This will be a difficult question for PSA to answer, because used Mk1’s with Sunrise, which would likely be higher quality and better sounding (since it was Ted’s best effort as of a year ago given the hardware limitations of what was still a $6k retail DAC at time of discontinue (and since PSA pricing purportedly based only on part-cost (as Paul has claimed many times), we can conclude that Mk1 had much better components (1.5x the cost) compared to the new DAC), versus an off-the-shelf dac with no FPGA programming (ie, different from Mk1 or Mk2)) … but the used Mk1’s go for what, $2.5k on used market now in perfect shape?
But the conundrum is if PSA wants to sell this new DAC, they have to say it sounds better than Mk1. I’m sure Ted will be watching to see what the answer provided is.
For new DAC to sound better than Mk1, it would have to do so with inferior components (Mk1 components must have cost 1.5x more based on pricing) and without Ted Smith magic programming. That would be hard to believe
Why is there ethernet and wifi network connectivity on the Stellar Gold DAC? Will you be able to use it for streaming? There’s only info about connecting it to the network in the manual. Not what you can do once connected. There’s a dedicated usb for firmware updates, so I doubt they would also include a network connection just for firmware.
Great, for sure, but better (always) with M700s. The S300 and SG Preamp are a wonderful combination. I just very much like the sound of the monoblocks best.
I just got my Gold DAC beta. Build quality is solid. This thing weighs a ton. The black version looks better in person than in the pictures. Can’t wait to fire it up later!
My Gold DAC beta arrived on Tuesday. Mine is also black. It looks nice. It’s been running since it arrived. Letting it break in before I listen carefully to it. I’ll be comparing it to the digital section of my Esoteric K-03X which has similar architecture but older chips.
Stellar Gold DAC in silver arrived Wednesday. Have about 30 hours burn-in as I type.
Initial impressions are promising. Will be evaluating it vs Stellar GC DAC.
There was a new thread including various pictures just the other day from a beta tester who described his partly critical experience with the gold series, but not regarding sound. As far as I remember, sound quality was described positive throughout. I now couldn’t find it anymore, maybe deleted …
I’ll be interested to hear how compatible the usb input is with streamers.
I’ve always found the Gain Cell fine with a computer or a phone/tablet over USB but it just absolutely will not play ball with any stand alone streamer I’ve tried with it.
I had to get an update for my SGC to play content via USB from my Aurender. I don’t know if it was a firmware change, or a hardware tweak, but they handled it as a warranty repair. It worked very well.