As you know from reviewing the part of the manual from which the quoted sentence appears, it is very simple and instructs Roon how to behave.
I’m not so sure. There will be plenty of PSA fans who will buy it because it is a PSA product, and compare it to nothing but the old Bridge, and conclude that because it sounds better than the old Bridge that it is great, without comparing to any modern streamer. So I think it could work out well for PSA.
There will be a few, but most PSA customers are vastly more sophisticated and demanding than this.
Maybe this will be different from mk2, especially since there are so many low-cost streamer alternatives (Eversolo, Holo Red, HiFi Rose, iFi, etc.) that will make comparisons less of a financial burden, but if mk2 is any indication, at least on this forum it seemed that 95+% of purchasers only compared it to mk1, without comparing to any modern dacs, save for Vince and Luca and the guy (forget who) who compared to Esoteric, and maybe a couple others.
At the end the result counts and talk about it is secondary, but there’s a kind of transparency and care of one of my favorite brands, I appreciate.
Before they develop or finalize a product, they indeed buy or acquire the one or other world class product of the same kind for comparison and when describing their features, they differentiate (with a very honest oversight) between things others also have done and things, they enhanced or pioneered.
After several years of pre marketing discussions in the forum about the Airlens, I hoped for at least a little bit of (also comparative) insight during the last years or months of this phase and still hope for a bit of it at least after release. Aside of Ted’s and Chris’ inputs on their products, deeper information is quite rare.
For sad customers with a DAC limited to PCM 48K, I would have a different solution than flipping dip switches!
I will say they did the instructions for them the way all should. Very easy to follow. After coming from the Red instructions these are wonderful.
Nice touch having the all on for PSAudio DACs. Easy to set within family. Which is sad to say will be 99% of their market this late. With all the streamers I have tried there is such small differences. Seems that software added on makes up the gap.
We shall soon know, and hopefully sonically it is a step above what was demoed at 2023 Axpona. In comparison to the PST it fell a bit short to these ears. I understand post Axpona additional adjustments to the design were made.
And as usual we don’t know the preconditions of the demo (which kind of streaming used, which formats etc.)
It’s all worthless until one does it himself, or it gets a little deeper and is explained by the demo staff.
The fact that reviews are usually quite worthless again (as rarely comparative and solely praising anyway) is why real marketing for the high end folks is not the usual one imo.
Or we accept what we heard, and trust PS Audio to have optimized the inputs to the Air Lens to show it off at its best. Selections were based on on of the attending listener’s preferred and provided tracks in a personal demo. Truthfully the Air Lens showed significant merit, but was easily trounced by the PST.
The Pulsar was one of top streamers on my upgrade list before, but I was told it cannot take a USB drive to play files. So, is it just like a Bridge 2 with its own app?
For that, within the INNuos line, a ZENith mk III is a better choice.
This product evolved through being a server, a bespoke streamer, and now is an off-the-shelf streaming card with various options, such as Roon, Qobuz etc.
What is going to make any difference is how the input/output board is designed and the quality of the power supply. ConversDigital make an I/O board and it may be a version of that.
The power supply? Who knows. All the manual says is:
The challenge with the AirLens was to design two fully isolated stages: input and output, and connect the digital audio signal between the two without any loss. To do this we incorporated a low-noise galvanically isolated DC-to-DC converter to feed power to the AirLens’ output stage. We then deliver the received digital audio data to that clean output stage using only air as the interface.
This suggests they streamed it online, no good comparison imo anyway, but I don’t doubt the overall result of the day.
I have yet to hear a streamer which sounds as good as a quality transport.
Yes, there are some who focus on power supplies, some also mention galvanic isolation, some just speak of jitter free transmission etc.
If I’d want to sell the Airlens with the argument of galvanic isolation, I’d try to differentiate between my approach compared to all the others and why this is maybe more efficient than elaborate power supplies and their benefit (I understood the Airlens just uses a switch mode psu, which makes some care for good power distribution isolation towards other components necessary I assume).
Or one that betters vinyl playback for that matter. Streaming for me is about optimizing playback without breaking the bank in order to explore music as a basis for purchase of a preferred medium, vinyl IME.
An isolated DC to DC converter appears to use a transformer to form a gap between the input and output supplies. They cost about $50-$60 for a 12v unit. I wonder if the transformer is the AirGap, or something else.
Swapping the switch mode in my Lumin for a Naim-based 12v PSU made a huge difference. The EverSolo units have a proprietary 12v switch mode module that looks a lot better than the Lumin, but swapping that for a $100 external LHV PSU apparently gave better results.
Galvanic isolation really needs context. My system is basically fibre optic from my data source into a streamer/DAC and analogue out. The fewer the components, the less noise on the signal path.
For that you could get a Chord Mojo and a $100 pair of wired earbuds and use you phone, or just use the earbuds from the phone.
I have a very good vinyl set-up, on Friday I was comparing digital vs analogue and they are almost indistinguishable. The digital system cost about a third of the analogue. It is almost required to declare vinyl the best for the crazy cost it involves.
For me, independent of my experience that the revelation and comparability of playing vinyl vs. very good digital starts only from a very high price point with certain measures involved, playing the far superior masterings (existing all over genres and to a great extent) is all what it’s about. Then it usually doesn’t need ultra equipment to show this superiority.