My PWT has begun to abend more often (and I suspect that the disc is often NOT the problem).
My PWT also seems to have gotten louder when successfully playing some discs. (Growling almost - the listening chair is maybe 2 feet away, which doesn’t help, of course.)
No disc players in the product line now, either.
Personal note: $2k is probably the limit that I would spend on a transport/disc player.
My DAC is the PWD, mk II, so I am interested in a player to mate with my PWDII via I2S.
But I would also consider other disc players with great bang-for-buck that lack an I2S connection.
What are y’all using to spin CDs, etc., these days (non PS Audio gear) that might work well for me?
Sony UBP-X100ES with HDMI Video -----> I2S boards feeding a PS Audio DirectStream DAC Sr.
It’s that simple.
Caveat, for Surround SACD’s only, you need a Sony AVR and will be stuck with it’s “adequate” True DSD DAC’s. FOr PCM Surround/DVD-Audio, the DSSr. will playback the L & R discreet channels no problem, you AVR’s DAC will have to do the rest.
For 2 Channel SACD’s, the HDMI board strips away all the Video crap and leaves the I2S intact to feed to the compatible DAC. Oppo owners are doing the same thing.
and here :
There is a newer version of the board that supposedly doesn’t require the blue board. A friend of mine received the new board even though it’s still advertised as the old board. I installed the blue board and it did the correct channel reversal.
No mention form the Forum members if the new board correctly does the channel correction now. Just speculation until someone comments. There is a resistor that needed to be removed on the old green boards and I removed it on the new green boards. Don’t know if that was the wrong thing to do but the SACD output works going into the DSSr. using the blue board.
Ive had my eye on Jays-Audio CDT2-MK2 transport. Has I2s, and I believe someone on the forum confirmed that the will set the pin out to match. Pretty close to your budget and gets really good reviews.
Thanks for the generous reply, but, to me, what you describe is anything but simple.
I’m looking for a one-box solution to the fact that PS Audio’s PWT is becoming suboptimal in my system and the company seems not to have an alternative to market right now.
Does that board only work with that particular Sony player, or Sony Blu-ray players in general?
I will Google later but I’m eating right now (my mother would not have been impressed at typing and eating!)
It’s been a long time since I tried the HDMI/I2S and the coaxial on a PWT or other transport into the PWD MK2. I no longer have either, but a DMP and DSD. When Ted noted that he tried hard to make every input the same on the DSD I tried different inputs (HDMI, coaxial, AES/EBU) and have to admit. . .there is very little discernable difference between them. It may well be that coaxial into the PWD MK2 will sound nearly identical to HDMI, or that a really good coaxial cable will make differences insubstantial.
+1 on the Jays-Audio CDT2-MK2. When you order tell them you are going to use it with the PS Audio DSD and it will come plug and play ready for use with i2s. Plus it sounds amazing and is built like a brick…
Chazz, that Oppo will likely be a very good transport using the coaxial output or the optical but the HDMI will be a standard audio/video HDMI output and not the protocol that PS Audo uses to transmit data via I2S, so the HDMI won’t work in this instance with the PWD MK2. But give it a try with the other outputs, it may surprise you how well it sounds.
