Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC

[AudioSceptic]

Yes, indeed, it seems logical. But I don't think logic will reconcile the objective vs subjective perspectives.

The description from the PS Audio website includes this:

Imagine going to a recording studio and listening to a master tape of any recording made. This is the experience DirectStream provides its owners who enjoy a renewed sense of enjoyment and discovery when listening to everything in their library: CD’s, downloads, DSD.​

The irony is that the PS Audio might be worse than analogue tape.

Edit: Analogue tape at its best: 13 bits or -78 dB. PS Audio SINAD: -76 dB.

 

[Krunok]

I wouldn't take this too strict. Neumann also writes on their homepage:

The KH 420 is designed for midfield applications and as main monitor in project, music, broadcast and post-production studios for recording, mixing and mastering.​

I use the predecessor of the KH 310 (K&H O300D) with a listening distance of 3.8 m in a 50 squaremeter room and the sound is very good (with a sub, but is was also good without sub before).

My listening room is about that size as well. I don't doubt KH 310 with sub sound good but I would always put more trust in F208 paired with sub to fill that space with music compared to KH 310. Fact is that KH 310 was designed as a nearfield monitor and trust me it would look quite different if Neumann design enginners were told it would be playing in a 50m2 room from 3.8m distance.

I didn't talk about looks, but about the experience listening to master tape recording in a studio as advertised by PS. Being strict even the looks of the studio equipment belongs to this experience.

These were your words:
"Combining a RME ADI-2 DAC with any Neumann speaker will give you an experience which in my view cannot be topped by consumer gear in the same price range, probably not for much more money."

I simply said you can easilly find consumer gear that would sound equally good (if not even better) and certainly look much better, for the same ammount of money, if not cheaper. So let's not get carried away too much with using studio equipment at our homes.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Yes, ad copy is most enjoyable while on the toilet, producing some of my own. It's why I have subscriptions to so many audio magazines.

There's such a weird level of religious adoration that occurs in audiophilia much of the time. Many enthusiasts seem to have the belief that because they like a product, or company, or designer - that it inherently means there can't be a failure at all. Or worse, that the preference directly correlates to performance or accuracy. I can totally understand loving a poorly measuring device based on subjective impressions of either audio or just aesthetics. What I don't understand is complete denial of measurements or treating reviews with unfavorable conclusions as a personal attack on either the consumer or the manufacturer.

I very seriously doubt that Audio Research gear is the best measuring gear in hifi... and I wouldn't take umbrage with anyone that said they were way overpriced and way under-performing. It wouldn't change the fact that I know I'd think a pair of these were absolutely incredible - even if they weren't on at the time! View attachment 34499
In fact I might just power them on for the glow and run a couple Benchmark amps hidden behind the speakers if it bugged me enough - but I'd never, ever get rid of them. (drool...)

So you're a gear fetishist? Does nothing for me, I have to say, except in a sort of Metropolis sci-fi way.

 

[AudioSceptic]

That's certainly a drawback.

I'd be quite satisfied with a 90dB-SINAD DAC that has a single H2 spike with nothing else above -120dB.

Why nothing else above -120? Why not below -100 or even -90? Allow that and a HiFiBerry will do the job for $40.

Edit: you'll also need a Raspberry Pi for similar money, but that gives you a streamer as well.

 

[AudioSceptic]

So you're a gear fetishist? Does nothing for me, I have to say, except in a sort of Metropolis sci-fi way.

It's just occurred to me that it would probably cost more to make a convincing replica of that amp that did absolutely nothing than to make SS electronics with really good performance. Those big machined enclosures ain't cheap.

 

[LTig]

My listening room is about that size as well. I don't doubt KH 310 with sub sound good but I would always put more trust in F208 paired with sub to fill that space with music compared to KH 310. Fact is that KH 310 was designed as a nearfield monitor and trust me it would look quite different if Neumann design enginners were told it would be playing in a 50m2 room from 3.8m distance.

Before I bought the O300D I had a 30 minute phone conversation with Markus Wolff, the chief designer, exactly about my use case, and it was approved by him.

I didn't talk about looks, but about the experience listening to master tape recording in a studio as advertised by PS. Being strict even the looks of the studio equipment belongs to this experience

These were your words:
"Combining a RME ADI-2 DAC with any Neumann speaker will give you an experience which in my view cannot be topped by consumer gear in the same price range, probably not for much more money."

Yep, and they were meant exactly for this experience (listening to master tape recordings in a studio) advertised by PS.
I have to admit though that I stand to this statement out of this context as well.

I simply said you can easilly find consumer gear that would sound equally good (if not even better) and certainly look much better, for the same ammount of money, if not cheaper. So let's not get carried away too much with using studio equipment at our homes.

European prices: Neumann KH 310: ~3600 €; Revel F208: ~6200 € plus you need a power amp; not really cheaper I'd say. The better candiate for comparison would be the KH 420 (~7400 €).

Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[Krunok]

Before I bought the O300D I had a 30 minute phone conversation with Markus Wolff, the chief designer, exactly about my use case, and it was approved by him.

Yep, and they were meant exactly for this experience (listening to master tape recordings in a studio) advertised by PS.
I have to admit though that I stand to this statement out of this context as well.


European prices: Neumann KH 310: ~3600 €; Revel F208: ~6200 € plus you need a power amp; not really cheaper I'd say. The better candiate for comparison would be the KH 420 (~7400 €).

Let's just agree to disagree.

Let's try to agree F208 can be bought for 5500 EUR, at least in Netherlands.
https://www.audiofile.nl/revel-f208-performa3

 

[LTig]

Let's at least agree F208 can be bought for 5500 EUR, at least in Netherlands.
https://www.audiofile.nl/revel-f208-performa3

Good to know. I had difficulties to find any dealer with prices in the first place.

 

[Krunok]

Good to know. I had difficulties to find any dealer with prices in the first place.

Ok, so:

300 EUR for SMSL SU-8, 5500 EUR for F208 and 1500 EUR for Rotel = 7300 EUR

1000 EUR for RME ADI-2 DAC + 7400 EUR for KH 420 = 8400 EUR

So, I spent 1100 EUR more and I still have to look at ugly black boxes every day. And I would also have to buy some stands for KH 420, right?
I don't think pro variant (RME ADI-2 + KH 420) would be my favorite here..

 

[JJB70]

I actually went through the thread on the PS Audio website and found it really rather enjoyable, in these troubled times it is nice to have a bit of light relief. I can't help thinking that Ted should take communication lessons from his boss, Paul McGowan is a masterly communicator who can spin things so well that the majority of his viewers completely fail to notice just what he is saying as they get carried away by his delivery and tone. You can almost imagine him doing one of his videos in response to this review "...well Amir, that's a great review, waffle waffle waffle, talk about something else entirely, waffle waffle waffle...well folks you can see just what a standout DAC this is...blah blah blah" and do it so well his fans wouldn't notice he'd said nothing at all, avoided the issue and basically just spun some delightfully delivered BS. Note to Ted, you could learn from that, as it stands you just look like an ill mannered moron who doesn't know how to design DACs.

The response of people like Ted makes sense if you remember his target audience is not people on this board, his target audience is PS Audio fans who "know" that this DAC sounds terrific and to confirm the bias of his fans. Reviews like Amir's are potentially an existential threat to company's like PS should they start to leak into the PS fan base. The standard response is to shoot the messenger at the same time as using everybit of disinformation available to try and undermine the credibility of objective measurement. They aren't bothered what I think as I'm not a customer, the only people that matter are those willing to hand over $$$$$$$$'s, hence the various linguistic tricks to consolidate the group think mentality and keep people in the tent.

If I compare Ted with Rob Watts, Watts also says some ridiculous things, appeals to the snake oil voodoo element and is quite shameless on some things but he does actually know what he is doing technically as an engineer and is clearly highly competent. Ted is just an incompetent buffoon who needs some lessons in communication from his boss.

 

[LTig]

Ok, so:

300 EUR for SMSL SU-8, 5500 EUR for F208 and 1500 EUR for Rotel = 7300 EUR

1000 EUR for RME ADI-2 DAC + 7400 EUR for KH 420 = 8400 EUR

So, I spent 1100 EUR more and I still have to look at ugly black boxes every day. And I would also have to buy some stands for KH 420, right?

Let me suggest KH750 as stand ...

I don't think pro variant (RME ADI-2 + KH 420) would be my favorite here..

As long as the wife agrees ...

 

[Krunok]

Let me suggest KH750 as stand ...

As long as the wife agrees ...

If you're merried long enough you know that such agreements always come with the price.

 

[SIY]

I actually went through the thread on the PS Audio website and found it really rather enjoyable, in these troubled times it is nice to have a bit of light relief. I can't help thinking that Ted should take communication lessons from his boss, Paul McGowan is a masterly communicator who can spin things so well that the majority of his viewers completely fail to notice just what he is saying as they get carried away by his delivery and tone. You can almost imagine him doing one of his videos in response to this review "...well Amir, that's a great review, waffle waffle waffle, talk about something else entirely, waffle waffle waffle...well folks you can see just what a standout DAC this is...blah blah blah" and do it so well his fans wouldn't notice he'd said nothing at all, avoided the issue and basically just spun some delightfully delivered BS. Note to Ted, you could learn from that, as it stands you just look like an ill mannered moron who doesn't know how to design DACs.

The response of people like Ted makes sense if you remember his target audience is not people on this board, his target audience is PS Audio fans who "know" that this DAC sounds terrific and to confirm the bias of his fans. Reviews like Amir's are potentially an existential threat to company's like PS should they start to leak into the PS fan base. The standard response is to shoot the messenger at the same time as using everybit of disinformation available to try and undermine the credibility of objective measurement. They aren't bothered what I think as I'm not a customer, the only people that matter are those willing to hand over $$$$$$$$'s, hence the various linguistic tricks to consolidate the group think mentality and keep people in the tent.

If I compare Ted with Rob Watts, Watts also says some ridiculous things, appeals to the snake oil voodoo element and is quite shameless on some things but he does actually know what he is doing technically as an engineer and is clearly highly competent. Ted is just an incompetent buffoon who needs some lessons in communication from his boss.

"A talented con man, or a slick politician, does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics. His job is to keep the true believers believing." - Thomas Sowell

 

[GrimSurfer]

I actually went through the thread on the PS Audio website and found it really rather enjoyable, in these troubled times it is nice to have a bit of light relief. I can't help thinking that Ted should take communication lessons from his boss, Paul McGowan is a masterly communicator who can spin things so well that the majority of his viewers completely fail to notice just what he is saying as they get carried away by his delivery and tone. You can almost imagine him doing one of his videos in response to this review "...well Amir, that's a great review, waffle waffle waffle, talk about something else entirely, waffle waffle waffle...well folks you can see just what a standout DAC this is...blah blah blah" and do it so well his fans wouldn't notice he'd said nothing at all, avoided the issue and basically just spun some delightfully delivered BS. Note to Ted, you could learn from that, as it stands you just look like an ill mannered moron who doesn't know how to design DACs.

The response of people like Ted makes sense if you remember his target audience is not people on this board, his target audience is PS Audio fans who "know" that this DAC sounds terrific and to confirm the bias of his fans. Reviews like Amir's are potentially an existential threat to company's like PS should they start to leak into the PS fan base. The standard response is to shoot the messenger at the same time as using everybit of disinformation available to try and undermine the credibility of objective measurement. They aren't bothered what I think as I'm not a customer, the only people that matter are those willing to hand over $$$$$$$$'s, hence the various linguistic tricks to consolidate the group think mentality and keep people in the tent.

If I compare Ted with Rob Watts, Watts also says some ridiculous things, appeals to the snake oil voodoo element and is quite shameless on some things but he does actually know what he is doing technically as an engineer and is clearly highly competent. Ted is just an incompetent buffoon who needs some lessons in communication from his boss.

The price for which people sell their integrity gets lower by the day. I have no doubt that some of the participants on the PS Audio forum calculate that their loyalty will be rewarded by some kind of downstream benefit (discount, warranty support). This is a false economy, as whatever support they receive is a function of the profit PS Audio derived from their previous purchase.

In other words, people expecting a benefit from brand loyalty are hoping to be bribed with their own money.

I find the whole thing rather amusing...

 

[Ron Texas]

Ok, so:

300 EUR for SMSL SU-8, 5500 EUR for F208 and 1500 EUR for Rotel = 7300 EUR

1000 EUR for RME ADI-2 DAC + 7400 EUR for KH 420 = 8400 EUR

So, I spent 1100 EUR more and I still have to look at ugly black boxes every day. And I would also have to buy some stands for KH 420, right?
I don't think pro variant (RME ADI-2 + KH 420) would be my favorite here..

F208's are a lot less expensive in the US. Not sure why you would want a Rotel amp when you could have Hypex for the same money or less. Got to agree with you on the 420's. IMO, Genelec's are a better choice in the high end active monitor category. The "egg" isn't so ugly and 8341's could be driven by a cheap gadget which converts USB to AES/EBU or an even cheaper gadget if Toslink is available.

I have an itch for the F208's.

 

[Krunok]

F208's are a lot less expensive in the US. Not sure why you would want a Rotel amp when you could have Hypex for the same money or less. Got to agree with you on the 420's. IMO, Genelec's are a better choice in the high end active monitor category. The "egg" isn't so ugly and 8341's could be driven by a cheap gadget which converts USB to AES/EBU or an even cheaper gadget if Toslink is available.

I have an itch for the F208's.

There is no rational reason, I simply like that old fashioned design of Rotel - it works so well.

Btw, I'm really not convinced that nearfield monitors can match F208 at 4 meters LP in a 50m2 room, they were simply not designed for such space. Midfield monitros are of course another story.

 

[Ron Texas]

There is no rational reason, I simply like that old fashioned design of Rotel - it works so well.

Btw, I'm really not convinced that nearfield monitors can match F208 at 4 meters LP in a 50m2 room, they were simply not designed for such space. Midfield monitros are of course another story.

My room is half as large, but I could stuff the F208's in there and listen @ 2.5M. I used to have a room that large with a pair of B&W towers in there and had them set up just under 3M. My feeling is a LP beyond 3M weights the balance too much to reflected sound, for me. It might be what you like.

Part of the appeal of the F208's is they don't need sub's, unless you are bass obsessed.

 

[scott wurcer]

"A talented con man, or a slick politician, does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics. His job is to keep the true believers believing." - Thomas Sowell

Never smarten up the chumps.

 

[amirm]

I forgot to mention that the graphs I presented all were captured with a 22.4 kHz bandwidth/filter. If I did not filter such, the PS Audio DS DAC output would look far worse. I will edit the post to reflect that.

 

[amirm]

I see a couple of graphs were finally posted by Ted Smith. Alas, they create more questions than answers. Here is one of them:

The measurements are made at a low level which of course hide any chance for distortion products to show. From my measurements, distortion products are -80 dB below the signal we feed the DAC at 1 kHz. If you start with a -60 dB signal then, the distortion would be at whopping -140 dB! Can his instrumentation show this? Answer: no.

If you look on top right you see the logo "Pico." PIco makes very popular PC based oscilloscope. Since they use the PC for control, they tend to cost less than dedicated scopes and hence the reason many hobbyists use them too.

The issue with them or any scope is that they are made for speed, NOT resolution of dynamic range. We don't know which model of PIco scope Ted is used but let's pick one of their higher-end units:

As we see, the sampling rate is a huge, 1 Gigasamples/second. That is far, far higher than Kilohertz sample rate we use for audio. Since there is no free lunch in physics, when you run an ADC inside a scope that fast, you can't have accuracy or dynamic range. In that sense, even a cheap PC ADC sound card can outperform the Picoscope!

As a general rule, digital scopes are NOT suitable for audio performance analysis. They used because they are cheap but are insufficient for measurements of anything high performance.

In this case, the ADC in Picoscope is adding its own noise to the measurements and with it, can hide distortion products that we can easily unearth with 24 bit dual-ADCs in Audio Precision APx555 analyzer I use.

Yes, APx555 is expensive but it only costs the same as five PS Audio DS DACs!

So we await a proper measurement by PS Audio with a precision audio analyzer. Not an electronics design tool that the Pico scope is.