Poor sound quality from Airlens

Cables
1

Hi All,

I recently purchased PS Audio’s Integrated Stellar Strata MK2 and the Airlens. Not pleased with the sound quality because my previous streamers (Cambridge CXN and Sonos ZP) has a more natural sound when hooked up to the Strata MK2.

The Airlens is connected to the Strata MK2 via an AudioQuest Cinnamon HDMI cable from 2011 and Ethernet, it has a dull tone to it (no trebles but bass levels are OK)

I have not experimented with Coax yet.

Any suggestions on how I could improve the sound quality?

Thanks.

2

How many actual hours of playing music with the Airlens? Am I reading correctly you are using an HDMI cable from 14 years ago long before there were components with I2S audio?

3

Try another hdmi cable. Doesn’t have to be fancy, try one you might have on the tv.

4

For my Airlens to Strata (MK1) connection I used an AudioQuest Thunderbird 48 HDMI cable - it was quite good, much better than the built in streamer in the Strata. I was also using a Cinnamon Ethernet cable, the HDMI cable made a much bigger difference than the Ethernet cable in that setup.

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5

It could be the DAC assumes it receives data with the preemphasis bit set. That’s a frequent hassle with I2S.You might want to check if your DAC assumes preemphasis, maybe there is an indicator LED, or a setting to ignore the preemphasis bit. Another alternative is to try material other than 44.1/16, since only redbook allowed for preemphasis. Or try not using I2S for a check.

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6

Around 5 hours played by me. Also PS Audio runs them (for burn in purpose) for a while before shipping.

I tried using a basic HDMI cable with came with my Sony TV in 2025. Still no difference in sound quality.

7

Tried this, no luck :confused:

8

I’m not aware of the preemphasis bit set. I’ll look into these settings. Thank you sir.

9

Try a different HDMI cable. I first had an Audioquest Cinnamon, and it sounded very dark and had little resolution. I switched to the Wireworld Platinum Starlight 48 HDMI cable, a much more expensive cable, but it elevated the sound significantly. It provided much more resolution and more details.

10

You are half way there. But a good spot to rest. A bunch of us think the Dragon 48 is tip top. Except for that one guy. Don’t be that guy. But what you have right now is very good.

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11

Something is not right. I have never heard a complaint about the sound of the Airlens.
And I doubt many owners or reviewers used a cable the cost as much s the streamer.

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12

Hi all,

After switching off the pre emphasis the sound quality improved drastically. Issue is solved now. Thank you all for the comments.

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