Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC

[prighello]

A tube/valve device, but at least the price is not outrageous at $800.

Yes, with a volume pot in the mix as well. I would love to see measurements for this device. Regardless, it was preferred by all that participated in the event.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

what was the point with adding your informal listening impression? there was absoloutely nothing formal about it and i would not describe your brief listening impressions as 'semi' formal. indeed, it does seem to me that there was heavy expectation bias. you even admit you have hearing loss... not sure if I trust anyone's ears but myself, at least I know I can still hear ultrasonics just fine

 

[prighello]

Interesting.

What were the DACs? How did you deal to match levels considering higher output of the DAC 3 (Or Qutest in 3V mode)?

Also, what was the exact process of the semi-blind tests? Could be relevant to everybody here.

Did every listener give clearly usables stats? If the results were somewhat 28% 23%, 22%, 27%, it may be attributed to a randomness factor. Would you tell us more?

This subject practically requires its own thread . I posted a lot of the information you are after here: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/jolida-black-ice-fx-dac-azclub-audio-dac-off.883739/ see the fifth post down where I outline the event and format.

There is also a thread on Agon about it which is linked it the above thread as well. Happy to answer more questions as I can.

 

[VintageFlanker]

what was the point with adding your informal listening impression? there was absoloutely nothing formal about it and i would not describe your brief listening impressions as 'semi' formal. indeed, it does seem to me that there was heavy expectation bias. you even admit you have hearing loss... not sure if I trust anyone's ears but myself, at least I know I can still hear ultrasonics just fine

As anybody here, no reason to trust @amirm subjective listening more than others. That is why objective measurements exist. His subjective part is not supposed to be scientifically relevant and represents only 10% of the review...
Glad you hear ultrasonics just fine.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Would you have considered the Klimax if the price was more reasonable? I mean, even at ½ the price it would still be expensive!

I was looking for something which would decode higher sample rate files than the one I had. I compared the Klimax, Resolution Audio Cantata, and my existing DAC and the DAC part of a digital recorder.
On level matched comparison I heard no difference, which was a big surprise to me at the time (nearly 10 years ago). I chose music I knew well. I could just about convince myself I could hear a bit more detail of the mechanical sound of a grand piano pedals (!) on the Cantata and I did buy one but soon after, having decided digital technology was not a bottleneck I bought a Devialet amp, which has a DAC inherent in how it works so the Cantata sits in my bedroom and is only used infrequently.
I like the way the Klimax looks but it crashed too often for me consider it for enjoying music at home. So no.
Not being able to listen due to re-boot or software update makes me so cross I don't bother much with file playing or streaming (even though I am listening to Sibelius on Qobuz as I type)
I am back mainly listening to CDs and the odd LP.

 

[Richard]

As anybody here, no reason to trust @amirm subjective listening more than others. That is why objective measurements exist. His subjective part is not supposed to be scientifically relevant and represents only 10% of the review...
Glad you hear ultrasonic just fine.

I cannot guess what a “semi-blind” listening test might be. Did the listeners wear sunglasses?
There are open trials (wherein both the subjects or listeners, and the experimenter or host knows the identity of the variable or speaker or whatever). There are single blind tests wherein the experiementer, but not the subjects, know the identity of the variable. And then there are double blind tests wherein neither the listeners nor the host knows the identity of the variable.

If the host and listeners knew the identity of the devices then the task was an open trial.

 

[FrantzM]

I was looking for something which would decode higher sample rate files than the one I had. I compared the Klimax, Resolution Audio Cantata, and my existing DAC and the DAC part of a digital recorder.
On level matched comparison I heard no difference, which was a big surprise to me at the time (nearly 10 years ago). I chose music I knew well. I could just about convince myself I could hear a bit more detail of the mechanical sound of a grand piano pedals (!) on the Cantata and I did buy one but soon after, having decided digital technology was not a bottleneck I bought a Devialet amp, which has a DAC inherent in how it works so the Cantata sits in my bedroom and is only used infrequently.
I like the way the Klimax looks but it crashed too often for me consider it for enjoying music at home. So no.
Not being able to listen due to re-boot or software update makes me so cross I don't bother much with file playing or streaming (even though I am listening to Sibelius on Qobuz as I type)
I am back mainly listening to CDs and the odd LP.

Frank

I think you may have to reconsider the streaming because it is flat-out easy. a PC (any PC ) connected to your system via USB... Open an App. I use Spotify and Tidal. Tidal is fully integrated with Roon .. but it has its own app, Spotify isnot ... Press "play" .. Music... Just see it as a source. Forget about the ripping part for now and the entire library management thing.. that's for later ( Roon can help to a serious extent but that's for much later) . Consider the PC as a source and be done...

Since I embraced streaming my enjoyment of music has increased ten-fold.

 

[VintageFlanker]

I cannot guess what a “semi-blind” listening test might be. Did the listeners wear sunglasses?
There are open trials (wherein both the subjects or listeners, and the experimenter or host knows the identity of the variable or speaker or whatever). There are single blind tests wherein the experiementer, but not the subjects, know the identity of the variable. And then there are double blind tests wherein neither the listeners nor the host knows the identity of the variable.

If the host and listeners knew the identity of the devices then the task was an open trial.

I guess you're talking to the wrong person...

 

[murraycamp]

A tube/valve device, but at least the price is not outrageous at $800.

This is funny. I now use this DAC on my office system. I bought it before I discovered ASR.

I noticed an audible improvement in clarity when I switched to a miniDSP SHD. Maybe expectation bias, etc., but it was so audible of an improvement as to be clearly noticeable. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

 

[anmpr1]

Man, I would love to see measurements of Ed Meitner's EMM stuff! The DAC is about $15k. I should reach out to him.

Wasn't Ed the guy with the platterless turntable? So the record would be able to bounce around as it spun? Classic!

 

[anmpr1]

I see someone was kind enough to link to this review on PS Audio Forum: https://forum.psaudio.com/t/another-review-of-the-ds-dac/13027/15



View attachment 34197

Come on Amir. Everyone knows that your agenda is reality. You need to give it up and show a little love to those who live in Dreamworld!

 

[audimus]

Also, I am not positioning my listening tests as solid evidence for people in our camp. It is there to appease the people from the other side who say "he doesn't listen."

And that is exactly where not documenting it once fails to convince/appease the other camp which was my point. On one hand you are saying “trust me, I know what I am doing and I am doing it right” which is fine for people in your camp and then expecting that people outside that camp accept it prima facie when the manufacturers suggest that you don’t. Getting indignant when the latter happens isn’t going to help.

 

[amirm]

Does this say anywhere what volume level he used for testing? I'm assuming 100 but just wanted to confirm.

It was set to 100.

 

[anmpr1]

Back in the day, PS Audio was in the business of selling low priced but decent value electronics. They began advertising their phono stage in the back pages of Audio magazine, offering 'high end' for less dollars than anyone else. I owned both their phono and line stage. Cheap, but good value. It fell apart after a few years, but at the price point, what did I expect? I owned their el-cheapo MC head amplifier. The only alternative for the dollars was building something like Marshall Leach's battery powered head amp for nothing, or paying an outfit like Marcof to build one for you. So I have nothing personal against PS, and liked what they did, back then.

But this machine is ridiculous.

 

[audimus]

The most frustrating thing here is that the manufacturers are dodging the confrontation. The listening test doesn't rank high in the reason why they've taken notice, though.

I am guessing a lot of people here come from a technical profession for whom simply stating facts and observations slays the dragon.

They are not dodging the confrontation. They are calling it “fake news” and dismissing it. All of it. They are taking notice only to maintain their narrative where their audience is.

This is what happens in any business. You are bombarded every day with information that contradicts your narrative, some justified and some not. You don’t get anywhere in business by just folding. Not condoning this, just saying that is the norm.

 

[mkawa]

seems like an interesting experiment that is a complete failure. i don't understand -- how can one ship a product like this in good conscience? a negative result should be great motivation for continuing R&D, not shipping product.. the only situations i know of where something like this has happened was situations where either the engineer was too stubborn to believe his own measurements, or when the company was in "make it or break it" mode and just had to ship _something_.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Ted Smith answered few minutes ago on PS Audio Forum:

"tashnishedears has stated my feelings and intent well. I can lower the noise in the audio band and more and more aggressively filter the resultant ultrasonic noise: but everyone that has listened to that likes the sound less (tho I certainty expect that some would like the filtered top better.) If someone doesn’t like the DS’s sound then the DS isn’t for them, no problem, there are a lot of fine DACs out there (and TTs, etc.)
I could skip the transformer, but then the DS would integrate well into fewer systems and have more analog noise. Sure there are a lot of better transformers out there, but they cost too much for a product at this price point. I’m reasonably happy with the performance of the transformers we use. When I started the project I thought that transformers were crazy for this application and did a lot of work that avoided them, but the very first time I simply passively filtered a DSD stream with resistors, caps and a transformer I knew I was on the right track and I had to learn and changed my mind about transformers.
I’m not going to waste my time reading and rebutting the other stuff at his site, I’ve been there before and see how he treats people and how he learns. In any real conversation each party must expect to possibly change their mind. I know that I’m not going to change my mind based on anything amirm says and I know that he’s not going to change his mind based on anything I say. There’s no end in sight in such a circumstance and I don’t need to waste my time making him happy.
I wrote what I thought about his review earlier and knew full well that someone would point him to it. I have in the past privately emailed some more detailed rational for the choices I’ve made to some members of this forum, but some of those private emails were immediately posted on other forums so I have stopped answering technical questions to most people in email.
As anyone who has been here for any length of time knows I’m happy to answer questions that are asked in good faith and I think many of the above questions deserve a good answer, on the other hand I’ve answered most of the questions on asked on this thread before elsewhere (even when I knew that some of the posters were trolls.)
Some people thrive in a contentious environment and some people like a spirited debate, but I don’t enjoy either now that I’m no longer a teenager (no denigration or judgement intended about other’s who are different than I am) so I’m not going to read any more of this thread."

 

[mkawa]

guess it's the latter.

 

[maxxevv]

Interesting.

What were the DACs? How did you deal to match levels considering higher output of the DAC 3 (Or Qutest in 3V mode)?

Also, what was the exact process of the semi-blind tests? Could be relevant to everybody here.

Did every listener give clearly usables stats? If the results were somewhat 28% 23%, 22%, 27%, it may be attributed to a randomness factor. Would you tell us more?

Yes it would be good to know the protcol / test process. It will go a long towards understanding what was going on.

I'm always curious as to why different good measuring devices (789 and Atom) can both be good and bad sounding to a group of people.

And how some poor measuring ones can sound alright and how some can obviously sound broken as @amirm has cited a few times in his subjective listening impressions.

I certainly would like to understand the underlying reasons behind the disconnects, which seem somewhat random so far.

 

[murraycamp]

Getting indignant when the latter happens isn’t going to help.

Where was he indignant?