I use Acoustic Zen Copper Matrix 2 from amp to pre and Acoustic Zen Silver reference from pre to DSD and love them. I can tell you silver done right can make a system.
Integrated wrong and get the ear plugs ! Its equipment dependent. That being said. The firmware should be immediately better or not ! I can say tweaking speaker positions a tad but if I have to change my whole system to the firmware sound, then its not for me !
I found Windom great right from the first load and accidentally loaded it 3 times by not knowing to take the card out ! With NO difference in sound! I will say burn in is needed as the way things see the minor changes makes a major difference in three days after ā¦ WINDOM ROCKS !
I downloaded Windom the first night it was available, proceeded to unzip the files and place them in a sub folder just for Windom on my computer, I have sub folders for all the updates for the DAC and Memory Player, then moved the files to a SD card, loaded on my SR DSD without a hitch. I played a track last night via USB stick in the DSMP to the DSD, this track has been played on all the different loads since RedCloud and the Snowmass loads 3.00 3.05 and 3.06. In a rather loud segment of the music I heard a piano playing softly in the background which I have never heard before in all the previous updates. Thanks to Ted and the PSAudio group for the quality of this update.
I agree, Windom is excellent. Windom, cables, etc: Yes, itās all system / room dependent and down to individual preferences. There are no absolutes. Itās all relative. What is truth when it comes to hi-fi. The problem was the RF devices plugged into the DMP and DS. Iāve pulled them apart and I can see that one of them is faulty. My friend is overjoyed with his system now.
Same here. I have Windom loaded after several trips back and forth with Snowmass and Yale.
Iām going to leave it alone for a few weeks and then take a trip back to Snowmass to see how I feel.
Thanks Ted for this detailed answer which reflects what I meant with my question. Your first sentence really honors you and your approach and the rest is very interesting.
I understood, you donāt tweak your releases to the taste of your customers and their feedback, but you use the feedback to catch or verify whatās most relevant within your programming.
To be honest, I expected less orientation on the feedback. Mostly but not only because all our setups are too different and filled with different flaws and I thought itās not the goal to make the average customer happy at the stage you areā¦but on the other handā¦as the DS canāt be finally voiced anymore to new firmwaresā¦changes at your stage then directly hit the customers
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that some of the good ideas come from paying attention to customer feedback. Every release I stare at the wall trying to assess which possible changes would make the biggest differences. I know that nuking noise is always goodā¦ A few releases came whole to my mind based on customer statements, but mostly I use feedback to help narrow down possible work items, approaches to problems or priorities.
Do you have a way to listen to another DS to see if you hear the same issues? I may not be as āexpertā of an ear as others here but, I know what I am hearing and am finding that the differences I hear are agreeable to me. The deep bass has gone a little strange, but, I had my system off for a couple of months and Iām wondering if the system feeding my subs lost its settings, since it even sounds a bit disjointed even with vinyl.
It would perfectly help to classify feedbacks if a general frequency plot of the speakers in the room was attached (forget about reverbation times this time) I guess this would explain all the different perceptions .
My DMP came back to me from a repair today. I was loving Windom using my other sources. I knew this would take it to another level and it definitely did! I am loving what I am hearing the sound is enveloping. I also appreciate the fact that I am not hearing the ticks when going from PCM to DSD. The system sounds so right!
more enveloping is a good term for the direction of Windom and one of the most important characteristics for high end playback of a setup in general imo.
Most HW improvements I was after in the recent years were related to an even more āenvelopingā sound. Holographic imaging, air around sound sources, voices enveloping the listener as if the sound slips into ones ear after orbiting the head. A bit like Q-sound as standard The other priority was dynamics.
Thatās interestingā¦so far I thought the folks with Windom problems have tonality issues, but the better separation and air and bodily imaging is unquestioned.
On the other hand I saw so many setups here with DS DACās and speakers placed quite asymmetric and/or close to the wall etc. ā¦I guess I wouldnāt hear a lot of such differences then.
But on every carefully placed setup with enough back wall distance, tonality and imaging should give different results to those listeners. I thoughtā¦but we never know whatās going onā¦Iām sure youāre all right and we just donāt know the reason yet.
When will Paul and team design a set of standard ears we could call them Pears, there would of course need to be home installation as I can,t get to the distributor. Then we might all hear the same things, as I am getting concerned by all these extremes that I just canāt hear but hopefully could Pear !!! and please no SD update slot or display for album art as I do not wish to glow at night
FWIWā¦ Many hours of listeningā¦ multiple reboots (power failures due to storms) and the sound is the same and consistent. Smooth and comfortable. I love it.
So Ted, how do you classify/group the user response spectrum? How do you interpret what everyone is saying? Do our impressions fall into groups?
