No, we don’t actually understand the sound quality differences and they are often a surprise to us. It’s not so bad when our third party vendor send us a new release the two of us have been coordinating on and we listen and find it to be better. Which often happens. But, sometimes it’s the opposite and when that happens we have a lot of work to do. The problem is with a third party vendor like the company that handles the Bridge II hardware and core software, is they don’t buy into the idea that code changes sound quality. Most programmers don’t. So, it’s often up to us to make suggestions about RAM usage, paths to follow, etc. But, for the most part, when the processor has less to do (as in when code gets simplified), SQ improves.
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Thank you Paul for taking the time to respond with such a well thought out response.
It helped me understand the sequence of events much better than I did and I really appreciate the time you took to articulate it so well.
No worries and thanks for the understanding. It’s always hard to see the other’s position because our views are from the outside. It’s like trying to figure out how transistors work by peering through the window of an engineering department. You don’t see a lot.
I only use Roon and have the artwork issue, controls issue, time display, etc.
Interestingly, if the fixed firmware comes out and doesn’t sound as good, I don’t mind staying with 3.6.2 and losing my artwork and the few other odd issues if that means there isn’t going to be a degradation in sound quality.
I am totally new to PS Audio, and my artwork has been marginal at best on this release and the one it replaced. I am currently burning my new DS Sr. in. Realistically my old eyes can’t make out the art work from across the room anyway. I am glad that PS Audio responds to their customers, and provide meaningful firmware upgrades at no cost. So many manufacturers now end the relationship after they have pocketed your money. I find the PS Audio CS model refreshing, and because of it I will be purchasing additional products from them.
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Paul,
As I sit here riveted to the Yes album, I am noticing a big improvement in transparency, as well as a more “relaxed” presentation. The difference in my system is not subtle. However, I will say that I first heard this great sound when Redcloud was released. Updatng Roon to 1.5, robbed the magic. It is my belief that I’m now experiencing better sound due the significant improvement in the robustness of my network, spurred by this fix to Roon 1.5. Jeremy B can attest to how many issues I had with my network, but when it works as it should, magic happens…In fact, I’m feeling like a Starship Trooper right now!
(Edit: I meant to include that I had intermittent network /DSJ issues after the release of Roon 1.5–I had a fairly stable system before the update–but afterward, my system seemed to be much less able to maintain a connection. After the BII upgrade, the network connection from my Roon Core, to the NAS, to the DSJ, seems to be as stable as it has ever been. And that is why I think it sounds so darn good. Fully hearing Redcloud once again, perhaps even more so. When the network is wonky, it always seems to affect more than just my ability to play 1’s and 0’s. There is a loss of cohesiveness, texture, immediacy, and overall musicality, even when music is playing without noticeable dropouts. )
Btw, nice to meet you at AXPONA. I look forward to the next time!
Cheers,
Gary
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Roon doesn’t work real well with low performing networks. Hard wiring and mesh wifi blend well.
Hah! Thanks for the update and glad you’re enjoying what matters. Have a great evening.
FWIW, I upgraded to v3.6.2 last night on my DSJr. Every part of it worked exactly as designed and expected. I’m only sharing this because I was a bit reluctant after reading about others’ troubles, but they mostly seemed to affect DSSr owners.
I’m not ready to comment on sound quality, but I did spend the evening listening to Tidal using the mConnect application rather than Roon on my Win10 PC. If you’ve kept up on my posts, Roon has worked perfectly for me since day one, mConnect has been a disaster. Last night I experienced only one very brief dropout, which is nearly unheard of for me. I’ll keep the experiment going, and see if I have anything to say about sound quality. It certainly isn’t bad/worse.
Thanks Paul, the PS Audio team and Convers Digital for this (so far) useful upgrade!
I use a DirectStream DAC, Bridge II and mconnect. With the bugs of V3.6.2 I’m very unhappy. How can I roll back to v3.5.1? I have to add that I live in Switzerland and that I’m a Mac user.
This has been discussed extensively in the forum here…with a Mac, you can’t roll back B2. You need a windows PC.
etc etc etc
After updating 3.6.2, my spotify can no longer find DS…
Spotify Connect works for me with 3.6.2. The only issue I have with it is that when I select my Directstream to be the device to listen on it automatically begins playing the last track I’d been playing elsewhere. My only worry is I will accidentally have the volume up too high and it will damage my speakers when this happens.
This is expected behavior.
I don’t understand your volume control. Is the Spotify GUI controlling the volume of the DS DAC?
Yes it is. So if the volume in the application is 100% then it will automatically turn the volume of the dac to 100% but also automatically begin to play the last played track. So as you can imagine, I need to be careful.
So the volume control is adjusting the volume in the Spotify GUI and the DS DAC simultaneously? That doesn’t sound right. What if you set the volume limiter in the DS DAC?
Why doesn’t that sound right? That’s exactly how Roon and JRiver work too when using the Bridge. It’s not just this way for my Directstream. If any Spotify Connect device has some form of software volume control, it’s usually controllable through the Spotify GUI. Though with Roon and JRiver I don’t have any issues with it automatically playing music before I set the application up.
It doesn’t sound right because that is not the behavior I see (but I don’t use DS DAC, I use a different DAC). However, if this is the way B2 interacts with Spotify then so be it. To me it’s a whacky way to go about volume control.
It’s actually a lot more convenient than you think. If I have my tablet or phone with me at my seat I can control all my music (via Roon (Tidal), JRiver (local DSD and FLAC files), and Spotify) through their beautiful GUI’s and also control the volume of my DAC from the same device. And because it’s controlling the volume at the DAC, not in the application’s software, it’s lossless volume control.