That’s what I thought! Thanks for confirming it!
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Has PS Audio indicated what they will charge for the AirLens?
Paul just stated trying to keep right around the $2000 mark and to keep your fingers crossed.
Thanks. Was looking at the A Capella III which goes for $5500. I’ll wait for Paul. Lol
John
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Update to my original post: I’ve researched a number of streamers, including several mentioned on this forum. Most of them have only USB input. I found two that accept ethernet but limit the I2S output to DSD64 or 128. There are two so far that meet my needs, the Musica Pristina Cappella III (nice unit but over my budget) and the Silent Angel Munich M1 (along with, I think, the forthcoming AirLens).
Edit: I misidentified the second streamer I found. I should check my notes before posting . . . .
If anyone knows of other streamers with ethernet input and DSD256 output, I’d appreciate the info. Also, I had not heard of Silent Angel before; what I’ve seen so far looks good, but is anyone familiar with their products?
A lot of us get around this with a device like the Matrix Spdif II. You can output usb to the matrix and output DSD up to 256 to my Directstream Dac via I2S (hdmi).
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I looked at the Matrix, but it is one of the many that have only USB input–I need ethernet to connect to the NAS where my music is stored.
My system is also Ethernet-centric. I have no use for USB (outside of my modest desktop system using USB out from my iMac).
I will be interested in hearing about what you settle upon. The Musica Pristina Capella looks tempting, if dearly priced.
Your streamer needs Ethernet. Your USB to I2S converter does not. It doesn’t offer any other service than USB to other conversion.
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I’m not quite sure about the point you’re making. There certainly is confusion in terminology. For example, if I search for “streamer with I2S output“ I get a lot of results with a USB input only.
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The company is called Magna Audio. I have an unopened Mano Ultra mk I for sale that is very similar to the Mano Ultra II. I also have extra special Pink Faun cord and A/C cord as mentioned by HIFI Statement magazine (2/6/2017).
I use an Auralic Aries G1 combined with a Matrix SPIF-2. The Aries only has USB output, hence the need for the Matrix, but does handle DSD256. I plug a hard drive directly into the Aries but it can access NAS drives and other shared folders. It can be connected to the network either wired or by WiFi (I use the latter). Not a particularly cheap combo, though.
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Thanks for the correction, which made me realize that I mentioned the wrong streamer (see edit to my post above).
I have been through the entire process. Trust me, I understand it completely.
You are talking about separate things. Ethernet for connecting to your NAS is a streamer function. The Matrix, and similar devices are used to improve the overall sound of your system when you are using a PS Audio DSD DAC.
The DSD DAC has a fairly weak USB input. But it has an excellent I2S input. So many of us have purchased a Matrix or similar device that has the simple purpose of reclocking USB and converting it to I2S.
The upcoming PS Audio streamer will have Ethernet in and I2S out so it will eliminate the need for a Matrix type device.
The threatened DSD Mark 2 will also have a much better USB input which will largely negate the NEED for I2S. That will mean folks who have streamers that have USB outputs but no I2S outputs will be in better shape. I2S will always be the preferred input with PS Audio DACs though.
Hopefully this makes sense to you!!! 
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Thanks for the comments! I’ve known for a long time that USB input on the DS DAC is not the best choice.
I’ve looked at a bunch of boxes recently and companies always refer to them as streamers. In the PSA universe many people buy them to take advantage of the better I2S connection. I on the other hand want to send the ethernet signal from my NAS to an I2S input on the DAC. Conceptually different, but we’re still talking about a box with various inputs and outputs.
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I am using the Bridge II for streaming. My Mac Studio is connected to my Directstream Dac with a USB connection. I use Roon to manage my music. I switch from the Bridge to USB when I want to play a DSD 128. If I were to connect the USB cable to a Matrix Audio X-SPIDF 2 and then connect it to I2s would I then be able play a DSD 256? If this is the case, why would a Airlens be necessary? Thanks.
If you mean you are connecting I2S to the DS, then Yes.
A few responses:
- If you didn’t have the Matrix the AL would be a good solution.
- The AL is supposed to be much quieter internally so the output signal should be very quiet.
- If you wanted less gear, the AL eliminates the need for the Matrix which means you also won’t need the external LPS you are using with the Matrix. With the AL, you would only use your Ethernet connection to the AL.
You wouldn’t need the Matrix, the external PSU for the matrix, the power cable for the PSU, or the USB cable! For me that might be 50% of the Airlens cost for me!
G’day Mike. Just saw your comment and would like to help clarify things for you.
Ethernet itself doesn’t impose any limitation relevant to digital audio. That’s one of the beautiful things about networking: you can do anything at all provided the network meets your needs for speed (bandwidth) and responsiveness (latency). Even 20 year old “Fast Ethernet”, at 100 megabits per second, is more than twice as fast as needed for stereo DSD512. Ethernet is not holding you back.
Ethernet doesn’t know anything about audio though. It only knows how to get pieces of data (called “frames”) from one device to another on the same network. The frames can contain literally anything. An overwhelming majority of frames contain Internet Protocol (IP) packets, which are conceptually not far removed from frames except they have a scheme for getting pieces of data from one device to another across any number of inter-connected networks. IP also knows nothing about audio. All of this is just plumbing and is not where your limitation lies.
Above the level of IP we get into “application protocols” which are how anything we actually care about gets done. Some protocols directly support the concept of copying files from one computer to another, such as HTTP (nearly all files you get from outside your home are downloaded using HTTP) and SMB (which is often used for reading files from a NAS within your home). Neither of these protocols know anything about audio, but many audio applications use them to retrieve audio files and play them back, perhaps in real time. Real time playback requires that the network connection is fast enough to transfer the data at least as quickly as it’s being converted to analog, but again there’s no protocol limitation in HTTP or SMB that pertains to DSD vs PCM or any specific sample rate.
What I’m getting at is that there are no “standard protocols that Ethernet uses” which have the property of imposing audio data format limitations on you. The limitations actually exist within the devices that are using the network to communicate, and the protocols those devices support.
For example: Apple AirPlay version 1 is strictly limited to 44.1kHz ALAC-encoded PCM, so any devices talking using that protocol will have that constraint. There’s no way to get DSD through that protocol.
The protocol used by the Logitech Media Server for the old Squeezebox range allowed the endpoint to tell the server what encoding types it understands and what maximum sample rate it supports. None of those encodings are DSD, but if the endpoint supports 176.4kHz sample rates with 24-bit depth, it’s possible to smuggle DSD64 through that protocol just as I do from my Roon Core via a Squeezebox Touch then into my DS DAC over Toslink.
The PS Audio Bridge II had a hardware limit of 192kHz PCM so the best it could do for DoP was DSD64 which it received via DLNA as the network protocol.
DoP itself has no rate limitation. You can smuggle DSD128 in 352.8kHz PCM and DSD256 inside 705.6kHz PCM and so on – provided the devices sending and receiving are capable of transferring “PCM” that quickly and unpacking DSD from that container. The network knows nothing of this and doesn’t impose a limit other than absolute bandwidth for real-time playback.
Roon’s RAAT protocol is deliberately open-ended and can support transfer of DSD from core to endpoint without having to pack the bits inside PCM containers. Again, the network is oblivious. I think it’s likely the upcoming PS Audio AirLens will support that native DSD transfer from Roon (and perhaps via other protocols too) and will handle at least DSD256 this way and output it over “I2S” in a way that avoids DoP smuggling. There are other Roon-ready devices today that handle native DSD256 and probably DSD512 also.
Finally, USB itself can be used for native DSD and at rates above DSD128, but support for doing so is very limited. For anything that’s like a computer all it would take to add support is a software update and all your existing ports and cables would become native DSD capable. But the majority of USB DACs out there so far have a fairly simple off-the-shelf chip that can’t or won’t be receiving any such update. There are a few USB DACs with native DSD support, it’s just rare. We will have to wait and see whether there’s enough market demand to pull that capability into the mainstream.
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Thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding dvorak. 
So much to learn, so little time in which to learn it. 