PS Audio PerfectWave DAC

[deepak]

Excellent, enjoy the DACs gentlemen!

[The Monkey]

Thanks Deepak.

Greg, clubby could be a good word for it, but without that echo-y sound that I sometimes associate with it. I'm not sure where this DAC falls along the hi-end spectrum, but I find it very satisying.

I plan on getting the bridge, provided that they get the ALAC issues sorted.

I think PS Audio is ahead of the curve here. There will always be purist type no nonsense DACs, which is a good thing. But the PWD is the kind of Swiss army knife expandable product that is very useful now with digital music. And they seem to be trying to future proof it.

MOAR KOOL AID PLEASE!

[Dreadhead]

Try the two with a nice pair of studio monitors in a treated room. You may notice a difference in the resolution, frequency extension as well as tonality/neutrality. (the areas I thought it excelled nicely)

At the very least, why not do your subconscious a favor and adhere to the placebo-affect inherent in listening to the more expensive gear?

BTW, what do you vinyl owners have to say about how the PerfectWave compares to your vinyl rigs?

Oh I can hear differences when I'm doing it not blind: the Bel Canto one sounds better, mostly because I know it has a lower noise floor and better measured response. I did a test with the BelCanto, a Weiss DAC2 and the DEQ2496: I volume matched with a voltmeter everything let it sit on for a couple days and got my wife to switch all the inputs to my source switching box (with identical cables) and therefore single blind. I couldn't hear one farts of a difference between the two as much as I tried with Qualias, HD800s etc through a GS-X when listening to music. If no music was on I could crank the volume enough to tell the noise floor differences.

I am not saying all DACs sound the same but I think that if the DAC is well designed to be transparent with a plain brick wall fliter and the correct phase response etc then it appears to end up at the same place, which it should. That said, non-brick wall filters maybe superior for some things such as old recordings that were downsampled to 16/44.1 through a good old fashioned brick wall. I can just build one of those filters into foobar if I want using the convolver.

Back on the thread topic. Glad the Perfect Waves are sounding good

Edited February 4, 2010 by Dreadhead

[swt61]

OK guys is it time to reveal to Dinny that we switched the guts of his PWD with a Beresford?

[VPI]

As I have said previously I really like the PWD. I would say it gets close to equal playing time with the dCS Paganini stack simply because I often feel it is more involving than the dCS which is one of those DACs that knock you out at first but you find yourself not really getting into the music.

I definitely prefer the PWD to all of my other DACs.

[Hopstretch]

Gimme an eff. Gimme an ohh. Gimme a tee. Gimme an emm.

[VPI]

Ah the Ayre Fanboy is trying to cause problems.

Input envy is tough man.

[n_maher]

Ah the Ayre Fanboy is trying to cause problems.

Input envy is tough man.

!

[jvlgato]

Gimme an eff. Gimme an ohh. Gimme a tee. Gimme an emm.

Standing wave? Reminds me, I've gotta do something about that in my basement ...

[tyrion]

Jeff, don't worry, our DACses are bigger than theirs and size does matter.

[Hopstretch]

At least they make it in silver.

(FWIW, I really enjoyed auditioning Harbeths for a couple of hours off the PW transport and DAC. Great sound, easy and intuitive to use. What chipses are they using, Dinny?)

[tyrion]

Silver PWD ftw.

[Dreadhead]

At least they make it in silver.

(FWIW, I really enjoyed auditioning Harbeths for a couple of hours off the PW transport and DAC. Great sound, easy and intuitive to use. What chipses are they using, Dinny?)

I would guess they use wolfson considering that's who wrote the filtering paper on their website

[The Monkey]

Yeah, it's Wolfson chipses. Not sure which ones. mmmm...Harbeths.

[Eric5676]

I was looking around their forums and saw this comment from the CEO:

The Bridge will deliver the same level of performance as the PWT. Indeed, and this is what’s so freaking exciting about what we’re doing.

Interesting.

This Bridge is going to finally come out in March if I read right? I'm halfway curious to see if I can rig a shootout for myself between this beast vs. my Cambridge 840c. This beast would allow me to streamline my entire setup across the boards and I'm lightly considering it at this point. My PC and all my gear are in the same room so all I would do is hard wire this thing right to my router.

Monkey, where did you see this for $2100 new thereabouts?.

I'm grateful for a thread like this because I know Monkey and others will shoot right past the marketing hype and spin and get down to the real facts of the matter up or down. I lurk a lot more than I post but a lot of you regulars by now I know I can count on to cut through the BS.

[jvlgato]

I was looking around their forums and saw this comment from the CEO:

Interesting.

This Bridge is going to finally come out in March if I read right? I'm halfway curious to see if I can rig a shootout for myself between this beast vs. my Cambridge 840c. This beast would allow me to streamline my entire setup across the boards and I'm lightly considering it at this point. My PC and all my gear are in the same room so all I would do is hard wire this thing right to my router.

Monkey, where did you see this for $2100 new thereabouts?.

I'm grateful for a thread like this because I know Monkey and others will shoot right past the marketing hype and spin and get down to the real facts of the matter up or down. I lurk a lot more than I post but a lot of you regulars by now I know I can count on to cut through the BS.

I'm very interested in hearing impressions when the bridge comes out. I really liked the sound of the PWD w/ its transport when I've heard them at several meets (no real extended listen, though) but wouldn't really want to use it this way. If I make a big change in source at this point, I'd be going the server route.

[Pars]

^

The CEO said that? Damn, he knows Dinny

[The Monkey]

I was looking around their forums and saw this comment from the CEO:

Interesting.

This Bridge is going to finally come out in March if I read right? I'm halfway curious to see if I can rig a shootout for myself between this beast vs. my Cambridge 840c. This beast would allow me to streamline my entire setup across the boards and I'm lightly considering it at this point. My PC and all my gear are in the same room so all I would do is hard wire this thing right to my router.

Monkey, where did you see this for $2100 new thereabouts?.

I'm grateful for a thread like this because I know Monkey and others will shoot right past the marketing hype and spin and get down to the real facts of the matter up or down. I lurk a lot more than I post but a lot of you regulars by now I know I can count on to cut through the BS.

I got the DAC from Ronald Buffington from Liquid HiFi. He has been running good deals on this and other equipment from time to time. I believe he's a member here. Nice guy, no hard sell, great communication.

And the bridge is fascinating to me, too. That's one of the reasons I got the PWD. But I think March sounds a little ambitious (I think they've had several delays already). Frankly, I think there are going to be audiophiles who don't like the premise of this DAC as much as they might not like the sound. Accordingly, there may be some deals to be found on the 'gon. However, I figured I would have this for a while, so I actually wanted to go through an authorized dealer should any problems arise.

[tyrion]

Now that I've read a bit more about the PWD, I could just use it as the preamp. I would have to switch between the IC's connecting my power amp and KGSS but it would save me the cost of another preamp. I would be able to connect the b22 using the RCA out's.

[The Monkey]

Buy this you will:

[swt61]

Too bad the TPA Darwin is no longer available.

[tyrion]

Not sure I need the Skipjack. I have 2 sources and 3 amps. The tt presents a problem. But in terms of my power amp and 2 headphone amps, the PWD should work. I just keep my current pre for my tt.

[VPI]

Mike, are you running FW into the ULN-2 and then digital cable into the PWD?

[tyrion]

running them separately at the moment. FW for the uln-2 and usb for the PWD.

[VPI]

I am trying to figure out how to pass through 24/192 over Firewire into the PWD via the ULN-2 as a FW interface but I have been unsuccessful.