness.
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Piano is spooky real.
Ok. I’m going to loose my analytics here and dissolve into raves. I recently auditioned in my system a highly respected DAC three times the price of the Direct Stream. I was still playing Yale and the more expensive DAC won out. Not by much but by having some of the analog qualities above. I would love to A/B now. I think the New, new Torreys has it beat.
To my ears, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Vhiner1 asked about my system. I’ll permanently attach when I figure out how.
Martin Logan Montis Speakers, Shindo Petit Latour Speakers, Shindo Giscours, Shindo 301 Record Player, Pass XA30.8, MusicVault M7 server, Silver Tellus, High Fidelity speaker and interconnect cables, PS Audio Direct Stream DAC, PS Audio P5, Audience AU24 power chords
Cover Art (Torreys C)
Paul McGowan saidBTW, this requires you to pull the SD card out once you load it or it will reload every time you reboot.
JRiver 20 → Bridge 1 → DS
After installing I removed the SD card, I noticed I wasn’t receiving the cover art. I then inserted a formatted blank SD card. It worked. However there’s a “?” as shown below.
Is this a function of the blank SD card or is something else the cause?
Steve,
Awesome system! Just as I agreed with your assessment of Torreys B, I think you’ve nailed Torreys C as well. I guess brilliant minds do think alike! 
Vance
Thanks Vance. I bet yours sings too.
Steve
SOLD!! 
… As a reminder… I liked the first beta… liked the space it gave… Thought betaB was more distinct… better image…a little weightier… but thought the presentation seemed a bit more forward… a tad more aggressive… Now to betaC… wow… I really like this one a lot… It seems to keep a lot of the space that was in the first beta … bass is awesome … better lower mids … Presentation - not as aggressive as B… It just seems really right to me … It keeps some of the sparkle of B… the space in A… and improves upon the bass. I played my good recordings… my bad recordings etc…
Music played: Eric Bibb, Norah Jones, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, James Taylor, Diana Krall, Ray Brown, Jack Johnson, Dan Fogelberg… In every case a thumbs up… I have a tendency to want to listen to a lot of vocal and acoustic when I am testing things out as I feel it is easy to identify changes in vocal… whether on good recordings or bad… My listening tastes are all over the map…but, although I like classical - I sometimes find it a bit more difficult to find differences in the small nuances we are talking about here.
I don’t need to know the intricacies… but outside of the fixes for functionality between betaB and betaC… I know Ted referred to ‘seeds’… are these parameters passed to the code (i.e. no code change - just parameters fed to the code) ?
great job … sounds awesome…
Thanks Tim.
I think you nailed it now! The new new beta seems better balanced in mids and has slightly different soundstaging again with better front/back separation and extension to the front for me.
It must be hard work for the voicoing crew to listen through all your betas before releasing and strange how Versions with only small code changes differ. I think you do good when selecting the best balanced version (1st) with also best ambiance (2nd).
I can see no bugs anymore with Bridge II so far.
Paul McGowan saidJah said This new new torreys will not load. I loaded the previous version-- no problems. I've gone back to Yale, and tried to re load this version -- no sale.Are you sure you unzipped the file? Placed it on a clean card? It should load.
I ended up modifying the loader file (changed the id #) – that seemed to do the trick.
My 2 cents on SQ:
My comparison is Torrey’s vs Yale. This new, new Torrey’s is my first listen to the new firmware.
A while back and I installed some noise reduction hardware on my Regen (ifi power) and my initial comments were that noise reduction caused the sound of the Yale to become flat and dull. The noise in my system added a level of “excitement” to the sound, but with an annoying fingernails-on-the-blackboard peakiness. With the noise gone, the peakiness was eliminated, but so was the excitement.
Torreys brings back the excitement, but without the peakiness, and with some fantastic new clarity in the mid bass. I noticed this immediately when playing AM radio (internet tuner) through the DS. Male voices lost that weird chesty/thumpy characteristic, and took on a more natural conversational sound.
Music: I’m most impressed with the attack and clarity of drums, as well as the “blatt” and “edge” of brass instruments. It’s the sound I always note when hearing those instruments live, and have always missed in various iterations of my audio system.
These are my first impressions. i need to spend some hours listening to my beloved female singers before I can fully bless Torreys 
Listened to Torreys C this afternoon after a decent warm up. In my system this is by far the best version of Torreys (and I tested all of them) and no match with Yale or 1.2.1. Imaging is great and a bit more holographic than the B version, full and warm sound, hights detailed but not harsh in any way. Voices and general presentation much more involving and emotional than with Torreys B. At the same time very relaxed with no listening fatique. I listened to all formats DSD and PCM.
System: Jriver 21 on Win2012 Server (Audiophil Optimizer, Fidelizer Pro 7) into DS with Bridge II straight into BKH 250 feeding Verity Audio Parsival Ovation. All powered by a P5.
I think the time and effort put into these firmware updates and the results are pretty unique in the industry. Other companies would call it an MKII version and charge you 2000$.
Great Job Ted and PS Audio Team !!!
Some observations on TorreysC;
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The soundstage-holes I have been mentioning seems almost cured (a big plus)
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TC is not as wide as TB
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Balance is changed a little, i.e. boosted mid bass and retracted treble/mids
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Sounds a bit hollow/stressed and hard at high volume levels - more listening fatigue and less PRaT
Summarize: TorreysB for president!
Frode said Some observations on TorreysC; - The soundstage-holes I have been mentioning seems almost cured (a big plus)How were they cured? Did you change something?
Guys, no need to analyze and dissect the sound of this new new Torres firmware, just put your most favorite track and feel the magic. I felt and I loved it.
1.8.8 works wonders. Thank God there was this bug with the bridge 1, otherwise the world would not have seen THIS.
Elk saidNope, just went from TorreysB to TorreysC (new PIC file the only change).Frode said Some observations on TorreysC; - The soundstage-holes I have been mentioning seems almost cured (a big plus)How were they cured? Did you change something?
I am also switching between my Aries and my uRendu for source on the different OS versions.
Hi, Curt here. First post.
I want to thank Ted and Dennis for their efforts, the results speak for themselves. Every endeavor requires a champion, a Sparticus, to act as a catalyst to push it ever onward. Getting paid to do it is just a bonus. My gut says Ted would be doing this with or without anybody elses involvement. Kudos to you, Ted. Please keep learn’n and burn’n!
Paul…without turning this into a bromance, you are the reason I am here. Seeing the passion, and more importantly the openness and community, that you exhibit running your company literally drew me in. Much like Nelson Pass with Pass Labs and FirstWatt, your willingness to pull back the curtains and get your customers involved is inspiring. I’m sure it is riddled with angst at times. Watching Torreys unfold over the last month has felt like a grass roots movement, for lack of a better term. The fact that you could just as easily be doing this in the back room and selling it to us but have instead chosen to involve us, as customers, says a ton. As I said, it’s the reason I bought PS gear and the reason I’m here. Thank you for having the courage to do so, I sincerely hope you are rewarded with unwavering customers.
On to Torreys…
I am still trying to decipher what is real in what I am hearing with the multiple versions of Torreys. My last Dac was a Cambridge Audio 840 with the AD BlackFin DSP processor. While not FPGA based it was programmed and I am assuming voiced like the DS.
Considering the give and take nature of voicing, I’m starting to get lost on what is supposed to be there and what isn’t.
For example, on Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” there is school bell that starts ringing at just under a minute into the song and repeats throughout the song. I had never noticed before the CA dac brought it out. When I say brought it out, I mean it sounded just it did in class, LOUD. After you hear it, the song isn’t the same without it. On the DS with any of the firmwares, you can hear it, but only if you are listening for it.
I can’t figure out whether it was over-emphasized on the CA unit or de-emphasized on the DS, or is it somewhere in between?
Could somebody else spin up the song and tell me what you are hearing?
Curt,
You’re not crazy. I had a similar experience with a track off of James Taylor’s October Road. There’s the sound of a dog panting at the end of track 6. With the original PW, I could hear it clearly. Now it’s still there, but not as prominent and not something I find myself paying attention to. Here’s my take: Each final version of Ted’s firmware strips away more of the veil between us and the music and lowers the noise floor. When we begin to notice more detail, some details become less important, even on a subconscious level. Some of the worst systems I’ve heard enable the listener to hear certain details, but at the expense of other, equally important ones. That’s not to dis your old Cambridge DAC, but my theory is that it was emphasizing part of the bandwidth at the expense of another part. Just a theory.
Paul McGowan saidassisi said When I tried the Torreys 1.8.7 a couple of days ago it did not work with USB straight away. Yet it was fine from the Network into Bridge 1. I took the SD card out and turned the DS back on a couple of times. USB worked I put the experience down to an aberration. Now with 1.8.8 USB does not work. I have gone through the card removal and back on a few times etc. No change. I never had an issue with USB and Yale. USB works fine from the server to another DAC.What do I do?
John
Hi John. When you say it doesn’t work with USB do you mean it doesn’t see USB or do you mean it sees USB but no sound come out? Wghat are you connecting with? Windows or Mac?
Hi Paul,
I assume that the DS sees the server. When I first turn them on, the light in the USB icon on the DS screen is red and it turns to green when the server is ready and the screen says 16/44.1. I choose some thing to play on the server. It plays but there is no sound from the DS. It works fine from the the networked NAS and the other DAC works fine from the server.
I am using an Antipodes DX server which is Linux.
John