Various experience with various products

Everything Else
182

Wrt the BHK clicking problem, there potentially seems to be four different kinds:-

  1. The well-known BHK Pre clicks when certain volume levels are reached. This does not worry me, personally.
  2. Clicks due to something wrong with the tubes, or the matching thereof etc etc. Apparently a potential fix is to swop tubes around; or else to replace. I’m also fine with that, because there seems to be a known fix.
  3. Mechanical clicks only till operational temperature is reached. Annoying, but I could still live with that.
  4. Random clicks (mechanical or otherwise) throughout the listening session - and which can be heard from the listening position. CLEARLY if such clicks exists it would be unacceptable. In this regard (as well as with no’s 2 to 3) there are BHK 300’s / 250’s that are completely click-free.

I just wanted to be clear, because I’d like to know if indeed this “category 4” exists.

183

I just felt like googling “Why history?”… This came up: " It is important because history helps you understand the past to predict the future and help in creating it. Studying history gives us wide opportunities to get better understanding of our past experiences to count on the great achievements and avoid the horrific mistakes."

People who come here sometime in the future may not learn about problems that have been discussed in the past, if they are not mentioned repeatedly. Things are getting swept under the carpet all too easily over time. Especially in the light of all the euphoria about new products.

There seem to be not too many critics in this forum and everyone is well behaved. You may say: well, it’s a forum created by a manufacturer to promote their products, of cause there is much praise! OK, understood.

I own only two PS Audio products so far. Wether there may be more in the future, depends…

A P3, which is silently sitting there doing it’s job well, if a tad overpriced for what it does sonically, but I do not complain about the price tag, since I knew what I was buying by demoing it beforehand, and - most important - it’s working fine, no problems since I have it.

The second product form PS Audio I own, is “the last optical disc player you will ever need” (copied and pasted from the original marketing text, which is still online), the DMP. “There are simply no better devices made.” I allow myself to repeat, that this one has given me problems from day one and I was gullible enough to trust my dealer’s promise that there was a fix coming very soon. Little did I know about the history of the DMP, wich was on the marked about a year at that time, or about PS Audio’s history in general (I hadn’t been to this forum before, my fault…)… I bought my DMP in January 2018. For months, nothing really happened with regard to a fix. But constant promises and even several announcements about a download of the final everything-working-as-advertised fix by Paul, that soon turned out to be far from final. Then suddenly a tense atmosphere… like “We may be not able do get it fully working for everyone, since our supplier Oppo stopped making the drives that cause our programmers so much trouble, and therefore their support is gone for good, so our programmers are on their own now, scratching their heads. But don’t worry, we have the next transport coming soon and SQ-wise it will outperform the current one anyways.” Please note that this is not something PS Audio has said, it is fictitious, but that was more ore less what I read between the lines at that time and it got me worked up quite a bit. Because the DMP is really a great sounding transport and since the updates that kept coming did make things better in my case, I decided to keep my optimism that the DMP would finally be perfect. Only to be shocked again by the fact that after installing the latest fix, I was unable to play SACDs to my non-PS Audio DAC! Most bugs may be resolved, but this is a new one and it’s a serious one. And it’s not fixed yet!

No one is discussing DMP problems anymore, some posters even make statements like it is completely fixed now as was promised and needs no further troubleshooting anymore… therefore paving the way for PS Audio to just move on and concentrate on their next line of products.

Long story short: although I am still benevolent at this time, I think, people who have had a bad time with their PS Audio products, are more than entitled to repeat their experiences where it fits in - for future generations, so to speak… Those who have heard it already, may just ignore it, or react as they feel is appropriate… but Broderic, Dirk… and others: you have me on your side!

Let’s keep criticism constructive!

4 Likes
184

Like I said earlier is this thread, 3 of my 5 PSA products have had several issues and had to be brought back to my local dealer several times.
I am just lucky that my local dealer is only 45 minutes away, and that he provides outstanding after sales service.
And so does PSA.
But no other equipment I have owned (mostly Marantz earlier and now Plinius) has had that many issues.
If it wasn’t for the outstanding after sales and great SQ, I would have left the boat a long time ago.

1 Like
185

I worked in the North Sea for a year and and in severe weather, when planes were grounded, felt very safe in choppers, even when winds got up to force 10 to12 landing on an oil platform. Terrible sound systems.

186

Generally I think smaller manufacturers should stick to what they know best. For PSA that seems to be power products and amplifiers. So I would expect the new phono amp to be a good product. Reliance on major components from third party suppliers is asking for trouble. That seems to have killed the DMP and the DS Jr. So now they are trying to launch a speaker range relying on third party manufactured planar midrange drivers that would be virtually impossible to source elsewhere. Virtually all their likely competitors make their drivers in house. Others have made this mistake, Leica got their sensors for their flagship consumer line from kodak who went bust and they had no alternative. Most manufacturers want to know where they can improve and don’t rely on brand loyalty.

187

Wow, nothing for sensible folks I guess. My view was more from an engineering standpoint. No matter how safe one feels, if there only has to break one thing to get it down, which has no redundancy, the head comes into play, even if the stomach says ok :wink:

188

As a fixed-wing pilot I find helicopters fascinating. I have taken a few flying lessons just to get an understanding of how they work and how it feels to fly one. Amazing beasts.

189

Paul did state in fact that the new transport due out later this year will indeed beat out the DMP sound quality wise on redbook playback…

190

My guess is, it’s rather the introduction of SW/network to the electronic/physical products and the dealing with necessary mind shifts/testing and quality processes vs. quick to market. So rather sticking to electronic/physical products than sticking to a fixed product category. Pure SW might be even worse. At least one needs significant manpower in case something must be fixed in the field afterwards.

IMO when SW functions are combined with electronics, it’s no matter if it’s the well known amps or power products or something new. Everywhere the same first problem for those who so far built physical products unless they adjust everything to this new approach beforehand. Building even a new product like a speaker imo is no such challenge in this example as long as it’s just based on physical/electronic components either. But time moves on, SW functions arrive at many products now. When an automotive company delivers a pump to an OEM now, it doesn’t get the contract unless this pump’s behavior can be analyzed via Bluetooth by an app :wink:

What you say about the dependency from suppliers is correct imo, but we’re not talking about a “mass product” like a a Leica here, so the risk may be taken imo as repair supplies will probably be ensured for many years by PSA.

191

Don’t say “repair supplies will probably be ensured for many years by PSA” to DMP owners. If the third party ceases production PSA would not be able to produce or service repairs. It destroys brand value.

From my perusal, most speaker brands’ reputations rest on their longstanding ability to design and manufacture drivers and cabinets that is their unique technology that they do not go and sell to other companies. There are of course people like SEAS who make stock and bespoke drivers, but it’s not the same thing. PSA does not have that technology and clearly is not willing to get involved in the development costs of doing so. Their project is to clone and improve on a prototype built by AN some years ago. The design concept is not, as claimed, unique. I am hard pressed to think of any product in any industry that has been developed in this way. Speakers are not like other units, where it is normal to buy in parts, whether hard drives, capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, whatever, all of which have numerous possible alternative sources. So people may buy in to a AN legacy product, hopefully many people will buy because they hear them and like them, but even if I could afford them and have the space I would not buy them for the commercial reasons stated. I am sure others, quite possibly including DMP owners, feel the same.

192

Since this has gotten into aircraft, I hope the more aeronautical folks are on the Boeing website trying to insure more people don’t die.

I shot some SUV focus groups for Ford back in the day that used the last few minutes of each group to gauge their awareness of the Firestone Tire/Explorer Issue. They were shocked to discover that people were well aware and very concerned, since at that time it was not generally known or written about in the press in the US, though it had occurred in other countries. The 5 minute edit I did for them spurred the company to establish a task force to deal with the problem. Whether how they dealt with it was satisfactory or not for a given person may depend on a number of factors.

Perhaps we need a Forum for Issues, and perhaps PS should do some groups. Though frankly I have difficulty imagining that happening. (I have no stake in the notion - haven’t shot groups for years). Surveys, perhaps. Most people who got a lemon car or are treated poorly simply never buy that brand again. I think part of the problem is that sometimes it sounds like issues with audio gear is life and death stuff.

As far as PS audio gear, I have had the majority of it work without issue. With the DMP, I am fortunate in that I don’t use some of the problematic functions, and I elected early on to adapt to the other issues for the sake of the SQ. Made life a lot easier. I’m also going to continue not sticking my wet fingers in the SP3 ; ).

2 Likes
193

It’s interesting to me that you are now advocating focus groups after claiming they are apt to water down the design intentions of the engineering team. Hmm.

194

Those seemingly mutually exclusive notions may in fact be held in the head at one time, and often become part of the reality. Some things may cause sonic compromises if you try to please a majority. That is one of the dangers of asking groups stuff. It can potentially stifle innovation if it ends up leading you down the Middle Way. On the other hand, attempting to gauge the level of awareness and concern over safety issues, or in this case product functionality and reliability, does not have to get tricky. I said from day one on the DMP - why can’t I have a row of hard buttons? I don’t like the touchscreen, and I don’t need it. Did they listen? Nope.

195

This sentence alone was worth talking about aircrafts :wink: I love it!

But back to the topic:
I guess it’s as you say, for most those issues aren’t life and death issues, like for me. Bridge/server combination still has … or better…after the last update has many solved but a new issue (DSF files partly interrupting 1 minute from the end). Those issues mostly turned out to be on/off with different Bridge firmware codes rather than an issue of the server SW…all that during the last 3 years…so yes, until now it still doesn’t work perfectly, but nearly…and the benefits of DS/Bridge to me are much bigger than the bugs were annoying. Might well be different for other folks and especially those more intensively affected and I understand it. Difficult for the manufacturer to jump into this thread, as even if many many more have no problem to talk about, there still seems to be something to talk about, even for some loyal multi component PSA customers. I guess PSA will be acting in the background by PM or similar.

196

I had been lobbying for a couple of years with Paul for having someone directly communicating end user issues to the engineers, and for them to communicate their thoughts and answers back to the Forums. It was clear that there was a gap there. The Forums are a great way for the end users to communicate with each other, but not the most efficient way to take concerns to the Company. The staff engineers at PS are so busy that it is a waste of time and money for them to read the Forums in their “spare time” and participate. (Ted is not on staff at PS, he participates because he works for himself and wants to do it). So I thought someone should mediate who understood both sides of it. Subsequently, we now have Scott, James and others regularly taking time between doing their full time functions to do this. A step in the right direction, hopefully.

197

Holy crap, rotor coming off!!! These guys never heard of a torque wrench???

198

I defer to you on these matters. I now see that all my years of training, a PhD, and 20 years running my own consumer research company are of very little use since I don’t understand nuance, complexity, and the multiple uses/abuses of qualitative research.

199

Wow - ok then. Where’d you get that from? Please don’t take it personally. It was not intended as a dig.

My interest here - as it has been for years, is to figure out how to get PS to become more aware of the end user issues so that they can build the stuff better.

200

I understand what you say, nothing wrong, I just speak from my own experience so far. Many if not most speaker manufacturers rely on Scanspeak or similar chassis…it seems to work somehow…on the other hand in the past I bought a replacement drive for a former Accuphase player myself on eBay because Accuphase ran out of Sony transports after 5-10 years or so. They all have similar problems. Own chassis development seems not always the best and most cost effective solution unless customers are ready to pay 6+ times the price of an AN in this class…and even then I guess the best suppliers make them better.

201

This is a big problem with CD/SACD transports. Apparently DCS had to ditch using Esoteric/TEAC transports because Sony was putting pressure on TEAC to stop supplying them.

It seems they didn’t like the fact that they were allowing other manufacturers to make two box SACD systems (presumably they thought it broke their licensing agreements or they weren’t getting their license fee). Not sure what DCS are doing as a work around.

I think Marantz decided to build their own transport to use in the flagship SA-10 (and recent Ruby KI) for similar reasons. They were having difficulty sourcing high quality, reliable transports in sufficient numbers. Obviously Marantz are big enough that they can foot the cost and make their own (as well as pay all the licensing fees).

It is a conundrum for smaller niche manufacturers though - just the licensing fees could be a substantial chunk of their annual revenue.

1 Like