Snowmass DirectStream Sr. upgrade - Available in the Downloads Section

You won’t be disappointed!!

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So is this fade-in mentioned a bug or not a bug, I am not a beta tester so cannot test this? Just curious as I saw that Paul commented that no major bugs were uncovered.

I’ve spent some time listening to Snowmass over the weekend, and I similar positive experiences as other report as the sound has transformed to sweet and elegant. Whatever source or format I’ve thrown at the DS DAC (Roon, Tidal, or DMP) it simply produced marvelous music. No pops or issues.

Thank you to Ted, Paul, and all at PS Audio for the relentless improvements.

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Auralic, Mytek and even tried the Topping. I’ll be trying another soon I think.

Not a bug - an intentional thing included by Ted to help with some folks’ click issues on transitions between formats, etc. He may have chosen a bit too long of a ramp-up.

There are a few post above (way above?) where I explain that I lengthened the fade up after transitions of sample rate, DSD/PDM, normal/deemphasis, and clock starting/stopping. I did this for multiple reasons, but primary was that most of the pops that were left were noise that came after these transition where various sources generate some noise, after say a sample rate change or a clock starting. Since the DS is essentially always locked it would play the noise that some other DACs would hide while they were locking. The more questionable feature is that if you have a flaky interface that causes periodically bad samples or other drop outs that were mostly hidden in other releases you’ll get a quick fade down and a slower fade up on them. To me that’s not bad, it lets you know that you have something to fix to get better sound quality.

This doesn’t affect seeking around in a given track, transitions to other tracks from the same disc, etc.

Many sources have an option to send a little silence on starting (or stopping) to work around DACs that take a while to lock. If the fade ups bother you, one thing might try is to see if your player/source has such an option and try it.

Every time I change anything with pop suppression I help some users and expose some pops for other users. So far there have been more reports of less pops than (legitimate) complaints about problems with the fade up.

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Thanks Ted, once I get the software I will give it a shot, I use Roon and am not sure if such adjustments can be made. But thank you as always for all your efforts!

It’s in Device Setup - Resync delay

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Thanks so much, that will save me hours of searching! I only use Roon for the convenience of being able to play music from different devices, I don’t ever mess with settings much as I don’t upsample, etc.

I really appreciate it Brett!

I should probably add that I had intended to make the length of the fade-up user configurable, tho then I’m sure that some (understandably) would want it to be separately configurable for each input. I’ll see what I can do for the next release (UI changes have to be coordinated with PS Audio.)

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Any thoughts on a setting that would be ideal to avoid the fade-in. This, I realize, is a bit of cart before the horse in my case…

Thanks Ted, can’t wait until Monday when it’s release for me to try. I vote for user configurable too for the ramp time

Start with 100ms. The longer you make it the longer key press on the remote will take to have an effect so it’s a balance.

FWIW, I have it set to 0ms and have yet to hear a fade in or fade out that I noticed. However, I’ve not really been paying attention, I don’t know when it occurs…I have very little DSD content so if it only happens going from/to PCM/DSD then I won’t hear it.

Great, will try it out tomorrow, thanks again!

Nice cosmetic thing is…at least with Bridge beta code 3.6.2 cover Art came back :+1:t2:

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I regard the fade-in as an unfortunate enhancement to cure a fault that I don’t have. Redcloud works perfectly fine without a fade. To have a fade-in when playing ordinary red book tracks is appalling IMHO. It occurs when initiating playback at any track in the current playlist. It doesn’t occur when the following tracks continue, so gapless playback is preserved ok. It really does matter for classical music tracks at least. I have tried using Mcontrol and BubbleUPnP, and the fade-in occurs for both. As I previously said, I use usb from an Aurender, which is fine, so at the moment the fade-in with Bridge isn’t a problem for me. Maybe the number of users adversely affected will be small, but they may be vocal.

Running all PS Audio gear. DMP, BHK Pre and 300’s. I was playing Peter Gabriel’s So, which highlighted the change. Will keep playing. May need to make an adjustment or two.

I may revert back to DMP 3.07. Should have stuck with that initially. I found 3.07 the best upgrade to that point. Didn’t get much of a chance to become familiar with 3.10 before updating the DAC. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Just as an aside, this thread is about Snowmass (the DS and FPGA code is my work). I have nothing to do with the DMP: DMP feedback is probably best put on the DMP thread.

If your bass is the biggest issue that’s probably the Snowmass release interacting with your setup. Have you had a chance to try things like changing toe-in, your seating position or readjusting other tweaks you might have made for the DS in the past?

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Great work on Snowmass!

Not to push but when do you think that will be? For how long do you keep the development ongoing? Just curious.