“Have to?”
Well, I’m still undecided but am veering towards Windom. There are some tracks that are very much better with Windom. Snowmass is far easier to listen to and fills the room with sound whereas Windom locates it strongly between the speakers. I reverted to Snowmass this evening and obviously liked it until I played my most recent acquisition, an MP3 download of Lil Nas X’s 7EP - the first track, a remix, sounds far far better with Windom than Snowmass.
I want to add that the comments such as Windom sounds like vinyl make no sense to me whatsoever - here there’s only one LP that possibly sounds better than the CD version and that’s Lou Rawls’s At Last (I’ve bought several recent recordings in vinyl to prove to myself that I’m a digital fan - mind you my vinyl setup is not state of the art).
If redoing one’s system is what it takes to make Windom sound better than Snowmass, then for me, the update is not worth the expense and effort.
Right - but of course we don’t have to. My issue was that it came out right when I’d made a bunch of changes to the system, and once I got Windom working I sort of didn’t think that could have been what was “bothering” me until now. Fortunately, I can return some of the cables I bought…
And Ted is still the guy who came up with Snowmass, which is still awesome. And free.
And most do not find a need to change their system to make Windom sound better than Snowmass, although some have found it worth while to re-optimize their system to take full advantage of the different sound of Windom into account.
Plus, it’s free.
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In my case I chose to work with Windom to get the best sound I could with it, but I had also put a lot of time in a similar manner in optimizing the system for Snowmass 3.00 and then the (in my opinion clearly an improvement) 3.06.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my system is very revealing and what used to be subtle differences seem more pronounced now, or alternatively it’s possible I have developed a sensitivity to small changes through “looking” for them and this sensitivity begins to take hold when something such as a new component or one of these new Operating Systems are introduced.
In my case it’s fun to roll tubes and power cables etc. when I can find a pathway to improved sound. In the case of Snowmass and Windom I’ve experimented with a lot of changes and in both cases became frustrated somewhat but I utilized what I had on hand and didn’t spend any money to dial things in. For the first time I had real problems getting a good “load” with Windom and so I spent a lot of time trying to get an inferior load to sound better, and when I finally realized that one of the two load “versions” I got was likely the correct load and tailored to that I realized all the positive attributes others found in the “peak” and it became a lot more fun to experiment.
Yesterday I made one more step forward to great sound. There was a bright edge to the sound with Windom that I was accepting as part of its signature–not a harshness or edginess, just a tendency to reveal all that is on a recording of that nature with no mercy. Yesterday I had the idea to add another AC-12 and a PS Audio “Ultimate Outlet” in front of the P10–both of these were in a closet at hand. The last troubling vestige of this brightness dimmed and in its place there was a touch more “body” and “heft” to the sound. The sound now mirrored more closely what many fans of Windom had been talking about, and also contained all the aspects I liked about Snowmass 3.06 that seemed missing or diminished.
Today I’ve been listening happily, testing out material that was slightly problematic before, and relaxing into a nice session. I’m going to try to “stick a fork in it” because I think it’s done!
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@Elk They’re both great. One is not “right” vs. the other, particularly when given the variability in peoples’ systems, not to mention tastes. One sounds more hi-fi to me. The qualities that make it sound that way would cause some to choose it, others, not. It is more a matter of feel for me. Much as you would choose a certain mic for making a particular recording.
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After all this back and forth, then living with Windom for a period, then back and forth, I just like Snowmass better. Can’t say exactly why, I just do.
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Bottom line is after all is done, what do you enjoy to listen to more? When you get a new component or in this case, firmware, you usually need to tweak a little to balance the sound because it usually not a perfect match to what your system was tweaked to before. If Snowmass still sounds more enjoyable, then fine, stay with Snowmass. Snowmass is still a phenomenal sounding firmware. I just find with my equipment, Windom, with all the tweaking and adding the Matrix 2, and WW Platinum hdmi, and Audience FrontRow USB, has taken my system to rival my high end turntable in musical enjoyment. I can listen to either long term, without having the urge to switch to the other. That is a first time. Before, my turntable was aways what I would go to for serious listening, it just was more musical. Now, I find in some area, with Windom, it’s easier to to hear things in a recording that my turntable is a little opaque. As I said before, my turntable still has that naturalness that is hard to match. But now with Windom, I’m saying wow!!! quite a bit more with recordings I hear many times before.
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I can’t imagine why on some systems people feel the soundstage is between the speakers. On my system the soundstage is larger in all dimensions than with snowmass.
Rooms and / or what’s done to them I think make a difference. Snowmass and Windom are very similar in this regard in my room.
Soundstage between the speakers, for me, was one of the attributes of a bad load. That didn’t mean nothing ever happened outside them, it just tended to be mostly confined there. Now, both are fine in that regard. SM is more ‘of a piece’ and musical for me though. Analog-y : )
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For me, the Windom soundstage was larger than Snowmass and perhaps the primary reason I kept trying to live with Windom. I’m very sensitive to tone, and Snowmass wins on that front for me. And the more revealing nature of Windom rattled my perception of what music ought to sound like. Windom may indeed be better, more true to the original recording, etc, but Snowmass was more enjoyable in part for its less revealing nature.
It really is great to have these sorts of options. Even though Windom has not worked out for me, I love knowing that down the road there will be another new update to explore.
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Given that in my well damped room Windom sounds totally different to Snowmass (any of them given that I don’t use a Bridge) I think I’m going to stick with Windom. I can’t see Ted undoing his changes that make Windom so focussed. Snowmass is much easier to listen to and depending how it’s EQ’d one can hear more reverb (Windom seems to lose reverb, probably by cancelling it out in some way). PS Audio need to find a way to allow us to establish whether we have a good load because I’ve not managed to revert to a Snowmass load that sounded as good as i remember it (my first Windom load sounded really awful).
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I’d rather say „Windom‘s qualities make it sound less Hifi in the one and seemimgly more Hifi in the other setup“
I tend to compare the situation with a high resolution tweeter (although imo Windom‘s quality is not resolution but ambiance and physicalness).
Usually a high resolution tweeter improves sound in terms of more resolution meaning smoother, less Hifi sound and more differentiation. But in other setups this resolution might make previously covered negative implications within the setup or room more obvious by providing a more Hifi-like sound.
Although this sounds as if there are „kind of faults“ within a setup where Windom doesn’t sound better than Snowmass, that’s not my point. I just didn’t find a better analogy than with the hires tweeter.
I have two DS boxes both Bridgeless: one of them was a breeze to update to Windom the other has been a “TRIAL”! No matter how many Yale’s, Huron, Redcloud and Snowmass I tried - when I loaded Windom the music was just flat, boring and stuck between the speakers - sounding like a heavy blanket was covering the speakers. After many failed attempts, I’d had enough faffing about so I switched the sickly DS off for 4 days… Well, when I switched the DS back on and in that instant the blankets were off, the darkness and gloom surrounding the DS was replaced by sunlight and singing birds. Why? I do not know? But that’s what happened! Maybe, the DS’s brain was overloaded and it’s senses in a state of confusion - just like MINE!
DS1 and DS2 now sound as one and when I switch between them, musically, I cannot tell them apart. When I first installed Windom in DS1 there wasn’t any issues with bad loads, etc. My initial impression was positive; sounding excellent top to bottom, a bigger and wider sound-stage, cleaner, clearer and very informative: but mechanical, lacking in musical engagement. The treble was harsher and toppy to the point of grating on my nerves. I just put it down to the DS transformers degaussing and some settling of FPGA, etc… Because I have experienced similar burn-in / settling-in time with earlier iterations of Ted’s code so I just put it down to that and left the system playing 24/7 with a thumb drive in the DMP … And sure enough a few days later DS1 and my big system was sounding sublime, all the bad sound (hi-fi-ish) irritations that spoiled my musical enjoyment – gone…
What I’ve had to do was reposition my big speakers because in my room there is more energy with Windom and it/system stimulates the room differently…
DS1 has played close to 870 hours 24/7 and musically there is nothing negative - it’s all positive! Draws me into the performance and it is a joy to behold. No other OS has captivated me to the same extent and usually after a week or so I am back to spinning vinyl. If Windom lacked in total musical engagement that others report. I, too, would be back with Snowmass because I don’t want my brain analyzing sound, no, I want to feel it and get lost in the music and with Windom I get that in spades. As I HEAR IT, and experience it, Windom is a killer of a code from Ted! But luckily for others who are struggling with Windom - it’s easy to go back to Snowmass and get back to enjoying their music…
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Somewhere I saw a recommendation to power everything off once a month or so and restart it all “fresh”. I hadn’t really thought much about it until Tuesday evening when the power was off for a few hours. It might just be my imagination but I swear it sounds “better” since everything power cycled.
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If Windom changes over time then why wouldn’t Snowmass such that reverting just starts another set of problems!.
I’ve just played Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Tin Pan Alley having recently reloaded Windom and it sounds terrible - his voice is very recessed. With Snowmass i never heard huge differences in one recording from another w.r.t. the singer - with Windom some tracks have really clear singing but others have singers so recessed that there’s no enjoyment in listening to the tracks. I really think we need an explanation as to what is going on. If our hardware needs changing (e.g. the digital board to get rid of poor loads or the analogue board to get rid of inconsistency over time, then we need to be told that and given an option to get our dacs updated. My 2p worth (2c to most of you). There’s no way that overall Windom is louder than Snowmass - that’s part of the problem - it is totally different from Snowmass. Also if people are experiencing wider/deeper soundstage with Windom then maybe they never had a good Snowmass. I really like Windom on some tracks but think it terrible on others - I’ll admit I don’t arrange to run music through Windom for days and days before I listen. Ted says there’s no change to phase or frequency response so I don’t understand how reduction in distortion can have such a dramatic affect (or should that be effect?) - surely there’s a lot more to this than we’re being told.
This may be - and to perhaps take you a bit more literally than you intend - it may be part of why I struggle with Windom in my system with DSD & SHL5+ speakers that have supertweeters, whereas in the 2nd system with the two-way P3’s & Junior, I find it less problematic and more fun.
However, I do take exception to the notion that one can say of ANY component, “such-and-such a piece is simply Better in an absolute sense, therefore you’re hearing something that is Wrong with your system or room”. And the accompanying notion that one’s failure to “fix” your system or room to suit that component’s take on sound is to accept something “lesser” in the endless trudge toward the Absolute Sound. By those lights we should all be striving toward the most ruthlessly revealing studio monitors. But those are surgical tools for work, generally not for listening for pleasure, IMO.
It is the fraught issue of “revealing” components (and yes, I’m talking about DSD/Windom as a “component”, as distinct from DSD/Snowmass). Is each, successively more “revealing” component always “Better”? And where does system synergy fit into this equation?
Dirk, your experience is as clear an indication as I’ve seen that there is an incontrovertible issue with the reliability of installing a new load on a DS. It’s been acknowledged I guess by @Paul, but to have the side by side comparison made so clear, to me is an even stronger indicator that PSA should really do something about this.
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