Save that old stick! My newer ones from Amazon didn’t work either.
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I’m glad you got it to work. And I thought the Mk1 and 2 update problems were in the past (wishful thinking on my part). So far the PMGs seem to have fewer problems but there haven’t been many updates either.
The release notes for the transport update say “fix some screen issues”. I don’t recall any reports on the forum about screen problems and I did not notice any. But remote drawer operation works fine.
I actually did notice one “bug”. I had a music stick plugged into the front, playing on continuous loop since yesterday. I stopped it, pulled out the stick, popped in a CD-R (which has never been a problem playing anywhere else), and closed the drawer. The PMG just kept trying to read it and read it with no success. It didn’t stop trying, but just kept reading. I popped the disc out, cycled power, and tried it again. This time it worked. So there may be a bug in transitioning from USB continuous looping to physical disc.
Ah, I see this was discussed in a separate thread. Just have to wait for the FW fix, I guess.
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A music stick in the front of PST never worked properly for me. There were a variety of glitches so I just gave up on it. It could have been a problem with how I compiled the stick with tracks on my computer but after several attempts it just seemed not worth the time. I haven’t tried with the PMG.
I just remembered something from last year that could have been a screen issue. With a disk on repeat and display dimmed the PMG was playing track 1 and when I undimmed the display it showed the final track of the disk as playing with the time counting down. Stopping the disk and turning off repeat fixed the problem. I usually have the display dimmed so this could have happened other times and I didn’t notice. So maybe this update fixes this problem and/or some others.
Even knowing you can do this, I’m still amazed!! There was a 0% chance of me remembering this, lol.
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It should come as no surprise, BTW, that the PMG SACD is a very nice step up from the PST. For as good as the PST is - and it is very good - the additional considerable expense to the PMG yields an even greater sense of “almost fooling you” musical gestalt. I think Paul, surprisingly, kind of downplayed the difference between the two when I was talking to him about it at last year’s AXPONA. I was half expecting to just kind of say to myself “yeah, okay, but at least I have the last iteration of PSA’s best SACD effort”, but my reaction had a bit more smile to it than that.
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I have skills that have 0 monetary value. Lol
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I just updated the firmware to 2.3.0. I had an SACD in the drive when I did the update. Now the disc tray will not work AT ALL. I hit stop on the remote twice as listed in the release notes. I got an icon on the screen showing tray open but nothing happened. Then I tried the Eject icon on the display and still nothing. I then used the Emergency Eject slide lever on the bottom to get the drawer open and remove my disc.
Then I pushed the drawer closed and still could not open the tray with either the remote or display Eject icon. I power cycled with the rear power switch with no change. The emergency slide lever is no longer engaging to open the tray. I covered a small screwdriver with electrical tape and was able to pry open the tray enough to pull it open without scratching the case. I pulled the tray fully out and the controls will not close the tray (screen or remote). Most other drives will engage and close if you give them a nudge. Still nothing.
I have verified that the firmware is 2.3.0, but I can’t downgrade to the previous version as it is not available on the Downloads page. Any ideas on ho to fix this?
Did you do another power cycle, or maybe even better: disconnect for a while?
I have done several power cycles. Even one with the USB thumb drive that has the new firmware plugged in. I doubt that disconnecting for a while would do anything, as the Emergency eject slide lever will no longer mechanically engage. It just slides freely back and forth when the tray is closed.
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Sorry to hear that…Sounds like a return trip to the mother ship is in order!
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Not that it’s the same mechanism, but the drive in my PWT failed soon after I got it. As it was (IIRC) an Asus drive, they just sent me a new one and I swapped it out.
Anybody know whether the PMG transport requires the same kind of burn in hours as previous PSA digital gear? I don’t recall how much time my PST took.
I remember PST took less time to break in; like 100 hours the most. I have PMG SACD for four weeks, but there was an eight day vacation in there, then PMG512 arrived so I cannot tell you.
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Well, I’ve got it running on continuous repeat 24/7 with a USB stick. I’m not sure how much of it is left out of the burn in, beyond the mechanical transport, doing it this way, but hopefully in about a week it’ll be more or less there. Maybe after that I’ll run the sled for one 24 hour continuous cycle, unless that would stress it too much. @Paul, is that a “don’t do that”?
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I’m certainly not Paul but I would say from my experience with the previous transport with the same drive no issue doing that.
I was doing disc repeat for 12 hours+ and running USB at night for at least five days without any issue.
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For burn in I run a disk on repeat during the day but usually not overnight just to give it a break. Some downtime in the burn in process seems to help. I have no real basis for this, just rough observations over the years.
As far drive wear goes, I got the transport and pre at the same time and they ran for about 250 hours before the 512 arrived. These ran for probably another 200 hrs before the FR30s arrived and these ran for about 300 hrs before I stopped keeping track. By now I’m sure the transport has well over 1500 hrs and while not an extreme amount I think it will outlast me.
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Timely posts for me. I wasn’t going to do more break-in than just playing while listening to experience the changes. But changed my mind after day 2’s SQ sounded worse to me than day 1. Ran all night with disc on repeat. Sounds better today (day 3). Think I’ll start running the repeat mode about 12 hours/day to speed up the process.
I too was talking to someone at AXPONA last year, I think it was James or another sales rep, not Paul, and I got the distinct impression there was little difference between PST and PMG. Sure seems like I got that wrong … Too late now.
A thought occurred to me while feeling left behind; could the new circuitry of the PMG be adapted to the PST? Not sure how much the new chassis contributes to improved sound quality, but if a circuit board could be replaced and get, say, 75% of the improvements that would be nice. I would presume the display and control of the drive would prohibit a direct swap, but is there any hope?
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