Quality Control says that the Pico logo is on the top right.
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Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC
- Thread starter amirm
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I tend to agree with Krunok, esthetics carry some importance for me. I gladly pay extra for a nice wood finish and grill cloth on the various Pro monitors, they are butt ugly. Wouldn't have to cost a fortune. My HSU's look handsome in their Rosenut finish. My room size, etc; restrict me to stand monitors, but why do they all have to be fugly?
Just doing ball busting for fun.Corrected. Multitasking by watching the news and typing at the same time.
Nothing like doing 0-120mph runs on a Dyno that can only handle 60mph.
At the bottom of his test it says it's a 4262.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:
View attachment 34527
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.
https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/4262/picoscope-4262-overview
In studios they actually look ok, but as soon as you put them in a room they turn that butt ugly face.
Especially if you also lower transmission losses to have your car look even more "muscle"!
16 bits!
In studios they actually look ok, but as soon as you put them in a room they turn that butt ugly face.
I had envisioned mine behind a screen when I got them...
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
I wonder, does this DAC actually sound a bit like analogue tape? Some of the subjective reviews give that impression and perhaps that's why they like it so much? Example <https://www.stereophile.com/content/ps-audio-perfectwave-directstream-da-processor-page-2>
You better listen to them with your eyes closed!
That does help. At least covering the front power lights, which must have a double use as backyard spotlights, helped my night vision while watching movies...
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
Has anyone here heard any of the Unity Audio 'The Rock' speakers? They make pro speakers but also "hi-fi" versions that look not bad at all. <https://unityaudioproducts.co.uk/boulder-hifi.php>In studios they actually look ok, but as soon as you put them in a room they turn that butt ugly face.
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I'd probably be satisfied with those as well, but that misses the point. A single SINAD score doesn't tell us everything we might need to know about the DAC. My example would be fine on a sensitive horn system, but a DAC with -90dB noise floor might not. Both could have the same SINAD ranking.
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Only if you crank horns to 120dB+ (which you won't) and you have less than 30dB of noise in your room (which you don't).
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