PS Audio AirLens

Hi James, you brought an interesting point. Will the AirLens take a plug-in external storage device such as SSD or external HD? Or will it be a streamer only?

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I agree with you @dvorak. I quite like the ability to grab the remote to pause the music through the Bridge II on the Directstream, or skip a track, particularly if you need to be fast!

Hi @jamesh, I know you said the AirLens wouldn’t have much need for a remote, which is true! But it would be good if basics like pause, skip, resume play etc could be retained for a remote and the AirLens. If things were going to be really slimmed down in the ability to drive the AirLens through the remote, could you please keep the ability to power on and off all other PS Audio components (ie including the AirLens) at the same time through the remote?

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Will I be able to control it by talking to digital assistants from Amazon Google and Apple?

If it has AirPlay support (which Paul has indicated it will) then you’ll be able to speak to your Apple things and control playback that way. Not sure about the Google side sorry.

@dchang05 No ability to plug in an external drive into the AirLens.

@Interested I’ll bring it to the team. I don’t know their plan to have it support the silver remote. I’ll let them know there are a lot of requests for it to.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Wishes Upcoming PSA DirectStream MKII

Thanks @Elk !!

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Many thanks @jamesh. Very much appreciated! :smiley:

James, unless I missed it, how can the AirLens be so close to release, and we still don’t know what its maximum supported rates will be for PCM and DSD?

I’m sure the dev team knows but hasn’t shared that info with me.

Well, speaking for me personally that seems completely unnecessary at this point. Let’s say 6 months before release, and they can’t let that basic info out? It’s not like they’re protection the Crown Jewels or anything. :roll_eyes: :slightly_smiling_face: Besides, wouldn’t it be in PSA’s interest to maybe have owners who are thinking of running out to get a Denafrips DDC a second’s pause if the AirLens can do everything (say) a Gaia can, and more?

“AirLens”… Great name, especially for what it will be.

Any streamer these days should have a plethora of services to keep just about anyone happy. My little ceiling units, besides having an amplifier, 24/192 DAC, speaker and lighting, have onboard Airplay, bluetooth, uPnP, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon HD, Apple Music and radio, so can be used with Roon, Innuos 2.0 and heaven knows what else. They cost less than a Bluesound Node 2i, which is also a hugely functional device.

What seems to make a good server these days is the ability to transport digital data with extremely low noise and jitter. There are many and varied products around these days that do a fabulous job, both in hardware and software, at a wide range of prices. The consumer is spoilt for choice. One or two people here have the Mola Mola Tambaqui (streamer/DAC/pre-amp), just reviewed in Stereophile. John Atkinson reported it as having the lowest noise floor he had ever measured and overall stellar performance. ASR also has it as its best measuring product.

I’m as interested as the next person to see what PSA produce in the way of streamers/DACs, it’s been a long wait, but until such time as they come to market I don’t think feature lists inform much on how they are likely to perform and until pricing is known how competitive they will be.

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so, this AirLens thing is a roon-ready endpoint streamer with no DAC, right? (Can use any DAC, not tied to PSA DACs, right?)

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That is correct. It connects to your DAC whatever that may be.

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sweet. Watching this space!

If I had this I would have to wear my Air Jerry shirt when listening.

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re protocols:

  • My assumption is that in terms of actual streaming protocols, this thing will definitely support RAAT (Roon Ready), and Octave (whatever the Octave proprietary protocol is).
  • Has there been any thought to supporting Squeeze Player or HQPlayer NAA streaming protocols?

These latter two have been very important in improving the sound from Roon for myself and a lot of other users who are using Antipodes, Sonore, and to a lesser extent Innuos streaming solutions.

I think these would be very important in opening up the AirLens not only as a product for the PS Audio faithful, but for the broader market as well. A steamer that can actually deliver the sound quality of the PST transport in a single box will be a hot commodity. I’ve tried lots, and not many live up to my PST until you get into ridiculous multi-box (and multi-$$) conglomerations.

re: outputs:

  • I would definitely mirror the outputs on the PST:
  • 2x AES to support very high-res content on dCS and other DACs with that format
  • 2x BNC for Chord and other DACs using that
  • 1 RCA for legacy connections
  • 1 HDMI for PSA and other DACs which support it
  • …and … will there be a USB audio output? Every streamer has this even though I consider it problematic.

I know you will be short for space on a half-width product but these connectivity options really open up the addressable market for the product.

Yeah, ability to run HQP NAA is one super cool feature on my RopieeeXL streamer (with a Pi2AES HAT).

If the AirLens is reasonably priced, I can’t wait to compare it to my Pi/HAT combo into my Denafrips Pontus II (either via AES or I2S).

(Yeah, I know it will be many times more expensive than a Raspberry Pi…)

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