Hey man good to hear from you and see that found my update to this old thread :)
Your points are well taken.., but... I used the VERY good glass Tos on the MSB and the CAT 6 cable from my airport extreme into the bridge of the PWD. I never tried the Tos into the PWD.
Mileage may vary.., but those were my findings :) |
Touche' my friend. However I was referring to your comparison of the PW DAC and the BIDAT. I guess mileage does vary. |
You wrote in your previous post:
"I had a PS Audio Dac about a month ago with the bridge installed. I did a head to head comparison with the MSB on RB and hiRes. I used glass tos and the Bridge."
I think you can understand my confusion. No mention of CAT 6. I'm sure it was an oversight. |
Have to agree with Vhiner. It seems everyone who as heard the PWD says that it is apples to oranges with the right HDMI cable.
I was about ready to give up on the PWT/HDMI/PWD/ due to an upper mid-range glare. But after hundreds and I mean hundreds of hours, the glare finally went away. I then inserted a Fusion Romance IC between my PWD and my amp and you couldn't prior the the PWT/PWD/Fusion Romance out of my hands now.
The PWT/PWD is considerably better than my Forsell Air Reference Transport/highly modified Audio Note DAC combo. |
i'll just reiterate how vital the hdmi connection is for the pwt/pwd combo. i will agree with Audiofun that without the hdmi, the combo is just "good". the "right" hdmi cable is a must if one expects the psa gear to compete with these big dogs imho.
will also chime in regarding the pwd/bridge combo. although i use it 80% of the time, the pwt/pwd combo still sounds better to my ears, in my system. more layers, more depth, better imaging and above all....more like live music. this coupled with the rather inconsistent sound quality of various firmware updates make me think the pwd didn't put it's best foot forward for your comparison. no doubt it's a long shot but the psa might have been in the same league if it was operating at 100%. however...same league and sounding as good are two different things.
regardless...this thread has been very enjoyable. some great info here and your time/effort is much appreciated. trying to do a comparison like this with all parties tweaked to perfection would be near impossible. it took me 6 months to get my pwt/pwd hitting on all cylinders. expecting this to be done for a comparison is a stretch to say the least.
thanks again
cheers
Lev |
Yes, i (wrongly :) assumed people would realize when i mentioned the bridge that I used cat 5 or 6 cabling. Also I do remember that I briefly used the Tos on the PWD..., was not impressed, the bridge was slightly better :)
Now I did have the transport at my diposal for a short time and I used it with a silnote coax and a synergistic research balnced as well as the top of the line ps audio HDMI cable. It was.., ok. I think the HDMI was a bit more detailed but the XLR was a little fuller.
I did not mention this as I did that testing in my uncles system and NOT directly against the MSB :)
Again, not knocking anything, just saying that for my ears, i heard nothing that would caus me to desire this unit. I did install the eLyric software.., so I certainly tried to give it a fair shake.
The transport is really really nice and I personally ( don't laugh) like it more than the $16k MBL 1611 that it replaced in my uncles system :) |
Thanks Lev:). I appreciate all you guys for appreciating the spirit of fun with which I started on this journey. As I stated before, this is just one mans opinion on a bunch of gear :) they're toys and it's fun to play with all this stuff! |
I completely respect audiofun's observations and enjoy the thread as well. One final comment on the HDMI cable as it relates to the PW DAC. Many people are not satisfied with PS Audio's HDMI cable because, in their opinion, it over emphasizes the DACs upper register,a making it sound somewhat harsh. I agree and find the Harmonic Twch Audio Only HDMI to be the perfect match. Several leading dealers recommend it as well. |
no doubt Vhiner...i agree 100%. when i took my pwt/pwd to a friends house last year, my psa I2S-AC12 sounded a bit harsh with his krell amps. he had a $25 monster hdmi laying around that we tried and it sounded better.
hdmi is no different then any other connector imho. gotta find the "right one" that works with your gear. |
Though this may be off topic a little I figured you guys might like to hear about my diverter. I have just purchased the 24/192 Sonicweld Diverter. It is supposed to ship in the next couple of weeks.
The plan is to do a head to head with the EVO into my MSB Power Dac. I will keep you posted. I've owned the HiFace which was bettered by the EVO and now I will find out if the Diverter is as good as I have read.
One Dac that I would love to try is the Empirical Audio Overdrive.., I am thinking of arranging an in home demo of the Dac. If I do I Willie course report my finding right here :) |
I read the Daggogo review of the Emperical Audio Overddrive and it sounds like a contender. I was struck by one comment the reviewer made when comparing it with several very pricey DACs, including dCS's latest. He said the differences were "subtle" and "subjective". I keep hearing this from reviewers I trust about the differences between the top 10 or 15 DACs out there, MSB and the PW DAC among the list. Anthony Cordesman wrote recently that when he listened to the latest from Boulder, Meridian, and PS Audio that each one had it's strengths. While both of these reviewers had their preferences, they were quick to caution readers that the differences were NOT dramatic once you enter this pantheon of high end DACS. Some would argue that the major differences have more to do with the analog stages than the chip sets. I bow to greater minds on that subject but I suspect we may be reaching the outer envelope of what is currently understood when it comes to digital sound reproduction...until another "Ed Meitner" comes along....not that the living one is resting on his laurels. ;-) the trickle down is resulting in some mighty fine cheaper DACS. Good news for everyone. |
Peter Breuninger of The Absolute Sound just give his 2011 Golden Ear Award to PS audio's Transport/DAC/ Bridge combines Golden Ear Award.
Here's the text:
Here's the text:
"This combination may not equal a handful of
units that cost far, far more (like the Meinter
XDS1 or the Meridian 808 Signature), but it
comes so close that differences are as much
matters of taste as of the finest nuances of
sonic detail. The sound is extraordinarily live
and detailed, and capable of getting the best
bass response out of digital. The PS gear is
detailed without any without hardness or edge
that is not on the recording. A must-hear
unit if you are trying to scale the heights of
digitalparticularly if you are not operating
on an unlimited budget. It is in the process
of becoming a full music server with its own
music-management system, and it can handle
even the highest sampling and frequency rates
with easemaking it one of the few buys with
full growth potential for the future. (Review
pending)" |
I wonder why it wasn't included in the Dagogo piece? A DAC I found interesting was the DaVinci($15k)USB DAC that's made locally(Sacramento). It's optimized for USB, but is supposed be quite good with standard connections. |
I apologize for the garbled post. I swear my iPad keyboard as a mind of it's own. ;-0 |
The Absolute Sound Golden Ear was awarded by Anthony Cordesman and not Peter Breuninger as previously posted. There was some confusion because of pre-publication posting of the information. |
I receive the Diverter HR today. I am using it with my Mac mini, pure music 1.8a ( soon to be 1.82 soon as i download it:) my Graaf Modena and MFA Ref passive attenuator. The Dac is the MSB Power Dac. I am using a Grover huffman RCA spdif cable and a standard USB cable. The sound out of the box was quite good, if a bit thin. The thinness almost immediately went the way of the dinosaurs (about 20minutes of play/power-up time) and it is now sounding very full and full of information retrieval. I find that it is better than my "real" glass Toslink from the Mac mini to the MSB. The glass Tos is very very very good and rivaled my former very expensive FIM RCA spdif cable which I still think may be the finest spdif cable i have ever heard.
The Locus Design Cynosure cable will be in my possession sometime next week and will replace the generic USB cable now employed.
The unit is beautiful and has a dot matrix display which indicates the sampling rate.
I have it burning in for the next 5 hours and will do a little more listening tonight. I was told by Josh at Sonicweld that it will need to run in at least a week to really open up.
I sold my EVO some time ago and may get another in order to do a head to head comparison. At this point a comparison would be from memory only but I would say it appears to be (at this point) at the very least every bit as resolute as my former EVO. That is big for two reasons. My EVO was more run-in and I was using my former FIM gold spdif from the EVO to my MSB.
This may not seem like very much info but please standby; as the unit breaks in I will report my findings but it certainly appears tobethe real deal! I feel I made a very good decision.... Oh and HRx recordings?!? Sound spooky good! |
Toslink is the worst connection u can use |
Tos with a real glass cable sounds awesome in my system. Most people commenting about the sound of Tos are possibly basing that on one of two thing; regurgitating what they have read or heard from others or they have listend with a plastic fiber Tos cable. I have directly compared my "real glass fiber" Tos to my former $1.7k FIM Gold digital out of the John Wright nodded Bidat and my MSB Power Dac. While I agree that as far as bandwidth goes (6.xMHZ for Tos if memory serves) Tos is the lowest on the totem pole, in my system it was fully 97% of the coax connection.
I did compare the glass fiber to the plastic fiber and the plastic is horrendous and completely unlistenable, but the glass will shock you.
Now having said all that :) I use the Diverter HR now so the point is moot, but blanket statements seldom cover all the permutations thus my pontification on the Tos connection. |
Interesting to read this old thread about the venerable bidat vs. some newer dacs. I don't think that I will ever sell my wrighted bidat. Its wonderful and bests every other dac i have tried in my system when fed by the cec tl 1, which I can't imagine selling either. |
Carl23, I totally understand your point! I've said it before; if it were not for me wanting access to hires files I would probably have kept my Bidat forever :) |
audiofun I understand your point too. I am sure that one day I will enter the world of hi res digital but for the moment when I sit in the chair I usually spin vinyl. :) |
Ok, so the Sonicweld is pulling away nicely from the Tos using glass cabe (I keep mentioning the glass part because it really does make Tos quite formidable as a choice).
In direct comparisons the Tos is very languid and smooth, rich sounding if you will. It is only in direct comparison to the Diverter HR that one begins to see the fine cracks to use an analogy. The glass sounds very good, but it is lacking something very fine.., a sense of overall gentlenss is not there. The Diverter offers that last bit of an organic quality to the sound. The glass never sounds digital, it is very very analog, but perhaps like a $10k analog rig compared to a $30k rig.
Both are great (speaking of the hypothetical analog rigs) and should be for the money but typically that extra money will buy you something and it usually comes across in increased refinement and musicality. The way the diverter finishes notes is really quite something!
I would suggest that the diverter deserves a well sorted out and highly resolving system. If you value everything you can get out of your Dac buy the diverter HR it is really worth every penny! |
