Thought you meant it like: 'cool, dude"!
FWIW, I use Vienna Acoustics Kiss speakers. I find that the Cardas Golden Reference power cord on a source causes bass resonance. It is pleasing in the midrange but the bass tends towards boomy. Using Clear Beyond Power improves things. Also, a Furutech GTX D NCF Rhodium outlet does too, if you can live with the lengthy burn in when the treble is hard and bright. In fact that gives you a lot of the air and micro detail that the Snowmass upgrade does - perhaps more so.
So I have been running a Directstream JR for a while now, and have been loving it with Huron and Redcloud both. I would switch at times for a different presentation. With the current special price of the Directstream Sr ($3999) I went ahead and bought one, and got a free bridge II card thrown in (black Friday deal).
Arrived this morning and I first listened with Redcloud which is what was on it, and wow, what a difference between this and the Jr.! I loved the Jr. but the Sr. is quite a few notches up and more than the 15% I have seen quoted.
More air, more flow, more analog sounding, itās more effortless and sounds so so good, so right. More of everything.
After an hour of listening I updated the DAC to Snowmass and what I find is that compared to Redcloud, it is slightly warmer. richer and has a sound that I would call ātube likeā. Big fat rich and wide soundstage and from what I hear better imaging as well. The detail is there but with meat on the bones. Listening to āCaliforniaā by Bob Pressner offers up a big huge sound with details coming in from all areas of my room. Multiple guitars, and the lead guitar comes out at me from the right with vocals so sweet and centered. Piano that used to hidden in the background is now more noticeable. Amazing.
Redcloud was a tad sharper, brighter maybe, but Snowmass is just amazing. As for the Junior vs Senior, for me it is a pretty huge step up and at $4000 this was an outright steal. No way you can get a DAC that matches this for this cost. I use Roon/Tidal as well as Spotify Connect. Snowmass has plenty of detail yet is in no way thin or harsh, quite the opposite. Not sure how this was done but itās a masterpiece in my system.
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Congrats on the Sr. It needs at least 500 hours to break in/settle in, and I would say it is more like 800 hours. If you like it now, you are really going to like it after it breaks in!
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Thanks, I did have that experience with the Junior, took a while to burn in. But with this Senior, even fresh out of the box I noticed the improvements over the Junior. I look forward to see how it goes as it settles in. Thank you.
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AudioStream/Stereophile Group of publications has a positive opinion on PS Audio and free upgrades to the OS.
you nailed it. And what an amazing deal!
Iāve recently upgraded amps and speakers, so I started to wonder if the DS was outclassed by those components (certainly, from an expense point of view, the answer would have to be yes). While Redcloud was great, Snowmass makes my wonder how much more I would need to spend for a better DAC. I think the answer is quite a lot more.
I installed Snowmass today and listened to it for a few hours. Overall, it has somewhat better detail especially in the upper frequencies than Redcloud.
Iām not sure I always like the vocals being brought so far forward but it depends on what Iām listening to.
Snowmass has a slightly deeper (front to back) soundstage than Redcloud.
Snowmass appears to have a narrower horizontal soundstage than Redcloud. With Redcloud when I sat in front of my left loudspeaker I could still hear quite well music from the right loudspeaker. Now when I sit in front of the left loudspeaker it clearly dominates and the right one kinda disappears. With Redcloud when I sat in the mid point between the left/right loudspeakers or when I walked side-to-side across the room the left and right loudspeakers were pretty much seamless. With Snowmass each loudspeaker is more localized or identifiable which I donāt like as much.
Iāll give it more time before I make final judgment.
I mostly stream music via Deezer HiFi to my DSD Sr > McIntosh preamp and amp > GoldenEar Triton One Tower Loudspeakers.
Donāt forget that you should treat Snowmass like a new piece of hardware: consider repositioning your speakers, adjusting your sub if you have one, checking your listening position, etc.
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Is it possible that software updates like Snowmass can āsettle inā after a while? Kinda like hardware can. I have about 10 hours playtime on it now and it seems like its horizontal soundstage is getting broader. Iām enjoying it a lot more now than I did during the first couple hours. Overall it is quite a good improvement.
Like many others have said, thank you Ted and PS Audio for providing these updates (and for free).
Absolutely. Iāve been letting the DAC run 24/7 for the last three days, and the soundstage continues to expand in all directions, while images become more solidly defined within that expanding space.
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It doesnāt make sense to me that software alone can alter its sound characteristics over time like hardware can. Perhaps itās the interaction software has with the hardware. Maybe itās all just magic. Iām not an expert in this area so perhaps someone can explain it.
There are multiple things going on:
Each time you power on the DS or DS Jr they need time to temperature stabilize. Perhaps next to no time, perhaps a day or so. Iāve tried to make them as temperature insensitive as possible given their prices.
Each time you do an update on the Sr, the transformers have a small amount of DC on them during the update. Tho this doesnāt hurt anything in the hardware it does take a little time for them to ādegaussā after the system boots with the new code. Some listeners donāt notice, I have heard a change for about 5 minutes with some releases, and some listeners report much longer times.
Every release of software in the FPGA uses hardware a little differently (i.e. if it used the hardware the same then it would be the same software.) Depending on the length of time with each different release in the past there is often some part of the new software thatās in previously unused or rarely used hardware in the FPGA. That takes some time to break in. Once again we get vastly varying reports on how long this effect may last.
Most of these effects are quite small compared to the changes in sound quality caused by changes in the listenerās mood, power quality at different times of the day, perhaps warmup of other parts of your system, etc.
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Thanks for the response, Ted. Interesting. Snowmass sounds great. I thought Redcloud was nirvana but you elevated it to a higher place. Ahmmmmm. 
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If each new release of software is an improvement, shouldnāt it be named after a mountain that is higher than the last release? A higher āelevationā, as Ears stated.
Snowmass is just more, āright.ā Itās given digital a big nudge into that special something that we just canāt seem to put into words about describing a great analog front end. At least I canāt express it. Iām so happy about this aspect that I havenāt brought myself to be very analytical about Snowmass because I am just enjoying it so much. I do suspect that it is largely due to better phase integrity but for now I juuuuuuust donāt careā¦
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After listening to Snowmass for a few days and many hours with different types of music, I find that Snowmass has less deep bass impact than Redcloud. I turned up the gain level on my GoldenEar Triton Oneās built-in subwoofers a little bit but at this point I prefer the bass sound of Redcloud more.
I think treble frequencies on Snowmass are more revealing which is good but it can be a tad too intense at times. I might not like Snowmass with B&W diamond tweeters or with Klipsch horn tweeters.
At this point I think Redcloud might sound a bit more melodious on my system. I would have to reinstall Redcloud to be sure which I might do even though itās a hassle.
Caveat: I have been listening to Snowmass while I have a head cold so that could be influencing my opinion for now.
EDIT: I just installed V2 Snowmass and itās Twilight Zone Voodoo Magic but everything sounds wonderful now. Deep bass is back and vocals lovely. I know no changes were made to the Operating System that should have affected the sound characteristics but it did. I read on another thread where someone found that reinstalling the OP made it sound much better. WTF? No matter, Iām quite happy now.
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Like any computer, sometimes the DS needs a reboot after a major change.
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Thanks, Elk.
Installed on release. Most natural sounding release yet! The mid range has really been cleaned up and if you think youāve lost bass response try resetting the phasing on your subs. Just wonderful!