You have to purchase the equipment. $900 off list price or up $1,600 with trade in. 30 day trial or when they decide beta test is over to decide to buy or return product.
Im wondering the same. Will I get the benefit of the Gold DAC if connecting it to the GCD?
Or maybe getting the Gold Pre and putting the GCD in dac mode is a better incremental step?
I got the email invite too. I currently have the DS sr mk1 and love it. I use Ethernet so my server can be in another room running roon.
My questions about this new dac are:
Roon compatible?
Can I use Ethernet in?
How does the dac sound going directly into my bhk amp?
Is the sound quality of the SG equal or better than the DS sr?
I have seen that Paul indicated that the SG dac sounds much better than the DS jr, and when I updated from the jr to the sr, there wasnāt a huge difference in sq, other reviewers indicated maybe a 20% gain in sq, I thought it was more but not a lot more.
Iām curious. I hope there will be some testers that will test these differences.
The volume up button on my stellar gold dac isnāt working, it doesnāt light up sometimes as well. Anyone else have this issue?
This is a question that has been asked twice here now. Waiting for the PSA answer. Itās a fair and extremely relevant question with this new product introduction.
Iām a Stellar Gold DAC beta tester. I can answer some of your questions. Itās only a DAC so no streaming capability like being a Roon endpoint. The network port is for maintenance purposes. Some of the beta testers are driving their amps directly with the DAC. I personally will always run the DAC through a pre because I spin vinyl. I donāt have any other PSA equipment in my system so I canāt make any sound quality comparisons, but I am sure others will. Iām sure thereās more info to come as the beta test continues. For now, the testers are using a limited access page the collaborate with PSA.
Hope this helps.
JeffC
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Well, I can give my opinion but it is nothing more than an opinion. I think that this is a three dimensional question. Itās not simply better or worse, as there are a lot of different aspects to the performance that may vary based on taste and system synergy etc. I spent a few nights listening to the Stellar Gold DAC during itās development and doing A/B testing with the DSD Mk2, mostly.
Objectively, the Stellar Gold DAC has much lower measured noise and distortion than a DSD Srā¦ Whether or not this subjectively important hinges on your system setup and configuration to an extent. The Stellar Gold DAC has a very āhifiā presentation with a very black background, tight, ended low end and airy top end. It seems more sensitive to cable/source quality and incoming jitter than the DSD but I wasnāt involved in those measurements.
The directstream DACs and a āsmoothnessā and musicality that are unique. The bass on the original DSD Sr. can have a bit of bloom a be a little ātubeyā. There is a vibrant midrange. A bit less sense of sparkle and high frequency extension.
I will say that I significantly prefer the DSD Mk2 to the Stellar Gold DAC but prefer the Stellar Gold DAC to an unmodified DSD Sr. but your mileage may vary.
I think that the Stellar Gold Preamp is a huge winner in my book and I want one at home and prefer the sound of it to our BHK Pre. It also has a much lower noise floor and totally black background to the sound and is very open an lifelike sounding. If youāre looking for added flavor or warmth, it doesnāt have that. I wouldnāt say itās analytical or etched sounding but itās definitely very clean. To me, this product is a āwowā.
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Incredibly helpful take. Thanks, Chris!
I just found a post of myself from 2016, where I already missed exactly this from the DS. The mods and the Mk II meanwhile showed that it in fact needed to be addressed. But in 2016 this was blasphemy and every record player delivering it, full of artifacts 
(I donāt speak of Ted but the general bias, he always was open and undogmatic).
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Itās a hard sell for me given how good the Gain Cell already sounds with the internal DAC. That being said, I hope they sell a ton.
Mike
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Iām using the Gold DAC with an Innuos Zen Mini MKII, connected by USB. It works fine and sounds great.
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Well, these things are just my subjective opinions and Iām just the speaker guy. If you measure these things, the high frequency extension is the same. There are complex reasons why something might give an impression of a certain tonal balance that arenāt frequency response related. While I think that the original directstream was/is a monumental product, anything can be improved and the excellent work that Ted has done is an example of that.
It bears mentioning that with the ESS 9038 Pro chip dac like the Stellar Gold DAC, performance is excellent but the product is what it is and there arenāt the additional āknobs and leversā to pull as Ted has done with his FPGA DAC updates.
I will also say that, my understanding, chatting with Darren was that, if you look at some of these ESS DAC using a current source output stage that a lot of the op amps that people use arenāt ideal when driving the kinds of loads and current demands of this paralell DAC architecture and may be going into class-B. While this doesnāt necessarily show in the distortion measurements, the much beefier output stage that he did should have some very tangible sound quality benefits versus some other options on the market.
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Wonderful informative posts, Chris
Thank you
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Very interesting, thanks and yes, Iām sure the DS is a different animal than the Gold DAC regardless of measurements and I also still honor the original Mk I for what it was at the time.
The always equal FR of extremely differently sounding DACās (in FR) can just be ignored anyway, wherever the audible effect comes from. If a speaker guy or an amp guy listens is also secondary, ears, references and the lack of blinkers are all it needs .
Well, Iām glad that youāre happy with your GCD. While much more expensive as a combination, these are very different animals from a GCD and not directly comparable really. Weāre talking about nearly 40-50 dB (~4-5 orders of magnitude) improvement in noise and distortion and vastly different sonic presentation.
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Fair enough. I know itās truly a next-gen product and I really hope you sell a ton!!!
From a segmentation standpoint, since thereās no direct replacement for the SGCD, can I presume the next-gen Strata Paul mentioned in his recent Ask Paul video is the direct replacement in the line for that pricing tier? Because itās become a big jump from Sprout to Stellar Gold.
If you canāt answer, I understand. Speculation is fun too.
Mike
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I get the incredible improvement in noise reduction, distortion, etc., etc., and the accompanying improvement in sonics. But to replace my $2000 GCD will take $8000.
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I know we will make some less expensive components to lower the bar to entry into the line. Itās tough right now with our local and in-house US manufacturing and inflation where it is. A CGD would no longer be a $2000 product based on current material pricing and so weāre looking at some smart outsourcing of certain parts and pieces. Sprout is a product wholly made in China (though at a rather high-end vendor) and so we can offer more for your money in that price point.
I know we are working on this issue (less expensive stellar front end components) because of this kind of feedback.
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22 posts were split to a new topic: Random Thoughts
Sorry if this has already been covered, but am I seeing correctly that the Gold Pre does not have headphone out?