This is a review and detailed measurements of the Paradigm PW-Link Streamer, DAC, pre-amplifier with room equalization. It is on kind loan from a member. The PW-Link normally costs US $349 but Paradigm has it on sale for just US $157. If the device performs, it is a killer with all this functionality.
The PW-Link comes in a very similar configuration to the PW-AMP which I recently reviewed:
As with that sample, I left the protective plastic over the controls for the owner to take off. Same controls are here for volume, power and input selection (streaming or hard-wired).
The back-panel however, is much richer than what we had with PW-AMP:
I was pleased to see Toslink optical input which I used for all of my testing. I wish there also was a USB input but there is not. I used hardwired Ethernet for my testing, not wanting to mess with wireless.
The DTS play-fi app on Android was flakey with PW-AMP. Here, it did not work at all, not able to discover PW-Link. What garbage software.
For this review, I also downloaded the PC Anthem Room Correction (ARC) software. Results are in the measurements below. I was surprised to see an iOS app but not android. Very strange in this day and age. Other than wanting the levels quite loud to do its testing, the interface while a bit crude, was streamlined and worked the first time.
DAC Audio Measurements
As noted above, I performed all of my testing using Toslink input. Here is our dashboard:
Noticing that out of box level was low, I dialed the volume up to max, only to be greeted with extreme amount of distortion. Even then, I could not get to 2 volt nominal which we like to see out of all DACs. I hit the minus control until I achieved good performance which is what you see above.
Strangely, when I started this test, the SINAD (signal over noise and distortion) was dancing between 80 and 92 dB! I went to record the variation in a graph and most of the variability went away, with the outcome dancing between high 80s and 92 dB. Seems line internal activity was pushing the noise level up as the distortion products were not changing.
Using 91 dB as a generous give, puts the PW-Link barely in third tier of all DACs tested:
Note that many other DACs do better if one dials their output level down a bit so it is a bit unfair to them to put the PW-Link in the graph this way with its lower output.
We can see the saturation easily in Intermodulation test versus level:
Notice the sudden rise in distortion at around -9 dB or so. This is just broken. The distortion was assymetrical from what I recall with the top of the curve becoming severely distorted. So it is not classic clipping.
Examining THD+N versus frequency produced a very high level due to wide bandwidth of the test (90 kHz), indicating out of band noise:
To see what is going on, we can look at the wideband spectrum of a 1 kHz tone:
To the right we see the rising noise level which tends to indicate noise shaping (process of moving noise out of audible band, into inaudible band). I have not seen it have such a sharp rise though. So perhaps there are some signal processing errors.
What caught me by surprise was the rising noise level all the way down to DC level on the left. What on earth is that? Fortunately our hearing threshold is pretty high there so this is likely not audible. But broken nevertheless.
Toslink only goes up to 96 kHz so I could not run my normal multi-tone test which is at 192 kHz sampling. So I created a 7-tone one at 44.1 kHz:
Ouch. You have only 70 dB of distortion-free dynamic range.
Dynamic range was decent:
We are barely matching CD/16-bit spec.
Jitter was fine, likely helped with higher noise floor masking spurious tones:
Linearity was excellent in low levels where some DACs fail, but terrible due to high level distortion shown before nearing max level:
Frequency response was uneventful:
Anthem Room Correction
Anthem is a sister company and I have been pleased to see their electronics bleed into the Paradigm line to good effect. I don't care how good your room or your system is, you need Room equalization. The room, especially at low frequencies, changes the response of any speaker. In addition, there can be level and delay differences between channels which Room EQ fixes. My prior experience with Anthem Room Correction (ARC) was with their receivers years back. Then, it was limited to 500 Hz and while it worked better than mass market EQ systems, it still was not great. So I was excited to test this version now.
The included measurement mic seems to be a step above the "pucks" that come with Audio/Video receiver but not the fancy metal ones I remember from years past.
For the test, I connected the output of PW-LINK to my NHT Pro powered studio monitors and then started the software. I was expecting it to fail to find the device as DTS Play-fi had but no problem here. It found the unit and started to play its "CHIRP" sequences. It waned one center position and then four others at least a foot a way. Or was it 2 feet? I just held the mic by hand in front of my face for the center position and used it at arm length for the other four.
Here is the output from the program:
Note that typical of these systems, there is no post correction measurements. So the likely correction is not the same what is shown. Still, we can see the classic algorithm of bringing the peaks down and apply a sloping down curve overall.
I then connected the Toslink output from my PC to the PW-LINK and started to play some music. Wow, I was so pleasantly surprised to hear that same improvement you expect from a good room EQ. The chesty sound was now much more open, resolution and separation between instruments better, and overall, a much more enjoyable experience despite my casual try above. I would probably modify the response curve to have a tad less highs but as it was, it was so good that I got captivated playing file after file in my playlist.
Conclusions
The DAC portion in PW-Link is basically broken. It has many flaws which should have been caught and remedied prior to production. The DTS Play-Fi is beyond broken. I can't fathom what testing was performed before releasing it in the wild.
The Anthem Room Correction though is the real-deal. It easily hides any problems with the DAC, producing a level of experience with speakers that you cannot replicate with any other DAC or pre-amplifier. At the asking price today, it is a steal.
So here is the deal: I am going to recommend the PW-LINK. For so little money, you will get a great introduction to power of Room Equalization. In just a few minutes, you will learn and experience what this is about and why Room EQ is mandatory for any audio system. The measured flaws in the DAC can be ignored for the most part unless you have an amplifier or powered speakers that need higher drive. I would forget about using the DTS Play-fi unless you want your blood pressure to go up. Get a USB to Toslink adapter if you don't have that output and use it that way.
----------------------
Questions, comments, critique, etc. are welcome.
I received a formal complaint from the pink panther crew that they are being subjected to too much noise in all this audio testing. They are demanding hearing protection. I don't want them to file a formal complaint to the state so please help fund some custom ear plugs for them using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
The PW-Link comes in a very similar configuration to the PW-AMP which I recently reviewed:
As with that sample, I left the protective plastic over the controls for the owner to take off. Same controls are here for volume, power and input selection (streaming or hard-wired).
The back-panel however, is much richer than what we had with PW-AMP:
I was pleased to see Toslink optical input which I used for all of my testing. I wish there also was a USB input but there is not. I used hardwired Ethernet for my testing, not wanting to mess with wireless.
The DTS play-fi app on Android was flakey with PW-AMP. Here, it did not work at all, not able to discover PW-Link. What garbage software.
For this review, I also downloaded the PC Anthem Room Correction (ARC) software. Results are in the measurements below. I was surprised to see an iOS app but not android. Very strange in this day and age. Other than wanting the levels quite loud to do its testing, the interface while a bit crude, was streamlined and worked the first time.
DAC Audio Measurements
As noted above, I performed all of my testing using Toslink input. Here is our dashboard:
Noticing that out of box level was low, I dialed the volume up to max, only to be greeted with extreme amount of distortion. Even then, I could not get to 2 volt nominal which we like to see out of all DACs. I hit the minus control until I achieved good performance which is what you see above.
Strangely, when I started this test, the SINAD (signal over noise and distortion) was dancing between 80 and 92 dB! I went to record the variation in a graph and most of the variability went away, with the outcome dancing between high 80s and 92 dB. Seems line internal activity was pushing the noise level up as the distortion products were not changing.
Using 91 dB as a generous give, puts the PW-Link barely in third tier of all DACs tested:
Note that many other DACs do better if one dials their output level down a bit so it is a bit unfair to them to put the PW-Link in the graph this way with its lower output.
We can see the saturation easily in Intermodulation test versus level:
Notice the sudden rise in distortion at around -9 dB or so. This is just broken. The distortion was assymetrical from what I recall with the top of the curve becoming severely distorted. So it is not classic clipping.
Examining THD+N versus frequency produced a very high level due to wide bandwidth of the test (90 kHz), indicating out of band noise:
To see what is going on, we can look at the wideband spectrum of a 1 kHz tone:
To the right we see the rising noise level which tends to indicate noise shaping (process of moving noise out of audible band, into inaudible band). I have not seen it have such a sharp rise though. So perhaps there are some signal processing errors.
What caught me by surprise was the rising noise level all the way down to DC level on the left. What on earth is that? Fortunately our hearing threshold is pretty high there so this is likely not audible. But broken nevertheless.
Toslink only goes up to 96 kHz so I could not run my normal multi-tone test which is at 192 kHz sampling. So I created a 7-tone one at 44.1 kHz:
Ouch. You have only 70 dB of distortion-free dynamic range.
Dynamic range was decent:
We are barely matching CD/16-bit spec.
Jitter was fine, likely helped with higher noise floor masking spurious tones:
Linearity was excellent in low levels where some DACs fail, but terrible due to high level distortion shown before nearing max level:
Frequency response was uneventful:
Anthem Room Correction
Anthem is a sister company and I have been pleased to see their electronics bleed into the Paradigm line to good effect. I don't care how good your room or your system is, you need Room equalization. The room, especially at low frequencies, changes the response of any speaker. In addition, there can be level and delay differences between channels which Room EQ fixes. My prior experience with Anthem Room Correction (ARC) was with their receivers years back. Then, it was limited to 500 Hz and while it worked better than mass market EQ systems, it still was not great. So I was excited to test this version now.
The included measurement mic seems to be a step above the "pucks" that come with Audio/Video receiver but not the fancy metal ones I remember from years past.
For the test, I connected the output of PW-LINK to my NHT Pro powered studio monitors and then started the software. I was expecting it to fail to find the device as DTS Play-fi had but no problem here. It found the unit and started to play its "CHIRP" sequences. It waned one center position and then four others at least a foot a way. Or was it 2 feet? I just held the mic by hand in front of my face for the center position and used it at arm length for the other four.
Here is the output from the program:
Note that typical of these systems, there is no post correction measurements. So the likely correction is not the same what is shown. Still, we can see the classic algorithm of bringing the peaks down and apply a sloping down curve overall.
I then connected the Toslink output from my PC to the PW-LINK and started to play some music. Wow, I was so pleasantly surprised to hear that same improvement you expect from a good room EQ. The chesty sound was now much more open, resolution and separation between instruments better, and overall, a much more enjoyable experience despite my casual try above. I would probably modify the response curve to have a tad less highs but as it was, it was so good that I got captivated playing file after file in my playlist.
Conclusions
The DAC portion in PW-Link is basically broken. It has many flaws which should have been caught and remedied prior to production. The DTS Play-Fi is beyond broken. I can't fathom what testing was performed before releasing it in the wild.
The Anthem Room Correction though is the real-deal. It easily hides any problems with the DAC, producing a level of experience with speakers that you cannot replicate with any other DAC or pre-amplifier. At the asking price today, it is a steal.
So here is the deal: I am going to recommend the PW-LINK. For so little money, you will get a great introduction to power of Room Equalization. In just a few minutes, you will learn and experience what this is about and why Room EQ is mandatory for any audio system. The measured flaws in the DAC can be ignored for the most part unless you have an amplifier or powered speakers that need higher drive. I would forget about using the DTS Play-fi unless you want your blood pressure to go up. Get a USB to Toslink adapter if you don't have that output and use it that way.
----------------------
Questions, comments, critique, etc. are welcome.
I received a formal complaint from the pink panther crew that they are being subjected to too much noise in all this audio testing. They are demanding hearing protection. I don't want them to file a formal complaint to the state so please help fund some custom ear plugs for them using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).