Those look very impressive indeed. It’s fun to watch the development process.
I’m curious if you considered split-bobbin IE transformers, or another type, for reduced capacitive coupling of digital noise between boards through the power line?
Nope. I’m poor. In anticipation of placing my Esoteric Grandioso order later this week.
I like split-bobbin, but Paul really likes toroids. In the Jr prototypes I put in board mount versions of both with jumpers to try them out. I didn’t hear a difference that I cared about so I was happy to make Paul happy.
I agree that split-bobbins have a definite noise benefit and I’d also argue that since my designs draw current more evenly than most, that the instantaneous current advantages of toroids don’t matter as much.
However I really like the transformers that we had built for us. I designed the box’s power supplies to use the same transformers for all purposes: four identical secondaries for separate bipolar supplies for each channel for analog and when used in parallel they deliver the current needed for the digital circuits.
The power supplies have a power factor around 0.95 with little hash so there’s not a lot of noise going back out of the boxes to the wall. They also have significant capacitance and other regulation/filtering to limit most noise ingress as well.
Because it does. Everyone has an opinion and mine is that is one awesome looking and sounding unit.
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Engage in some cloak and dagger manufacturing and give the finished boards a coat of grey epoxy to hide what lies below, protect any IP from prying eyes. That is what Halcro does with their pre-amp boards, so nobody can copy it.
Where is a picture of the current version of the TSS? Given the look of all of the other PSA products I figured it would look like a dual stack of the DSD.
Nobody will be able to do the code as Ted does it so that is the important part…!
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I don’t think it’s likely people will copy it: those that are trying to sell a ripoff won’t choose components of the same quality and probably would even change the design to save on the costly components. Those that more faithfully copy the hardware for quality would still have to deal with the software and once again they very likely would use more efficient algo’s which don’t sound as good. [Dirk beat me 
]
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I was wondering about software IP, and you touched on this a few days ago when you mentioned about collaborating with the MQA software guys, how you didn’t want them to see your code? Once code is loaded in a FPGA, are there any software tools available to get that code back off the FPGA in a readable form? Say like, with my Pronto Pro remote controls, a XCF configuration file can be uploaded to the remote, but it’s impossible to download from the remote to read or modify that code.
There’s always a way and you won’t need to saw the top of the FPGA. Even with access to the bits not many have the time/tools to reverse engineer / reverse compile the code into something usefull and modifiable. Even so I’m not worried, there’s always a newer better sounding version coming and most of the things that matter for sound quality don’t show up in the source. I’m pretty confident that I can run faster than others.
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I’m sure you can run even faster than Usain Bolt, at least in the context of the events we know you do best at!
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I am sure you have the skill set to build in… “display lights up and it reads” the FPGA will self-destruct in 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,…
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Who wears the cost of the prototype boards, you or PS Audio?
The photos I want to see are of the prototype chassis and touchscreen GUI.
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It is gaudy looking and the meter is so prominent. I prefer the money be spent on the inside where it will affect the performance. As you say to each his own.
I’m sure there would be a countdown, I’m just not so sure the numbers would appear in that order 
I was “recounting” the finished version after PSA “get their hands on the TSS” and put it in its casework. 
Anyway, Ted’s work only consists of 2 numbers.
Hopefully it won’t go BOOM until the countdown gets to zero.
It was meant so that nobody would tamper with Ted’s code. When you asked if his code could be infiltrated… Hence why it explodes.
It would scare the reviewers shitless when they were doing the checks / spec reviews …
That was funny. Seriously - laughed out loud. : )
Like Darren’s phono pre with the blue LED’s, I would take it in a clear acrylic box ; )