Review and Measurements of Paradigm PW-Link Streamer/DAC

[batfunk]

A part from a loudspeaker upgrade, Room correction is the better way to upgrade sound and pwlink the cheapest way to do it without manual tuning. Enjoy!

 

[markie900]

I got my unit shipped to me today. I will be setting it up shortly. One question, where do I find the microphone's serial number in order to get the right calibration file? I couldn't fint it written on the actual mic itself. Any ideas? Anything I might have missed?

 

[markie900]

I got my unit shipped to me today. I will be setting it up shortly. One question, where do I find the microphone's serial number in order to get the right calibration file? I couldn't fint it written on the actual mic itself. Any ideas? Anything I might have missed?

Yes, I bought it used. Everything inside the box is intact and all accessories are there. But I don't seem to find the S/N of the mic.

 

[batfunk]

Did you download Arc Genesis? Send a screen cap.

 

[batfunk]

The serial number is on your microphone box(6 digit number

 

[Kunaal]

My Saga continues:

Soooo, after receiving the PW link and playing with ARC Genesis for a while, I have made a startling revelation. My Right tweeter (ATF Ribbon driver) is busted!! You know this is a relief because for some time I thought I was going deaf in the right ear or the room was bright on the left ( where there is a solid wall as opposed to stairs going up on the right) I can now confirm after running ARC that it was the tweeter.

I believe the crossover point is around 3500 Hz. After this discovery I played with the Balance on my preamp to confirm this too. There is a decline in volume at 3K and a sharp drop off at around 10-12000 Hz. (Thank god for those 10 minute single frequency files on Youtube.!!)

But since I love how these speakers sounded (and Looked!) before they started to give me issues, I wrote to Martin Logan for a replacement part but got no response. Instead of calling them, I took the speaker apart and found a part number on the driver itself and LO and behold there was a used one on Ebay for $100 which is making its way to me. I hope this works out since I really dont wat to shell out for another $2.5K or more for a pair of fronts. And I much prefer the sound of the Mosaics to the Motion 40i/60ti that replaced them! Mosaics have ATF for their tweeters AND Mids trancducer. Whereas the Motions use cone woofers for mids. Also, the dipole nature of the Mosaic gives a wider and higher sound stage than the motion series, which admittedly sound pretty good too.

The graph of my discovery is attached. This is turning out to be a good little investment, if for nothing else but diagnostics for your system. I'll update the thread when I have everything going again. In the meantime I have my 120" Screen home theatre supported by my ancient PSB T45 towers from the bedroom (which are a tonal mismatch to the Fresco center but whatever) I had to do something for the kids since Star Wars 9 is out today on Disney+ ;-p As you can see ARC by itself did a fairly decent job, except it cant compensate for a bad driver!!

 

[ed3lva]

I was wondering if I can introduce one of these units to my setup which consists of a NAD 375BEE Integrated Amp and a Logitech Squeezebox Touch.

 

[markie900]

My Saga continues:

Soooo, after receiving the PW link and playing with ARC Genesis for a while, I have made a startling revelation. My Right tweeter (ATF Ribbon driver) is busted!! You know this is a relief because for some time I thought I was going deaf in the right ear or the room was bright on the left ( where there is a solid wall as opposed to stairs going up on the right) I can now confirm after running ARC that it was the tweeter.

I believe the crossover point is around 3500 Hz. After this discovery I played with the Balance on my preamp to confirm this too. There is a decline in volume at 3K and a sharp drop off at around 10-12000 Hz. (Thank god for those 10 minute single frequency files on Youtube.!!)

But since I love how these speakers sounded (and Looked!) before they started to give me issues, I wrote to Martin Logan for a replacement part but got no response. Instead of calling them, I took the speaker apart and found a part number on the driver itself and LO and behold there was a used one on Ebay for $100 which is making its way to me. I hope this works out since I really dont wat to shell out for another $2.5K or more for a pair of fronts. And I much prefer the sound of the Mosaics to the Motion 40i/60ti that replaced them! Mosaics have ATF for their tweeters AND Mids trancducer. Whereas the Motions use cone woofers for mids. Also, the dipole nature of the Mosaic gives a wider and higher sound stage than the motion series, which admittedly sound pretty good too.

The graph of my discovery is attached. This is turning out to be a good little investment, if for nothing else but diagnostics for your system. I'll update the thread when I have everything going again. In the meantime I have my 120" Screen home theatre supported by my ancient PSB T45 towers from the bedroom (which are a tonal mismatch to the Fresco center but whatever) I had to do something for the kids since Star Wars 9 is out today on Disney+ ;-p As you can see ARC by itself did a fairly decent job, except it cant compensate for a bad driver!!




View attachment 61910

This is quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. Indeed, ARC can be used for troubleshooting. Looking forward to doing my own tests this week. Will share my results with you soon!

 

[markie900]

I was wondering if I can introduce one of these units to my setup which consists of a NAD 375BEE Integrated Amp and a Logitech Squeezebox Touch.

Yes, I believe you could, but I will let other people validate that because I am by no means an expert. If you want to use the Logitech as your main streamer, you could connect it to the Digital Input interface on the PW link. Use the RCA output on the the PW link and connect it to one of your RCA inputs on the NAD 375BEE. This enables you to keep using the Logitech as your main streamer while leveraging ARC by introducing the PW link between your main components.

 

[markie900]

The serial number is on your microphone box(6 digit number

I am pretty sure the microphone was just wrapped inside plastic. No box from what I could see. I will check again when I get back home. Do I need the S/N if I am to use my mic together with the ARC Genesis software?

 

[ed3lva]

Yes, I believe you could, but I will let other people validate that because I am by no means an expert. If you want to use the Logitech as your main streamer, you could connect it to the Digital Input interface on the PW link. Use the RCA output on the the PW link and connect it to one of your RCA inputs on the NAD 375BEE. This enables you to keep using the Logitech as your main streamer while leveraging ARC by introducing the PW link between your main components.

Great. Thanks for the reply. I’ll be ordering one soon.

 

[markie900]

Did you download Arc Genesis? Send a screen cap.

I tried Anthem's room correction software today. Did a quick measurement test just to try it out with 5 measurement points. Look at these graphs and the correction curve. I am positively amazed. I will play around with my system more tomorrow and compare results.

 

[batfunk]

You can make measurements with your mobile phone and Arc App. It's as efficient as Arc Micro according Reviewers.

 

[markie900]

I listened some more today. What a difference it did to my system. I have a pair of Paradigm 800Fs. My system feels significantly more balanced now, allowing the soundstage to come alive. The bass is quick and hits pretty hard but without really taking over. I do however feel like the bass could be a bit more aggressive. I will play around with the ARC settings and change a few parameters to get it to sound just right.

 

[nathan]

I am pretty sure the microphone was just wrapped inside plastic. No box from what I could see. I will check again when I get back home. Do I need the S/N if I am to use my mic together with the ARC Genesis software?

The microphones included with the PW Link and PW Amp don't have serial numbers. They are not individually calibrated like the ARC microphones with the more expensive Anthem gear. But they way better than other consumer stuff like the pucks included with some gear.

I do wish Anthem would enable use of third party microphones like the UMIK1with their software (including the mic calibration files) but that would just be a nice to have, rather than critical feature. The mic included with the PW LINK is good enough from what I can tell.

I'll double check it with REW when I get my UMIK1 back from a friend for comparison to confirm.

 

[Madhatter19]

I’ve had this unit for a year. I was using a dragonfly dac for most of my music but used this for a wireless option. I have a 2 channel set up with a McIntosh MX 134 and a McIntosh MC352 power amp and Signature S8 towers. The reviewer is absolutely correct. The software is broken. In the 8 years I’ve had my McIntosh set up I’ve never once heard distortion until of course I started to push the volume with the pw link. Garbage in-garbage out as they say.
Some tracks are actually so bad I’m unable to listen to them. At volume, the distortion in the highs seemly removes any low end. Like the reviewer indicates.
I bought this blind without looking at reviews. Mostly because it was a cheap wireless option but more so because it was from Paradigm. I made the wrong assumption that it would be quality sound because of the history. A friend and fellow audiophile said it best when he heard it “you really have to try hard to make McIntosh gear sound harsh, but you did it”

 

[pjug]

Arc Genesis 1.2.3 is available: https://www.anthemarc.com/downloads/beta.php

One thing that was bothering me about using the PW Link was that the quick measure wasn't allowing a comparison of EQ'd vs no EQ. It seems they may have fixed that. From release notes:

fixed an issue where quick measure was not working on the Paradigm PW 600/800/Amp/Link and MartinLogan Forte/Bravado/Unison

I hope to play around with the new software this weekend.

 

[hen613]

I recently got the PW Link. Does anyone else have any issue turning on the power? It turns off everytime, but to turn it on, I have to hit the power button multiple times... (most of the time the power button just lights up for 0.5 second but unit doesn't boot up)??? Thanks.

 

[nathan]

Anyone know how to do a complete factory reset on the PW AMP? I am wanting to use it JUST as an AMP for a while, fixed output, no switching inputs, no ARC.

Default behavior is for the volume control to impact output level on the speaker outputs on the PW AMP, but one can set it up for a fixed line level output (otherwise one is left guessing what volume setting in neutral gain) by pressing the MUTE + DOWN VOLUME buttons for five seconds on the PW LINK. I think / suspect / hope the PW AMP works the same way. (This is a toggle.) So that SHOULD solve the output level I think.

Also, one can turn ARC off and on by holding the MUTE button for five seconds on the PWLINK. Nice way to a/b the impact of ARC. And in my use case, hopefully this will defeat any ARC processing on the PW AMP if I cannot manage to do a factory reset.

Finally, to avoid playing whack-a-mole with input selection one can set it to default to external inputs when playfi is not active by holding the input button for five seconds on the PW LINK. (This is useful if one is using the streaming features sometimes, and other times wants the external input to be active -- just stop the playfi streaming, and it will revert back to accepting the input from the external inputs.) Hopefully the PW AMP works the same way so it is just plug and play.

 

[nathan]

I recently got the PW Link. Does anyone else have any issue turning on the power? It turns off everytime, but to turn it on, I have to hit the power button multiple times... (most of the time the power button just lights up for 0.5 second but unit doesn't boot up)??? Thanks.

I haven't seen this but I have also used the toggle to have it default to the external input....and it seems to have signal sensing and just turn on when there is an external signal.