This one looks appealing to me…
https://www.musicdirect.com/recommended-gifts-under-50/shunyata-venom-hdmi-cable
I agree - saw that one a few weeks back. Really hard to find any audio I2S reviews of these cables . Amazon’s got a 1m for $50. I’ll probably give it a try - thx.
Bought it, didn’t care for it, and exchanged it for the Audioquest Mocha. The shunyata was pretty meh in my system. The Mocha was an instant improvement. I also got the venom USB and that was also pretty meh. In the process of finding something to replace that as well.
I know I’m late to the party, but I spent much of last night and today comparing Snowmass v 1 and 2. I did not want to hear a difference, but in fact it was not subtle at all. I had been sitting with v 1 until yesterday and then switched to v last night. At first I thought I preferred 2, as it seemed to have a tighter more coherent presentation, along with what seemed to be tighter bass, albeit with a smaller soundstage. All of that was acceptable and maybe preferable, at least for some kinds of music… But then I found that certain lead vocals and featured instruments that had previously packed a wallop now faded into the polite presentation as well, relatively speaking, taking the life out of the performances that make music magical. Went back to v1, and the aliveness, the seemingly limitless soundstage, the thrill! - are all back! I don’t understand any of the tech stuff, but this was indisutable to my ears. Thanks to PS Audio for the continual improvement, and especially for archiving the older versions, allowing us to make our own choices!
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Reminded me a little of when I had my speakers out of phase. Main indication was that central voices were washed out. Any chance that some of that is going on in version2 at some frequencies i.e. some cross-channel cancellation?
No, it’s nothing that complicated. These are the same effects you’d get from having Wi-Fi to near a sensitive system or (a not great) UPS powering some sensitive component or a computer too near your system, etc. A change in RFI or noise from a switching power supply conducted thru the AC. That noise get modulated down to the audio band by any non-linear components in your system (think of a crystal radio: a single non-linear component receives AM just fine.) The difference between the two releases of software doesn’t affect ANY of the outgoing bits to the low pass filter of the DAC and hence can’t affect things like channel cancellation, etc. It can only add (low level) noise to varying parts of the audio band in the DAC or (a little less likely) affect the rest of your system causing it to add low level noise to varying parts of the audio band. It may indeed add subtly different noise to one channel than the other, but that’s probably way below the measurable levels out of the DAC.
Thanks. Amazing that it shows up in the way that I heard.
RF noise is a big pain in the neck, it sails right thru most power conditioners, right thru the audio power supply filtering (even switch mode supplies at times), etc. and can get converted into audio all over the place. A neighbor’s system would squawk whenever a cell phone got within about 3 ft…
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Installed Snowmass into DSD feeding M700s and began a relaxed listen with the wife and dogs last evening cueing up our reference playlist of Dsf and Pcm thru JRiver. Not having read this thread and with little expectation, a couple hours in to listening to everything from Marie-Josee Lord to Elvis to Jacintha to London Grammar and Arne Domnerus, I couldn’t keep from smiling… Snowmass truly is the refinement of cutting edge FPGA Dac technology. Resisting any more hi-fi superlatives, it is sufficient to say Thank You Ted, and Paul for the Direct Stream Dac experience. Your business model of rewarding hardware owners with not only tangible but monumental improvements in SQ puts you in the rarest of company. Thank you. Al Petrie, Houston
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Day one with the Matrix Audio SPDIF 2. Initial impressions are VERY good. Across the board improvement fresh out of the box. This is the jump I was looking for when I got the DS.
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Is the I2S output compatible with the DS Sr.?
Yup 
I have only tested the I2s output for now. I’m just enjoying it too much to bother playing with anything else, and I’ll wait at least a few days for it to settle a bit anyway.
When you are using the Matrix Audio SPDIF 2 in place of the Bridge how do you control the playout, Will BubblePnP and MConnect still work?
Is there a US distributor for the Matrix Audio SPDIF 2 that has a 30 return policy?
magicknow
Looking forward to your further observations…
Thank you.
I had placed a direct order, but cancelled it the next day after I found another supplier(still in China) that had it on sale with a 30 day return policy. I’m not sure the policy of posting other websites on this forum yet, but it was ShenzenAudio. It’s still on sale for 4 more days. Shipped DHL and only took a few days to get here.
I did not see a US supplier during my search. Although I admit that it wasn’t a fully thorough search.
I’m a bit confused about the matrix, it does’nt have Ethernet that someone above implies, going usb to I2s will surely still suffer rfi passthrough, surly usb 2 optical should be better and will block rfi
I’m sorry, I have no experience with the Bridge as of yet. I am trying to avoid extra applications like MConnect and BubblePnP for now as I almost exclusively use tidal, and at this time I simply connect a Surface Pro 4 via usb to the SPDIF-2 connected to DS DAC via HDMI(I2S).
I do this, for now, because I find the Tidal Desktop app to be more fun to use than MConnect or BubblePNP since I’m just a single stereo set up in a studio.
Try a cheap optical cable which is more than a metre long (so it doesn’t overdrive the optical
receiver) and see if it sounds even better
Hi all. So this matrix has me interested. Today I have an audioquest Diamond usb with a Wyred recovery unit. Things sound swell. I assume I would go usb into it and I2S out of it. I have no bridge. Sorry if you mentioned but what type of quality usb setup did you exchange for the matrix. What kind of Sound quality improvements did you get if you can explain that. What is the approx price tag on it. Thanks