While a bit awkward, I agree that if downgrading first is the fix this should be made clear.
This continuous to make no sense to me as at least Snowmass for Sr. includes a force load. I assume it is the same for Jr. (I have not looked at the file).
Ted’s list of how to carefully upgrade is exceedingly helpful. His post is here.
Please continue to post if you have problems. There are many here happy to help.
Since upgrading to Snowmass I’ve been able to get the Bridge II update to take. I’ve tried shutting the DSJ down from the back, leaving off for 10 minutes, and then rebooting. 7 times later, the display says the Bridge is updating and it’s at 0%. 45 minutes later, still at 0%. And I’m unable to use the DAC without shutting it off and rebooting.
Any ideas?
I will qualify my answer by saying that I mostly stream Tidal over Roon or listen to old fashioned CDs. But I did download a sample from HDTracks that came in multiple formats, including DSD 128 and DSD 256. I noticed some very small intermittent clicks in these formats with Red Cloud. I played the sample tracks again after installing Snowmass and the clicks were gone. Not only that, the vocals in the test tracks sounded incredible. And I mean amazing. So I know this is a limited test but it does seem like the issue may have been resolved.
Cheers.
I agree - which is exactly why I went down this path. It started earlier this year with the DMP forum. It started to get regularly ugly - unproductively so. I have been a DMP owner since the beta, and still feel it is the best sounding, worst-funtioning piece of gear I’ve ever owned. But I adapted by thinking of it as a Disc Turntable - get a disc spinning, and enjoy until its over. I felt better right away. However, I completely understand feeling that a multi-kilobuck unit should function as well as a $69 player from Best Buy, and a need or preference for playing cuts.
Everyone was wondering, increasingly heatedly, how could this still be going on after two years? And I thought that perhaps there was not enough communication of the specific experiences and frustrations of the owners directly to the engineers. And that turned out to be fairly accurate. So I suggested someone should do that. Didn’t - and don’t - care if it is me. I’m a video and audio producer, not a customer service person - can you tell? ; )
So how to make that communication work better so the issues get solved - or we at least know that they are unsolvable? That’s what this is about.
This is roughly the third line of customer service. You can call PS directly, you can email them directly, and you can come on here and try to figure out who (if anyone) knows the answer to your problem, and you are going to get opinions and advice (all of which may be either good, bad or indifferent) from lots of people other than a PS Audio employee. And I defend all of your rights to do so. The Forums may or may not be the most efficient way of solving an issue however.
ouch - what’d you do. Perhaps individual apology cards are in order to show you’re really sincere?
Are you for real - did you really travel over 110 mi in bad weather to assist a family member distraught over a DAC firmware update issue. I can’t even get my kids to come into my listening room. You’re an amazing uncle. I see a movie screenplay here somewhere - maybe traveling over snow covered mountains with USB Stick in tow. You haven’t had a drink in days and you arrive just in time to save the DSJ from getting tossed out the window…
I should add that this was via Roon and with the updated Bridge. According to what Roon displayed, the DSD was converted to PCM and employed floating bits (whatever that means) before arriving at the DS Junior. Bottom line, though, is it sounded great. Thanks to Bridge? Snowmass? Both? Don’t know.
I have a Senior but I downloaded the Jr files and the zip showed as 577 KB. You should be fine.
@pbphoto Thanks for that information. Interesting that I didn’t have the issue with Redcloud except with DSD format - which I have very little content in that format. This gives me something to try and then I just have to decide if MQA is more or less important than having to mute when I stop playing my high resolution music on my drive.
If using a MAC make sure to choose master boot record when formatting
I just finished the upgrade to Snowmass after trying several different USBs and laptops I had on hand. Nothing worked. What worked for me was a suggestion from Acesn8s to buy the generic Staples PNY 16GB/Go 2-pack. Downloaded Yale on one USB and Snowmass on the other. I tried first to load Snowmass directly into the dac Jr, but that did not work. Then I tried loading Yale. That did not work the first time (the PS Audio logo blue power switch blinked twice only). Waited a few minutes and tried Yale again, and this time it worked. After Yale, Snowmass loaded with no problems. The Snowmass sonics are blissful. Thanks to the PS Audio team and the positive contributors on this forum.
Eureka (?!) -on my 11th thumb drive (a 64 gig Kingston) I’ve successfully gone back to Yale. Promising!
Thank you for your responses Allen & @Rayk – I decided to try Snowmass this afternoon. Torreys > Snowmass worked for me on the first try. Unfortunately the first SACD I tried in my DMP gave me the double “pops” I experience with RedCloud. I’m also still getting the remote volume issue. If the volume is set to 90, for example, and I hit the up arrow, instead of going to 91, 92, etc., it instead goes from 90 to 0. Frustrating!
Sonically I’m not sure it’s a keeper. My first thought is that I’ve lost some of the PRaT I cherish from Torreys and RedCloud. Vocals seem more forward which, for me, causes the overall balance to suffer. I can see why folks that listen to a lot of vocal music might really like this release. The few orchestral tracks I tried did not pull me into the music the way some other releases do. Adagio movements, in particular, are missing the strong Pacing and Timing vital for musical cohesion.
That’s my unsolicited two-cents…I’ll continue to listen to Snowmass over the weekend to see if things improve. It’s hard to be disappointed knowing that Torreys and RedCloud sound so good in my system.
Thanks again!!!
Well, that’s what I do for family. I could tell they were passed the point of rational thinking and reasoning… Just stuck on repeat mode doing the same things over and over achieving zilch.
They were following Ted’s instructions to the letter, but they aren’t Ted. Dead easy for Ted, but then again computers, code, etc, etc. it’s all easy for Ted with him being a human google 
I left them with the Yale USB stick and told them to buy another USB stick for the next release… But the reality is it should be straight forward loading the files, without all the various permutations of getting the new code installed…!
@xianharris, you may be right. I haven’t had enough time to listen carefully in the past few days—hopefully this weekend. But I heard great vocals on the sample tracks which had a singer, a bass player and a drummer and was jazz. Orchestral music sounded great in Redcloud, especially after the Bridge II update (no complaints at all), but at least one or two recordings I listened to via Tidal/Roon seemed to have some harshness in Snowmass. On the other hand, the older (not remastered) Karajan Bruckner 8 CD I have sounded great. So definitely a mixed bag on initial listening.
@wilsontw I noticed it with Red Cloud and 3.6.2 and 3.6.17, but not as frequently. I just chalked it up to the bridge needing a reboot and that seemed to clear it up. Now, after upgrading to Snowmass, I can consistently reproduce it. Downgrading to Red Cloud did not clear it up and it was easily reproducible. Only going to 3.5.1 fixed it. Back up to Snowmass now with 3.5.1 and it has been solid for a couple days.
In case anyone missed it, PS Audio will send out their upgrade USB stick for free, just contact customer service…
I personally applaud this company for taking the time to do the ongoing work internally to improve their product and then offering free upgrades to their customers via downloads. There are so many places for Murphy to hide in this process sometimes I wonder if everyone appreciates the effort involved.
Dealing with computers for the last 40 or so years has taught me some patience, persistence and understanding when things go haywire. And they go haywire a lot for reasons beyond anyone’s control.
I’m certainly not a certified IT guy but am in charge of my small business computers, network, routers, switches, NAS, backup systems, UPS’s, home computers, network, phones, Ipads, etc. Updates to any or all of the “devices” can be a challenge.
One of my $6k CAD workstations decided it couldn’t keep time anymore so now I have it checking with NIST time every 30 seconds to set its clock or else there are problems with time stamps on the saved files. The mobo manufacturer says the RTC has failed and because it is out of warranty I will have to buy a replacement mobo and replace it myself. Really? Not an option.
Another workstation has an issue where if the monitors go to sleep they never wake up so you have to restart the system which means all open work is lost for the day. Graphics board mfg. and mobo mfg both blame each other. No screen saver on that one for sure.
My old high end Denon home AVR was in the process of updating itself over the web and in Denon’s awesomeness one of the updates was to the network com software so it shut the com package down halfway thru the update. Of course with the com software off the update couldn’t continue. They offered a USB drive to manually update it but because the com software was bricked that method didn’t work either. It was stuck in an endless loop. Of course they never heard of the problem but they would take a look at the unit. I paid to send it to their repair facility in NJ and then paid them $65.00 to “evaluate” it. They said it was not repairable and would I like to pay for the freight back to me. Really? And they are a huge company with huge resources.
Short story version is everyone here is trying to make things better and no one expected any of us to have trouble. Glad there is a big support group in the field and at PS Audio. Again I am happy to be part of the group and looking forward to whats next.
Thank you sir
Great examples of computer randomness. Strange beasts, they are.