Opinions on PS Audio Direct Stream DAC (Mk 1)

Cool. Could be just bad synergy. It’s very detailed in my system and treble is excellent 

***Before buying, read the recent Stereophile review of the MkII, which provides some useful first-hand comparisons.

Got the PS Audio DS DAC from Fedex today. I don't know if it needs burn-in. It's "refurbished" so perhaps the innards already have a lot of play time. 

Well in any case I gave it an hour of warmup and started listening. The rest of my system is as follows

Aurender N100 -> USB -> PS Audio DAC -> custom 12AU7/FET headphone amp -> LCD-2 headphone

All cabling including power cables are custom by Igor Kuznetsoff, of the N.J. Audio Society, and the headphone amp was designed by him. I don't have any other expensive cables to compare his to, but the other people in the NJAS tell me that his cabling would cost thousands per cable to duplicate in off the shelf items.

Previously I was using a Gustard x20pro DAC custom modified by Igor. So some of my impressions will be related to differences between that and the PS Audio.

I started with Mahler's 5th symphony, Bernstein conducting. The sound was gorgeous and had great dynamic resolution. At first I thought it was a little sleepy compared to the Gustard, but then I realized that wasn't the right description -- it had emotion, specifically an emotion of sadness. The first movement of the Mahler is a funeral march, so that seems appropriate. I hadn't really noticed the sadness with the Gustard, which made it seem more dramatic and exciting by comparison.

Then I listed to the Police, Syncronicity, the 24/96 remaster. Something odd... the transients had a delicate feel to them and a great deal of music expression, but of a gentle sort. It felt similar in some ways to the Mahler. I started to wonder if the PS Audio, as musical and gorgeous as it was, was imposing a musical character on the music. 

I listened to a lot of other music and kept coming up with the feeling it was imposing a musical character... very gorgeous and expressive, but quickly becoming monotonous and feeling like it didn't match what I expected of the music. I imagine a violin player on stage, full of emotion and playing every nuance with expression, but a bit too caught up in the emotion and overdoing the nuance.

I listened to Elliott Carter's Symphony of Three Orchestras conducted by Boulez. Carter and Boulez are both staunch representatives of the Avant Garde that dominated the 60's and 70's, and Carter's composition was dissonant and hyper complex. Yet it had the same gorgeous, emotive character.

Okay if it can make Carter sound "gorgeous," something is wrong.

The Gustard with Igor's mods is very dynamic, micro and macro, very high resolution, and very extended. I ended up with a new appreciation of its neutral character. 

Well, I'm going to give the PS Audio some more time.

the PS had a reputation for a long break-in period, mine certainly did...but well worth it to me...I bought a used Aesthetix CD player some years ago, that had been unplugged for 6 months - Aesthetix told me it would need a month turned on to sound it's best...

Well, I'm liking it a little better. It doesn't just do gentle transients - it can slam pretty hard on drums etc. It's shocking how much musical expression it's finding in my old 16/44.1 recordings, often poorly made compared to the DSD files audiophiles prefer now. (My favorite conductors, orchestras, performers etc. are mostly found on old CDs I purchase used from EBay or Amazon.) It hasn't proven itself to me yet -- that is, I'm not convinced the music expression is accurate to the original performance - but I'm definitely sitting up in interest.