Snowmass DirectStream Junior is now live

Have you tried to read some earlier posts?
Downgrade to Yale first

Same USB Stick with DSJR0121-9999 (Huron) and all worked. Rolled back to Huron

Then, files deleted, Snowmass files copied to the USB, and same behaviour: no update to Snowmass.

Now Iā€™m with Huronā€¦

Help!

Edited: Sorry, it has to be specifically Yale?

Sound definitely an upgrade from Redcloud. No small pops or brakes in high def anymore. Thankā€™s for this Snowmass team. :slight_smile:

After downgrading to Huron, now downgrading to Yaleā€¦

I had trouble loading. I loaded back to Yale, then Snowmass loaded easily. Thanks Deanhorn.

Many thanks @marcin.

I had specifically to downgrade to Yale, in order to upgrade do Snowmass, as you suggested.
In the meantime, I guess I made at least fifteen switch off/on cycles. I hope DSj can handle this.

@Paul and PS Audio Team, is this a known issue?

Now, to the listening. :slight_smile:
(very very late night here, but I have to take a quick listening)

No trouble loading here. Not sure if I am feeling SM though. It does have better pitch definition and squeezes out some more detail and space but it is a little more pipe and slippers compared to Redcloud. I also recall RC having more vocal presence. I am reloaded Redcloud to confirm initial thoughts. I will then reload SM and live with it for a week to decide.

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You may also want to try simply reloading it and see if anything shifts for you.

As usual direct upgrade from Redcloud to Snowmass didnā€™t work. I tried to boot few times. I had to downgrade to Yale first.Old good DSJ.
Sound improved compared to Redcloud but I canā€™t play loud to make some more serious comparisons, itā€™s 2am in Europe :slight_smile:
Still thereā€™re some hiss and noise when DSJ directly connected to my power amp. Still I have to use attenuator in DSJ to tame it.
But whatā€™s important: finally you can reliable skip forward or backward songs on playlist using < and > on remote when using Roon with the bridge. Earlier it wasnā€™t reliable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes didnā€™t. Andā€¦you can now even play and pause :slight_smile: Maybe itā€™s also related to earlier bridge update.
Play and pause doesnā€™t work reliable all the time (something like button play/pause was pressed twice) but in most cases does.
What is strange: after the upgrade the bridge network interface MAC was changed so my router assigned it a new IPā€¦

Impressionā€¦much more relax presentation, as if to provide more time to allow more nuances
to flow through, so far well recorded vocals really shine.

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No issues with the install. Smooth sailing all the way. Sounds great, and looking forward to much more listening over the days to come.

Many thanks to everyone at PS Audio for all the hard work.

Same noise floor here with Snowmass.
I revisited Att in with DSj at 100vol. Although the noise floor reduces drastically, I still have the feeling that something is ā€œlost in translationā€.
Iā€™ll continue to use Att Out and play with DSj volume (between 80 and 100) together with integrated amp volume.

In the end, just for double checking, I reloaded Snowmass again (with no fuss this time), followed by reset settings to default.

Then, set everything up and Iā€™m still listeningā€¦ :slight_smile:
First impressions are quite good!
More texture, more information is retrieved (nuances and micro dynamics), and a more calm pace.
For now, itā€™s all I can say (2AM here in western Europe, time to bed).

Again, many thanks for all your effort PS Audio.

EDITED: After I posted, I checked that @silo impressions are similar to mine. :+1:

I am afraid it will be a long late night tonight.

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I canā€™t! I have to wake up in less then 4 hours!!!
But i canā€™t turn this damn thing off :scream:

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I feel for you. The way I see it, you can catch up on the sleep but not initial excitement.
Hard to capture once its gone. I already told my wife not to disturb me tonight. Funny
thing is right away she asked me what I bought, I said nothing.

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I guess the advice to disconnect or power down any connected i2s devices holds for the dsj too. Thatā€™s a reminder as much for me as anyone else!

Iā€™ve tried many approaches and no luck so far. The unit recognizes the (FAT32) USB. The front blue light blinks for a while as if performing the upgrade, but when the unit comes up it is always at Redcloud ā€¦ apparently no change. This applies to both Snowmass upgrade and Yale downgrade, so it kind of rules out the ā€œdowngrade to upgradeā€ fix. I tried reformatting the USB on Windows & Mac, removing unnecessary Mac .* files, different USBs, all kinds of things.

Posting this in case others have similar issues. I have an email in to support. Maybe I will try with their USB. Kudos to all who are up & running :-).

For those who are having upgrade problems.

These may seem like a lot of steps but they are probably the shortest reliable path if you follow them all. Not all steps are needed by everyone, but every step is needed by someone out there and you canā€™t really guess which are which for a given system.

[Edit: Older, smaller USB sticks seem to be working better for people: formatted as FAT or FAT16, tho FAT32 works sometimes itā€™s dependent on where the files land on the USB stick. There are some recommendations below for USB thumb drives that worked for people.]

As was mentioned disconnect any non PS Audio I2S sources.
If (since the last time you formatted the USB stick) you EVER took the USB stick out of a computer without using the OSā€™s eject function, format the USB stick (really.)
Make sure the new files are in the root of the USB stick. If you are paranoid make sure nothing else is in the root, but this isnā€™t really necessary.
Turn the DSJ off for a little (let the power supplies bleed down), say 10 or 20 seconds.
Put the USB stick in and then power on the Jr.
The Blue light will blink for what seems to be an eternity.
After the system boots up, remove the USB stick and turn the Jr off again, wait, say 10 seconds and then turn it on again.
If when the system comes up the version numbers arenā€™t that of Snowmass then do all of the above with an OS that is different than whatever your were running yesterday (Yale is popular tho Huron, Torreys, are also fine, just not the one you were upgrading from.)

Then do it again with Snowmass.

If you are still having problems you might check if you followed ALL of the above for going to, say, Yale and then all of the above to Snowmass. If so contact PS Audio support (or read a lot of this thread for inspiration or as a distraction :slight_smile: )

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Nope. Doesnā€™t work.

Look, I love PS AUDIO. But I am now 0 for 2 on your software updates. Itā€™s a wonderful audio company but your QA needs a lot of work. I will wait for the fix, because like for the Sr., clearly you need one.

I appreciate the free updates, but not at the cost of these upgrade headaches.

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Contact PS Audio support, they should get you sorted.