There are a much higher percentage of DS Seniors out there than Juniors, and the responses in this thread mostly come from Senior owners. I think there are just so many incomparable variables in our systems as a whole, that all comparisons ought to be be seen in isolation, its just one person’s opinion, in their specific system, to their specific ears and tastes.
I own a Junior I do like what Windom has done with the soundstage, it’s more interesting than Snowmass, for me - more depth, width and height, and overall presentation is more natural. As for the bass, if find Snowmass and Windom to be similar, and I adjust my sub and or Roon EQ/ HQPlayer’s convolution engine to taste anyway, which can vary cd to cd.
So I use jriver and this has happened thru all firmware. Sometimes I get the ‘Something happened…’ error message from jriver but only after the first song of an album. It stops at the very end of the first song and I just pick the second song and then no problem for the listening session going forward.
Ah, subs, I should have added that as yet another factor. Given that most subs allow variation of phase I don’t see how any sub owners could ever know what’s what.
I don’t use subs - my speakers claim to be just 3db down at 17hz - there are two massive transmission lines each with 15" drivers (I run them in parallel) - I use a great Crown amp for bass that’s 1800wpc @ 2 ohms.
I’ve gone through every firmware upgrade for DS Sr, and didn’t have any issues with the upgrade procedure. Windom is the best upgrade by a big margin. It surpasses Snowmass in many areas (quieter, more resolving, more dynamic, etc), but the most striking is the “air” around instruments and voices. Recordings are more like real performances. My wife heard the same things too and her hearing is quite good (as a musician).
In my system, Windom doesn’t soften the bass. Conversely, Windom improves bass articulation and extension (esp for acoustic bass). I’ve heard several megabucks systems with CH Precision, Soulution, Linn, and Burmester digital sources and amplification. The DS Sr + Windom come fairly close to these digital sources even in my more modest system (Auralic Aries G1 > BHK Pre > BHK 250 > Revel Studio2).
I’m listening YET AGAIN to Windom and I will say that the soundstage is consistently wider than Snowmass. I think my earwax must be moving around, letting Windom’s virtues in the window.
@RonP - yeah - I don’t see the OMG… a little better… not a got to go back to SM 3.06… however after reading some posts it is like the 2nd coming of JC and there is no way I hear that… I’m going back to SM 3.06 for a week and then running it again for a fair comparison. Thanks @tedsmith for giving us something to really fuss over. Great work and thanks @Paul for not profiting off the fuss… audiophiles love to fuss…
I’m probably running one of the oldest and lower-end systems on this forum. I’m running Snell CII speakers which I purchased new in college. For amps, I’ve only tried it with two of my amps so far: A Classe’ 70, and an Audio Research ST-70-C3. Unfortunately my CJ-Premier 1b needs servicing before I can safely run it again. Although I’ll certainly be hooking-up my little MC225 in the not too distant future to see how this amp likes Windom.
My listening room is too small for bottom-octave bass propagation so I can’t really hear the bottom octave from my listening chair. Except that, for whatever reason, Snowmass made it sound like my system had bottom-end that I’d never imagined before… Perhaps that was just a distortion of Snomass that made my system sound better in my room. I don’t know yet. I only know that my bass went from nice and tight with Snowmass to bordering on boomy with Windom.
Maybe inside a larger room, or with better speakers my opinion would flip about this. And perhaps I need to do some speaker repositioning to get he best out of windom. But for the moment at least: In my room, and on my system, the bass sounds less impressive to me (even though it sounds louder).
After a couple evenings of listening, I can confidently say that in my system to my ears Windom shows the biggest improvement over any other release. It’s fuller and more articulate top to bottom. Old RCA living stereo SACD rips with their simple miking techniques give a stronger illusion of being in the room than any previous version. I go straight from the DS into my amps, and some might try foregoing the preamp with Windom as an experiment.
None of the new FPGA releases I have experienced have made what I would call huge differences. But, in the DAC world, subtle changes can have a significant impact in the user listening experience.
Windom has made some subtle improvements over Snowmass in my setup.
I am hearing a little better voice and instrument separation with more precise location on the soundstage. This makes the soundstage more realistic and lifelike…more 3D.
I am also hearing less muddiness in the bass and midrange along with less harshness in the upper ranges. This provides more detail and clarity to the music while sounding smoother, less digital, and more musical.
My “more musical” is probably equivalent to Paul’s added “richness” while the improvements I hear in the soundstage are probably Paul’s added “dimensionality”.
The differences I am hearing are not large. But the overall effect on what I am hearing makes the listening experience noticeably better.
@speed-racer - agreed, differences noted… not OMG; however, Ted gets a lot of credit for ringing out more than I ever thought was going to happen… if he gets triple DSD on the next upgrade, then he deserves many beers from me… I thought I read he might on the next mountain top…
Well, didn’t get my SD card today, so it will be next week before I can start the Windom listening program.
Interesting to see the varying reactions. I remember Snowmass threw me for a loop when it was introduced. It took a few loads and it took some system tuning and it took some time listening for me to come to the conclusion it was a wonderful OS. Moving to 3.06 was another adjustment and I’m now surprised at how much I like it as I did NOT at first, but patience and some further tuning led me to.
I expect an additional adaptation period with Windom, but my experience, and many of the comments here, make me believe in time it will be my new favorite.
Yes, he said DSD256 might come in the next release. In a way, I am not looking forward to that. I don’t think my current Roon Core with HQPlayer Embedded can handle upsampling my DSD64 content.
Lonson,you can expect more of the same with Windom as you did with Snowmass. Your probably going to have to go through the same “ritual” of getting things just right. I’m still trying to wrap my head around Windom…but it seems to be a keeper…
Let me say…If and when you get the sublime download…STOP MESSING WITH IT!
I had the perfect most incredible sound and thought…hmmm maybe it could be better…bad Idea…It has taken me 10 hours futzin with this and NOW finally in the 10th hour I got it back…better by a mile…WHAT A PAIN!!!
There is CERTAINLY something wrong here…Just sayin…sounds great if you’re lucky and can stop futzin…I have finished…JEEZ
Hopefully someone will look in to this, it is a real thing…and when I hear people not blown away I feel certain they just have a bad Load…shame
TD
soundstage width 3feet beyond the speakers, several feet in between performers in depth, not width
But this took me more than 35 uploads to get it right…
it is worth it from where im sitting now