Review and Measurements of Paradigm PW-Link Streamer/DAC

[Peen]

Listening to a streaming service or ?
wifi or LAN ?

Basically I have going from old VSX1121K AVR (Preout) > PW-Link > Crown amp. Just wanted ARC to clean up bass that MCACC cannot do.

It happens on ethernet and Wi-Fi.

 

[Laserjock]

Basically I have going from old VSX1121K AVR (Preout) > PW-Link > Crown amp. Just wanted ARC to clean up bass that MCACC cannot do.

It happens on ethernet and Wi-Fi.

So, you’re just using it for room correction? Guess I’m not sure how it works this way.

 

[Peen]

So, you’re just using it for room correction? Guess I’m not sure how it works this way.

Just sitting in between my AVR (Pre-Pro) and amp. Works great when it doesn't go into standby

 

[DonM]

I'm having issues with mine going into standby. I moved my PW-Link to a system that uses that RCA inputs, so the PW-Link is all analog. Sometimes it will wake up from standby, other times it will not. It will even go into standby sometimes listening while listening to music! I even tried taping the volume button, but it still goes into standby. I didn't have this issue with optical input. Unfortunately, I can only run analog the way I have this setup.

Anyone have ideas on why this might be or how to trick it to never go into standby?

I normally just use the digital and analog auxiliary inputs with my Unison which is very similar to the PW Link. When I first started using the device it would also fail sometimes to wake up from standby. I found the following instructions which solved the problem:

"AUTO AUX INPUT MODE: Unison can be
configured to automatically select the Auxiliary
input when DTS Play-Fi is turned off. This mode
can be useful when using the Unison to improve TV
audio. To enable auto input mode hold the input
button for five seconds. Hold it again for five seconds
to cancel."

Let us know if this fixes your current issue.

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

I’ve been looking for an inexpensive entry into digital domain room correction and somehow this device has escaped me, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve looked at this review several times previously. If this works as it should it will be an amazing bang for the buck, and a severely overlooked product (at least for my needs)

 

[DonM]

I’ve been looking for an inexpensive entry into digital domain room correction and somehow this device has escaped me, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve looked at this review several times previously. If this works as it should it will be an amazing bang for the buck, and a severely overlooked product (at least for my needs)

I purchased the Martin Logan Unison for the same reason. I did not have the experience or qualifications to determine the room correction settings on my own. Yes it has been overlooked but that will prove to be a positive since you can still purchase one.

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

I purchased the Martin Logan Unison for the same reason. I did not have the experience or qualifications to determine the room correction settings on my own. Yes it has been overlooked but that will prove to be a positive since you can still purchase one.

I have one on order already .

I know people have mixed experiences with Play-Fi, and while that is not my primary interest in this unit, I do have a Klipsch Powergate and find that Play-Fi works well for me on it.

 

[nathan]

I normally just use the digital and analog auxiliary inputs with my Unison which is very similar to the PW Link. When I first started using the device it would also fail sometimes to wake up from standby. I found the following instructions which solved the problem:

"AUTO AUX INPUT MODE: Unison can be
configured to automatically select the Auxiliary
input when DTS Play-Fi is turned off. This mode
can be useful when using the Unison to improve TV
audio. To enable auto input mode hold the input
button for five seconds. Hold it again for five seconds
to cancel."

Let us know if this fixes your current issue.

BINGO. I was going to go dig this up from my notes but I am glad you beat me to it. This is what I had to do on my PW LINK and my PW AMP and on my Martin Logan FORTE (which is a version of the PW AMP but slightly better imo). Yes, I bought one of each since they were silly cheap when on close out. I mean, the digital amp in the AMP and the FORTE is worth the $250 price point on it's own, but then you add in ARC and a subwoofer crossover / bass management system built in, and it's a steal......

EXCEPT for stupid PlayFi, no real remote control outside the buggy proprietary app, and no option to use a universal IR or IP or RF or Bluetooth remote control.

(Had I understood how bad playfi is, I would have ONLY purchased the ML versions of this device, since they support Airplay and the Paradigm versions do not support Airplay. This seems to be the only difference between them.)

(To get around the remote control problem, I had to add a cheap extra DAC with a variable output just to get a remote control volume setup working with my universal remote since the only other option was to sit there with the buggy playfi app running all the time in order to change the volume or walk over to the machine and do it manually.)

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

BINGO. I was going to go dig this up from my notes but I am glad you beat me to it. This is what I had to do on my PW LINK and my PW AMP and on my Martin Logan FORTE (which is a version of the PW AMP but slightly better imo). Yes, I bought one of each since they were silly cheap when on close out. I mean, the digital amp in the AMP and the FORTE is worth the $250 price point on it's own, but then you add in ARC and a subwoofer crossover / bass management system built in, and it's a steal......

EXCEPT for stupid PlayFi, no real remote control outside the buggy proprietary app, and no option to use a universal IR or IP or RF or Bluetooth remote control.

(Had I understood how bad playfi is, I would have ONLY purchased the ML versions of this device, since they support Airplay and the Paradigm versions do not support Airplay. This seems to be the only difference between them.)

(To get around the remote control problem, I had to add a cheap extra DAC with a variable output just to get a remote control volume setup working with my universal remote since the only other option was to sit there with the buggy playfi app running all the time in order to change the volume or walk over to the machine and do it manually.)

For some reason I didn’t see the Unison for sale when I grabbed the PW-Link, but it’s right there on their site. Thankfully Airplay isn’t a huge selling point for me, and from the photos, the Paradigm seems slight more visually appealing (not that I plan to have it out for display). I’m mostly excited for digital domain ARC for cheap. I’ve been lucky with Play-Fi as a streaming target for Spotify.

 

[Rebelhifi]

Updated to the latest software and ran the room correction. I got the following (Apple Music - Airport Express - Toslink in on PW Link - Toslink out - Topping E30 - Schiit Freya II - Martin Logan Purity.

 

[dshreter]

Has anyone used one of these with an LG OLED TV and gotten it to work with the TV remote? Trying to make a call if this is a good interface to match up with active speakers for TV watching.

 

[abdo123]

Has anyone used one of these with an LG OLED TV and gotten it to work with the TV remote? Trying to make a call if this is a good interface to match up with active speakers for TV watching.

I got a MiniDSP to work with LG OLED remote. So i’m sure anything of the SHD series would work great for you.

Well that is if you’re 100% certain you won’t need more than stereo.

AVRs can be easily controlled via TV remote, it’s something about the HDMI connection they introduced like few years ago.

 

[nathan]

Has anyone used one of these with an LG OLED TV and gotten it to work with the TV remote? Trying to make a call if this is a good interface to match up with active speakers for TV watching.

The PWLINK will not work with the TV remote. I have both an LG OLED and this device.

Three problems:

1) The LG TV digital output is a fixed level. This is not unusual but it means volume is at 100% all the time.
2) The LG TV (or at least mine) does not have any analog output so you can can't use that to get variable audio out (and it wouldn't be ideal anyway).
3) The Paradigm unit does not have any IR or other remote control capability. No CEC (of course). The only way to control the volume is on the front panel OR via the smart phone app.

I solved it by adding a cheap DAC from Amazon that has an IR remote and variable output.

 

[dshreter]

The PWLINK will not work with the TV remote. I have both an LG OLED and this device.

Three problems:

1) The LG TV digital output is a fixed level. This is not unusual but it means volume is at 100% all the time.
2) The LG TV (or at least mine) does not have any analog output so you can can't use that to get variable audio out (and it wouldn't be ideal anyway).
3) The Paradigm unit does not have any IR or other remote control capability. No CEC (of course). The only way to control the volume is on the front panel OR via the smart phone app.

I solved it by adding a cheap DAC from Amazon that has an IR remote and variable output.

Thank you, exactly the info I needed! What an odd device - but I guess that’s why it’s being closed out.

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

I use it between my TV and DAC and use the DAC for volume control. This is working well with active monitors and a sub. I really like the ability to do room correction in the digital path without significant degradation. It is surprising large, and is definitely slower to lock clocks than the SU-8 is, but it’s a significant improvement in SQ. There is a ton of value here, coming with ARC and the calibrated mic for $200.

 

[nathan]

Thank you, exactly the info I needed! What an odd device - but I guess that’s why it’s being closed out.

Yeah there were a handful of design decisions* that turned a brilliant $500 device into a "hard to sell $200 device that includes arguably the best room correction software around for free".


*No subwoofer output on the PWLINK even though there is one on the PWAMP. No IR remote in fact no way to adjust volume or select inputs, other than the front panel and the buggy mobile app. No Airplay support. No Chromecast support. Ridiculously small number of streaming music services supported (ie, at least half the market is not supported).

 

[dshreter]

I got a MiniDSP to work with LG OLED remote. So i’m sure anything of the SHD series would work great for you.

Well that is if you’re 100% certain you won’t need more than stereo.

AVRs can be easily controlled via TV remote, it’s something about the HDMI connection they introduced like few years ago.

A lot of roads point back to MiniDSP. Perhaps that’s the way to go, and Dirac is appealing in concept.

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

A lot of roads point back to MiniDSP. Perhaps that’s the way to go, and Dirac is appealing in concept.

While I don’t disagree, that is comparing a $200 solution to an $800 solution (for digital in and digital out), so not exactly apples to apples.

 

[dshreter]

While I don’t disagree, that is comparing a $200 solution to an $800 solution (for digital in and digital out), so not exactly apples to apples.

Indeed. It’s the only reason I don’t already own an SHD

 

[aerochrome2]

Procedure for 2.1 channel DRC with PW link.

I have written earlier that the PW link unlike the PW amp is a 2.0 unit and so ARC sees it as a 2 channel system and so provides no ability to do bass management.

If you have a separate sub, this may not only make the correction unsatisfactory but possibly even worse because of the way ARC genesis works.

To incorporate a sub, here are the steps and workarounds and some tips from my experimentation.

There are 3 things bass management does that is important:

1. The crossover setting between the main speakers and the sub
2. The correction for distance between them
3. The level balance between them

Most modern equipment preamps, integrated amps, AVRs, etc should allow at least the first and third.

You cannot use the PW link to connect to a power amp directly and also connect to a sub woofer (even a powered one).

So, I will assume you have something downstream (integrated amp, receiver/AVR, etc) that you can connect to with bass management even if a minimal one.

Before you use PW link DRC, you will need to set up bass management. Then for pw link, it will look like two full range speakers. Not as ideal as seeing all three separately because the left and right corrections may clash with each other but reasonably acceptable.

Crossover frequencies:
You will need to decide on your own what crossover frequency to use for the sub woofer. Either by using something like REW (you can use the ARC mic to do this) to measure all speakers and decide what works or you can pick a couple reasonable ones like 80hz and 100hz and try the PW link DRC in each case and see which end result sounds better for you.

Distance setting:
This is not easy to do for a subwoofer (REW acoustic reference is outside the subwoofer range to get accurate results) even with tools so just eyeball the distances and set that in your downstream component assuming this setting is available. It is not that critical.

Level balancing:

This is critical to get a good DRC. But there is a twist to normal level balancing before applying DRC, especially with the 2 channel only correction as in this case. A target to get good DRC measurement is setting the speaker out level as measured by a mic or spl meter at 75db or about 30db above floor noise level whichever is greater with -20db pink noise generator and -10db preamp gain.

First, ARC requires more, so I had to set it for the above to balance and then crank up the preamp gain to 0db reference level to measure reliably with ARC.

Second, you will find that setting the subwoofer output level about 10db higher (by turning up the gain in the powered subwoofer and/or the pre gain for the sub out in the pre) relative to the L and R before correction yields better results with this procedure here. The reason is partly the way ARC genesis works as explained below.

Once you do the above, the the procedure is as guided by ARC to measure and get the L and R with the downstream crossover making each speaker look full range.

You can use ARC genesis in auto mode and see if the correction sounds good. It may or may not with a separate subwoofer. To see if the correction has a problem with lower frequencies, you will need to go into the manual/professional mode. You can open the auto-corrected saved file in this mode and look at the target adjustments being made where you can specify your own target slopes, etc.

An important thing to check here is whether the crossover frequency used by ARC genesis to generate for the auto mode is near the crossover frequency you have set downstream. It shouldn’t be. In fact, it should be as low as possible to the hearing threshold or at least below 30hz, so that the L and R are treated as LARGE speakers. The software does not allow you to specify this explicitly. If it is at say 100hz or so, then no DRC is applied below that frequency for the L and R speakers and since PW link only does L and R, you are not getting any DRC using PW link where it makes the most difference!

You may be tempted to change this frequency in the ARC genesis software to extend the target to cover the lower frequencies and regenerate but this is not the best thing to do and may make it sound worse by trying to boost the lower frequencies with filters.

If you are getting the used crossover frequency in ARC genesis well into the sub woofer range (50-100hz) then this means the relative subwoofer level you had picked earlier was too low. This is what happens if you had set the subwoofer level to be similar to the mains. This is why setting 10db or so over mains for subwoofer is necessary. If you set it this way, then you will see ARC genesis has set the crossover frequency closer to 20hz or so and so doing the DRC over the entire range and so the sounds from your downstream 2.1 with the crossover will be much smoother and better.

And a final tip on the correction at higher frequencies. ARC by default uses a 5khz cutoff for correction. Most people even recommend not doing any correction in mid to higher frequencies. In the latest ARC Genesis software you can extend this limit to 20khz. I would say go ahead and try it because I have noticed that ARC is very conservative in what it does at higher frequencies. It appears that it is mostly using a shelf filter to lift the entire spectrum at higher frequencies and not attempting much to smooth out dips and peaks. So, this is more like setting a tonal balance especially if your speakers are too bright sounding or have a steep roll-off at higher frquencies.

Set the DRC limit to 20khz and play with the tilt to make it less bright or more to find what sounds best for you.

The above might seem like a long process but it only needs to be done once (until you rearrange the room/furniture) and the results worth it.

Stupid question. After you get the profile setup, do you readjust the gain back down 10db on the sub?