Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC

[Ron Texas]

Trust me, Australia isn't all its cracked up to be

My impression of the negative side of Australia is very high housing prices which are likely the result of an over regulated idealistic government preventing building while Chinese were moving in. However, Berlin and German culture in general doesn't do much for me either. The scuba diving in Queensland is nice.

 

[Julf]

However, Berlin doesn't do much for me either.

Berlin is very happening and creative, but also transient. People come and go.

 

[Ron Texas]

Berlin is very happening and creative, but also transient. People come and go.

The creative side I was aware of. The transient nature is new to me

 

[BDWoody]

TotalDAC and PS Audio put all those AVRs into context. I mean I don't want to defend poor measuring AVRs but those products cost an awful lot less, pack an awful lot (including 7 or more channels of power amplification, multi-mode DSP etc) and generally sound perfectly fine (whatever their measurements might say). Compared to this PS DAC or the TotalDAC DAC they're exceptional products, ot that that is saying much., but nevertheless.....

Maybe they should all do a Merger:

PS: Total Schiit

 

[Julf]

The creative side I was aware of. The transient nature is new to me

I know a lot of people who have moved on after a few years (or even less) in Berlin, but in many ways, Berlin is what Amsterdam was 20 years ago.

 

[Cortes]

My impression of the negative side of Australia is very high housing prices which are likely the result of an over regulated idealistic government preventing building while Chinese were moving in. However, Berlin and German culture in general doesn't do much for me either. The scuba diving in Queensland is nice.

I've lived in Germany and spent a few weeks in Sydney and Cairns, and I much prefer the second as well. The huge negative of Australia is how far is, and their fu..ing customs. They worsen the effects of distance. Open customs like in HK would make AU much better.

 

[Cortes]

Berlin is very happening and creative, but also transient. People come and go.

I remember the period where a great appartment or a good house cost the half

Slightly OT, I hope you get an opportunity to test out the new EtherREGEN:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...oduction/page/54/?tab=comments#comment-992008

Ether does not exist, then can regen nothing.

 

[dc655321]

Slightly OT, I hope you get an opportunity to test out the new EtherREGEN:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...oduction/page/54/?tab=comments#comment-992008

FFS... https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...ter-production/?do=findComment&comment=987461

 

[Ron Texas]

I've lived in Germany and spent a few weeks in Sydney and Cairns, and I much prefer the second as well. The huge negative of Australia is how far is, and their fu..ing customs. They worsen the effects of distance. Open customs like in HK would make AU much better.

I recall those were some of Darko's reason for leaving.

Trying to get back on topic:

I wonder what would happen if the PS Direct Stream, Yaggi, Dragonfly Red, and Khardas Tone Board were compared blind. That's two expensive and one inexpensive DAC which measure poorly but get great reviews, and an inexpensive DAC which measures really well.

It would take several testers not all as trained as our host. Either there is something to using noise or whatever to mask an undesirable aspect of digital recordings, or the glowing reviews of poorly measuring DAC's are total BS.

 

[chauct]

"Amir is an imbecile. Don't trust anyone's ears but your own. I certainly do not trust 60 year old year men ears who cannot hear above 8khz."

Let him know this is Ted Smith (on the right), the designer of DirectStream DAC:

He and Paul have more gray hairs than I do. If he doesn't trust my ears, he better be very scared of what Ted and Paul's can't hear...

He looks like the late Bob Pease.

 

[mkawa]

Slightly OT, I hope you get an opportunity to test out the new EtherREGEN:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...oduction/page/54/?tab=comments#comment-992008

holy crap. this should be illegal: false advertising or something.

 

[Cortes]

Some comments on this thread on the age and looks of Paul and Ted have very bad taste.

 

[Veri]

Some comments on this thread on the age and looks of Paul and Ted have very bad taste.

Age and audio discerning capabilities are rather correlated so I'm not surprised ..

 

[617]

Most audio people are pretty ugly imo. Paul Barton, Bob Carver, this guy at PS Audio, the Schiit guys, Thom Holman, Henry Kloss. Siegfried Linkwitz was cute though, RIP.

 

[patient_ot]

Horrendous performance for such an expensive and supposed "state of the art" device.

 

[amirm]

Let's dial out the person remarks folks.

 

[pkane]

Slightly OT, I hope you get an opportunity to test out the new EtherREGEN:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...oduction/page/54/?tab=comments#comment-992008

Anything and everything potentially can make a difference at the output of an audio system, but an ethernet switch to reduce network jitter would be one of the last places I'd look to improve the sound quality, unless latency or packet loss became a real problem. And then, I'd just get a quality switch for about $10.

 

[mkawa]

seriously. i wasn't joking. this. should. be. illegal.

 

[Delacroix]

Slightly OT, I hope you get an opportunity to test out the new EtherREGEN:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...oduction/page/54/?tab=comments#comment-992008

OT, Audiophile network switches.....?????

if your device that's connected to your router is not dropping packages from point to point internally, then you are good; you have no control what's coming to you from ISP to your home router.
work on IT and setup networks, these guys can't have figure out something that CISCO and Juniper can't do for high bandwidth and critical mission workload on datacenter/etc.

 

[amirm]

Maybe ASR should also use such numbers (separate for HD and SNR) for ranking of components.

That information is in the dashboard. Just look at the spectrum of 1 kHz. The highest level harmonic usually sets the level for total THD. Any gap between that and SINAD is then noise. In some cases SINAD is equal to the highest level harmonic which shows noise has no impact. Distortion dominates. Here, it is a bit of both:

Tallest peak is 3rd harmonic (so much for being as good as tubes with second harmonic argument). That level is about -78 dB and dwarfs the other harmonics. Since our SINAD is around 76 dB, then there is 2 to 3 dB of noise contribution on top of that.