This is the approach my KRELL connect has the storage not in the unit.
Al d
stereophilus said: Add a pink faun i2s card into a BDP2 and you have potentially a great match for the PWD2.
IIRC, the Sonore I2S daughter card will piggy-back on to the audio card in the Bryston.
@alrainbow Except the BDP units are players, not streamers. The krell is a streamer I believe. To stream you still need a NAS or networked server. Subtle difference perhaps, but the bryston approach is very pure.
stereophilus said: Add a pink faun i2s card into a BDP2 and you have potentially a great match for the PWD2.
IIRC, the Sonore I2S daughter card will piggy-back on to the audio card in the Bryston.
Yes, I remember Jesus saying that... Sounds like a good experiment! However, my original point was more directed at PS Audio's future server options.
In general I agree a PC can be very noisy so as to Frode’s comment, not, you probably won’t see a PC in one of our products as a standalone piece like so many others do. But what you will most likely see is a small type of computer (called an SBC) which is a single board computer, like the Raspberry, placed on our own PCB and output through a small FPGA (called a CPLD) using a separate and isolated clock. This method combines the power of a PC with the advantage of separate clock and Digital Lens in one box.
That’s most likely what we would do for Bridge II whenever we get that figured out.
@stereophilus The Bryston approach is based on MPD and a Linux computer. This is a direction we are currently examining as a possibility. MPD is quite good sounding and does gapless, but it’s only a player.
In general I agree a PC can be very noisy so as to Frode's comment, not, you probably won't see a PC in one of our products as a standalone piece like so many others do. But what you will most likely see is a small type of computer (called an SBC) which is a single board computer, like the Raspberry, placed on our own PCB and output through a small FPGA (called a CPLD) using a separate and isolated clock. This method combines the power of a PC with the advantage of separate clock and Digital Lens in one box.
That's most likely what we would do for Bridge II whenever we get that figured out.
May I suggest that PS Audio consider evaluating this component for the clock part:
http://www.crystek.com/crystal/spec-sheets/clock/CCHD-957.pdf
Thanks Frode. I believe that’s what we already use. At least I know we spend a lot of money with Crystek. 
Thanks Frode. I believe that's what we already use. At least I know we spend a lot of money with Crystek. :)
Sounds assuring!
Go for the OCXO version :)
@stereophilus The Bryston approach is based on MPD and a Linux computer. This is a direction we are currently examining as a possibility. MPD is quite good sounding and does gapless, but it's only a player.
Good to hear this is on the agenda. You may also wish to consider Logitech Meda Server (LMS) which is much more versatile than MPD.
I made an appointment with a pink faun dealer to test the PCI bridge on thursday 2 Januari.
They have the bridge on stock, but they needed to order a special chip to put on the Pink Faun bridge to communicate with the PWD. It seems there are two protocols. One is a kind of single ended and the PWD uses a balanced version of I2S. There’s no extra charge for the chip.
They already had a customer with a PWD with bridge. The Pink Faun bridge was a clear upgrade that time.
Now I think I bring my own PC router and switch to give the PWD’s bridge a fair chance.
You MUST report back! In my system, the W4S I2S implementation has better timbre, focus and image depth. The PWD bridge has more air and detail though.
@wijnand - great! Let us know…
We did this a few years back and it was great for a round one exercise. However, i2s signal generation in a computer case is very sensitive to RF, EMI, and to the quality of the computer power supply. Round two would have you move the i2s interface into the DAC (PS Audio has done this for you) or into it’s own case (we can still make these.) We did all this research and a separate USB to i2s converter with proper isolation and it’s own dedicated power supply is just better compared to the card in the computer. Sure having the i2s converter in the computer is handy and some of my customer’s insisted on it even after we explained all the above to them. We switched the design of our servers to the SOtM USB cards to force the issue. I know there is a difference between the HDMI i2s input and the USB input on the PWD based on comments from our customers. However, with the server optimized you can now experiment with different digital options such as USB direct verses USB to SPDIF versus USB to HDMI i2s into the DAC.
Jesus R
Thanks Jesus,
I understand what you are saying. There are some things I can’t understand and that is why we use a PC at all. When this is such a terrible noise maker. No matter how it’s handling the music data, it is handling the music data. It’s only another protocol ethernet vs I2S or USB.
In the past I’ve tested USB vs the bridge and it came out that the bridge is more sensibele for how it’s fed the music data. When this is done with special care for ethernet cabling, power supply for the switch, quality of the PC Mac or Nass, programs that handles the music data, etc. Then the bridge is a wonderful thing.
I tested USB with a mac mini I7 ammara and a high quality USB cable and there was something that I liked about it. USB came closer to my good old CD player and it was hard to tell if I was playing a cd or a stream. I think it’s comparable with listening to a LP or a CD. The LP is warm sounding not showing everything it suit and the CD is colder sounding, showing much more and also the things we do not like that much in our listening rooms, but still it is closer to the master tape. Well I think the bridge can show all that too and more when it’s not setup properly. So that’s why I think USB is far more easy and sometimes picked above the bridge. When the bridge was taken out the PWD the USB sound quality increased a bit. I mean no matter where the bridge is put there is always a concessions somewhere.
Maybe this will be the same for a I2S bridge in a pc. I will test with different HDMI cables of different lenght and as short as possible.
The PC I use is build with special care to keep the noise level low. In case of the Pink Faun bridge it has a connector for a separate power supply so It’ not fed by the motherboard. I think it wil outperform USB with ease and I hope it will come close to the PWD bridge.
I will report!
Not to through A monkey wrench. In this see if you can get your hands on an
Offramp 5. It’s USB input and a few outputs. It out performs the bridge to my ears.
Today I bought the Pink Faun bridge. The dealer was actualy the Pink Faun manufacturer and they had build in the bridge with the special chip to communicate with the PWD. Their listening room had two big horn speakers connected to monoblocken all made by Pink Faun. We played some tracks through the Pink Faun streamer connected with one of the I2S socked’s of the PWD. And the same tracks from a computer through the PWD’s bridge the difference was too big to be true. So I checked the network and it was gigabit lan cat5e so I knew the PWD could do better. Besides the cat5e the cabling from the computer to the PWD was about 15 to 20 meters and from the Pink Faun streamer which is actualy a computer had only 1,5 meter HDMI to the PWD. Playing through the PWD bridge at home was far better than playing through the PWD bridge by Pink Faun. So not a fair comparison.
Playing from the Pink Faun streamer to I2S has some troubles with low resolution files when the PWD was in native or nativeX. It did switch to the right samplerate but no sound. When the PWD was set to the right samplerate by hand than it played just fine. :-??
So I bought the bridge and build it in my PC at home I must say the thing is awsome more rest more black better color. I never thought more rest was possible, but it really can.
Jriver with the Pink Faun bridge is compared with Minim server and the PWD bridge.
The Pink Faun streamer would be a big upgrade in comparison with a normal PC and this would be due to the powersupply. Pink Faun is specialized in building powersupply’s. So they will make a price for me to build a linear power supply for my PC. So this wil be the next step.
At the moment I play with a pretty new PC intel I7 haswell with an Asus Z87 deluxe and solid state drives.
The HDMI I use at home is just a few euro’s. So I have to do some research with that.
Music played by the Jriver player is far better then streaming with Jriver.
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It looks that there is a problem with the I2S inputs of the PWD.
When I set the I2S input of the PWD in nativeX and try test tones on different samplerates fromout audio output in the configuration screen.
NativeX (in all cases it does show the right samplerate under NativeX in the display)
44.1Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
48KHz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
88Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
96Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
176Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all playing fine!
192Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all playing fine!
Native (in all cases it does show the right samplerate under Native in the display)
44.1Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
48KHz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit no sound relais do click.
88Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all play fine!
96Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all play fine!
176Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all play fine!
192Khz 16bit, 24bit, 32 bit all play fine!
Samplerates chosen by hand.
All test tones play fine!
Tested 3 firmwares. 2.0.2, 2.2.0, 2.4.3
Does anyone have experience with this issue with other equipment?
For the issue above I’ve made some settings so Jriver upsamples to 176 and some samplerates to 196KHz so the nativeX mode can be used and sound great!
Wow this is good stuff, Wijnand. I remember when you built you PC but I can’t remember if you had adapted Win8 for audio to any extent.