I’ve listened to Yale far longer than I should’ve last night and began anew 3 hours after lowering the volume and going to bed. Nothing’s changed for me since my last review 12 hours ago. If it were up to me I’d stamp it gold and release it YESTERDAY! I can’t see how it will possibly get any better in the near field! I can certainly appreciate the irony of the previous PP hard-release and its ensuing controversy vs the soft-release and wide acceptance of Yale at this point. In the ways of the world it was inevitable I guess… win some-lose some. We all know it still won’t be perfect for everyone… never is, never gonna be. But I think it stomps 1.2.1 & PP’s ass into the ground and is as close as humanly possible today, July 3, 2015 to pleasing most of the people which is all you can really hope to accomplish. You tweak one aspect just a little and you gain an additional yay or two here but at the inevitable cost of a corresponding number of nays there. For this release I truly believe you’re home. By all means keep developing but for this specific release, STOP, don’t change a thing!!
Dennis Kerrisk said
Can people let me know how the USB works in this release? It has been completely upgraded along with everything else. If you have issues please let me (dennis@psaudio.com) know , either on the forums or directly.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Great work form PS Audio especially to Ted.
I think there maybe a small issue with USB. I down loaded Yale OS and installed it in the DAC. The server did not recognise the DAC. In my setup my server has either power or no power out USB ports. Until now I have used the no power out from the server and everything worked fine.
I changed to power out and the server recognised the DAC and life was wonderful. I tried the no power or power combinations a few times and no power out does not work for me. I previously used the no power out because the server manual said that it should be better I assumed that it would be better as it was one less thing to potentially add interference. Could I hear the difference I cannot say absolutely? May be it was only placebo. As Elk has said if it is only placebo and it is perceived to be better then it is better.
Now the matter of no power or power over the USB is not a big deal to me. It might be to some people. Yale is working over USB with power and it is a definite overall improvement in SQ for me in my system with the amount of detail and clean sound that results. It will take a short time for me to adjust to the new sound.
dvorak said
Dennis, could you provide any insight into the nature of the improvements to the USB interface? Are they related to sound quality or to signal handling or to server compatibility or... something else?
The USB improvements are an attempt to fix the intermittent USB lock up issue. And set the USB power consumption to 0 ma.
I tried to write protect the SD card as one of my boot tests. What happened was that the DS front light flashed once and then went dead - rather unorthodox behavior…(?)
I had a problem to soft-eject the SD card from my PC. I had to force-close some files. I wonder if the MD5# would return successfully (I will be paying attention to this issue).
Frode,
The DS should just ignore the SD card if it is write protected, that is a function of the bootloader. It sounds like you might have an issue with your bootloader being corrupt. E-mail me next week and I will get you the code to reflash your bootloader. Is your DS a kit build or a production build?
If the files on your SD card got corrupted some how that might have caused your issue.
I’ve just finished listening to Yale, albeit only for an hour or two. I have the same issue with the USB; with the 5V DC off the DS does not recognise the server, but it recognises the server after it is switched on.
Regarding SQ, it is generally cleaner. There is less difference between PCM and DSD. With Pikes i definitely preferred DSD, but that gap is narrowed now. I suspect the PCM filter update is largely responsible for this. It also seems more “euphonic” with the tonal balance very slightly on the warm side now. It’s a sure winner compared to Pikes.
Thanks for the reply . I guess I have to hear this for myself . I am about 500 miles away from my ds dac right now lol . I do hope pcm.is still pcm and I am hoping for some real dsd sound better than before . Overall I like the comments from most here and yours as well .
Does the pcm still have bite or did it get smoothed out like dsd sound now ? .
This weekend I will meet with three other PSA fans, two of them already own a DS. The last is still on the PWD MKII, but he saves hard to get his hand on a DS. He has to travel 800km this weekend for the audition and I wrote him an email saying: “if it was only to listen to Yale it would be worth the effort”.
I will have the rare opportunity to listen to Yale this weekend in three different setups (incl mine). Lucky I am.
I hope I wasn’t completely imcomprehensable last night…between being up for 22 hours straight and allergy meds, I was really having trouble keeping my eyes opened, but was so blown away I had to post something!
I’ll give DSD vs PCM a better shake today - I don’t have much DSD that I really like, but there are a couple tracks in my Demo tunes folder. I agree with above that DSD and PCM are a closer match. I didn’t even notice when the DSD track came on, which says a lot. Usually when DSD comes on in a mix, I notice right away it’s less edgy - which depending on the recording can be good or bad.
I’m listening to Praxis right now - a Progressive Rock album from 1995 featuring Buckethead, which Cookie Morenco (now of Blue Coast Records) worked on back in the day. This update, plus this album, is simply sonic amazement. It’s so wide and spacious - and I’m realizing something - it sounds like the Frequency Response of the DAC is now from 10Hz to 100KHz. I swear, bass (on this album at least) has a depth I didn’t know this system could muster (without a sub - and with only 6" drivers). The Micro-Detail this update pulls out just adds so much space and realism to the instruments, but without that high frequency…I don’t know, thinness that bugged me in PP. I loved the detail in PP, but this tops it so easily!
Thanks Ted, Paul, and crew - this is worthy.
Edit to Add: no issues with USB. It seemed to lock on pretty fast.
Also - I forgot to mention above, I steam cleaned the carpets yesterday, so my missing phantom center is very likely due to chair/speaker position being off a hair. These speakers of mine kind of keep your head in a vice for sweet spot - and the sweet spot on this new OS/Firmware is very much apparent.
Thanks . I cannot wait to hear thus for myself . It’s does puzzle me a bit as to why both formats now sound very much the same . My first thought is not good , but many do love to up sample pcm to dsd to get this sound.
Its just not for me but I am almost always the odd duck so no surprise . I am still hope full and glad there is more to pick from.
Back home from work, put the software in the DSD, played the Mark Knopler track Trawlerman’s song from his album Shangri la. With 1.21 and Pikes the ridebekken was almost gone and now it’s back. Yale sounds awesome, the best so far… very pleasant and clean. This weekend I will trawl through my record collection. I also use the DSD for monitoring my internetradio station. And it never has sound so good in my living room. Thanks to the PS Audio team for yet another, this time big, step forward… I think it puts PP in the shade.
I was fortunately able to conduct a Yale versus Pikes Peak comparison at the PS Audio listening room in Boulder with the IRS speakers and was blown away by the difference. The next day Paul announced the availability of the Yale Beta version and I immediately downloaded it. The update seemed to go well, with expected blinking lights and DAC initialization, but the USB interface failed to connect. After several attempts to reboot both the computer and the DSD, the USB connection still failed to connect. I reinstalled Pikes Peak, and the USB connection was immediate. Reinstalled Yale again, same result - no USB. I am back to Pikes Peak until the USB issue is resolved…
Any ideas about the USB connection issue? Is anyone else others experiencing this problem?
On a side note, we compared the new BHK monoblocks to the BHK stereo amp. Wow, I never expected such a huge difference - it was greater than the Yale versus Pikes Peak firmware comparison by roughly a factor of two. So if you are curious about the amp comparison, consider the Yale/Pikes Peak improvement as an approximation of the amp comparison (only with a greater wow factor).
Update: Based on Ted’s recommendation, I replaced my $300 USB cable (which intentionally lacked a 5v connection) with a $20 standard USB cable. Problem resolved. Although the $20 cable was previously evaluated as distinctly inferior to the more expensive cable, the Yale upgrade allowed the cheap cable to sound substantially better than Pikes Peak with the expensive cable. I can only imagine what Yale would sound like with a better USB cable.
Well done. However, at some future release of Yale, would it be possible to use a USB cable that bypasses the 5v requirement. In my experience, eliminating the parallel 5v requirement improves the sound of the USB cable.
Reference Point…I am coming from 1.21 vs. Pikes Peak. I eventually had to go back to 1.21 because I found PP to be fatiguing in the long run.
I didn’t have any issues with the download or installation. I typically use the PWT, but I played a few DSD files via USB on my laptop and everything worked fine.
The first thing I noticed was a significant improvement in sound stage width. Same goes for micro detail and spacial information. I could better hear the recording space and air around instruments. Yale is uncovering significantly more detail vs. 1.21. I haven’t done a direct comparison to PP, but vs. 1.21 it’s significant.
The bass seems more impactful, controlled and deeper to me on Yale (vs. 1.21). I am ‘feeling’ my REL more so than any other firmware and I haven’t changed any settings on the sub.
I am not noticing any dryness, stridency in the highs or lack of mid bass (which were my issues with PP). I have been listening all morning and haven’t gotten any fatigue, which is a great sign.
In summary, I am really enjoying this update! Great job Ted! And thanks to PS Audio for letting us in on the Yale beta.
jayclawson said
Any ideas about the USB connection issue? Is anyone else others experiencing this problem?
There are some reports earlier in this thread that USB cables that don't hook up the 5V are causing problems. If you are using such a cable and it has an optional 5V connection try connecting the 5V. If you are using such a cable and don't have that option as an experiment try a Certified USB cable (even a $5 one from RadioShack or where ever.)
