The next DirectStream update?

I always enjoy the irony of a 60 or 70 year-old ranting about the damage caused by social media, and lashing out at millennials, while posting on the social media which is an Internet forum.

It is fascinating how the passage of years turn the narrow-waisted broad-minded college student into the broad-waisted narrow-minded superannuated citizen.

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Busted! Guilty as charged.

While I think Iā€™ve adapted fairly well to tech, I find the design of platforms such as Facebook as insidious. Recall that one of the founders recently admitted that the design by intention is a time-waster that is engineered to provide users with little hits of dopamine to enhance the feel-good experience as they ā€œlikeā€ and ā€œtroll.ā€ (if you didnā€™t hear about that, itā€™s absolutely true. Iā€™m not making it up)

I have my own dopamine-generating system courtesy of PS Audio, and Nelson Pass, etc., that is a much better waste of time. :grin:

and apologies for derailing the thread

:grin:

I also understand Facebook and similar applications are specifically designed to hook us into staying on-line.

High-end audio is similarly a dopamine producing hobby. As I have mentioned before, its very purpose is to waste time and money.

You did not derail the thread any more than we usually do. :slight_smile:

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ā€¦youā€™re such an ā€œintellectual.ā€ As are many, many things in modern life. Thank God and Capitalism for all that. Itā€™s how men like me, of modest achievement, live way above my ability. ā€œBasking in the glorious wake of modest achievement.ā€

I also, Sir.

Ted, appreciate your work. I cannot tell how much more I am enjoying my discs. Hope to see you again at Rocky Mountain.

Agreed.

ā€œBeware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and youā€™ll suck forever.ā€

And as music content, I think this is a quote of Brian Wilson.

Iā€™m using bridge II with roon and I have that occasinal pops during DSD playing exatly a lot like LP clicks.

Welcome, sangwoohahn!

This is a known problem with the Bridge. It occurs when the level of the recording is high for a bit. It should help to turn the volume down to 90 or so.

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I donā€™t expect any updates.

Many years ago, I had a Sonic Frontiers tube DAC. They company did an upgrade and it was available to owners of the older model for a fee (not cheap). Robert Harley at Stereophile said it was worth it and improved the sound quality. I went for itā€¦ shipped the unit back. Came back sounding like bright, shiny crap. I was pissed.

Moral of the storyā€¦? I dunno.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

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I do expect sound quality updatesā€¦its part of the DS owners package deal which is included in the price of admission.:grin:

Yeah, me too. That is exactly why chose and purchased DS out of hundreds of DACs out there.

You chose a DAC because it does free software upgrades and not because it sounded good? The hundreds out there all sounded good or the same?

We live in interesting timesā€¦

Peace
Bruce in Philly

The only thing I donā€™t get is that weā€™ve had a bunch, and that never seems to be enough. Or weā€™ve just had one, and people start asking whenā€™s the next one?

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Exactly. My feelings too. My last dac was a Linn Klimax and a firmware update was in-fact an upgrade to a new main board, ā€˜but it cost thousandsā€™ . Really fortunate with the DS ā€“ many times an increase in performance and all for free !

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No, I chose the DirectStream DAC because it sounded great and because there are (were??) ā€œregularā€ upgrades that made it sound even better. Those upgrades are part of the marketing for the DAC and are often touted by PS Audio as a major differentiator between it and other high end DACs.

My problem isnā€™t that Ted is working on another DAC. My problem is he made it sound like the current DirectStream DACs only get any attention when this new DAC, that very few people will be able to buy, is at a point where no work can take place. That sounds like my DAC has all of a sudden become a red-headed step child. Itā€™s not the shiny new toy so it gets pushed to the side and only looked at when the new favorite is at a pause for whatever reason.

I love my DirectStream. I want to see it continue to be improved. I would hope that would be more than an afterthought that only gets attention when nothing else is going on. I would hope that it would get regular attention regardless of what is being done with the new uber DAC.

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As a DS Sr. owner for nearly four years, I view the fact that @tedsmith is apparently devoting the bulk of his PS Audio-related time of late to the upcoming ā€œTed Smith Signatureā€ (TSS) DAC as a positive development. While I doubt the TSS will be in my audio budget, I am optimistic that some of the software technology that goes into the TSS will trickle down to the DS in the form of another peak OS version. Meanwhile, Redcloud sounds incredible, so I am not sitting around waiting for the next peak OS. If and when the next peak OS arrives, I will give it a try. And if there are no more peak OS versions, I can be content with my Redcloud-enabled DS (which sounds worlds better than it did when I bought it in late 2014 with the then-latest v1.21 firmware installed).

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We all got very spoiled when we got Huron last year and that Redcloud only 6 months later. We all realize that Ted is very busy and also that he is a perfectionist who never stops searching for ways to improve on what he has already achieved. I love my Directstream Dac and it has continued to improve since it arrived with Pikes and than latter Torreys. Huron was a really big step up and Redcloud continued the journey. When Ted is ready he will be on to the next peak and we will all be right along side him climbing. Thank you for all your hard work Ted We truly appreciate it!

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I am delighted with Redcloud and do not care when the next firmware update is released. I clearly need to work on my sense of entitlement.

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