PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport/DAC experiences

The 6Moons article – while not much of an equipment review - really helps to illustrate where the industry is heading. In the future, there will be analog (turn tables) and digital (as in file format). The CD medium is a lame-duck. The recent decision by Linn to discontinue producing CD players is further evidence of things to come. The 6Moons article helps put into laymen terms why the physical CD medium is flawed and why (true) digital has never really been effectively implemented - or commercially available, until the recent emergence of true digital-based server systems.

As a medium, the true digital file has huge potential. The real challenge seems to be with timing/clocking elements during the analog conversion stage. It looks as if the advances being made in these areas of time domain are the real ticket to the digital Holy Grail. I don’t believe that we are necessarily seeing anything (yet) – in terms of “digital” that will truly supplant analog as we currently know it. Clearly though, the “new” digital is already supplanting the “old” digital. For me, this is the most exciting thing to ever happen in this industry. The digital solution has always held great potential. Until now, the means of realizing this potential has been flawed. CDs – love them or hate them, have always been a flawed medium. There really is no arguing that fact.

The Perfect Wave devices are among the leading-edge digital devices. There are others, and there will be more to come. Jump on now and enjoy…or wait until the next solution arrives. It looks like we are experiencing the infancy of a great new digital era. One that I am glad to be a part of…..

forgot to comment on something Mrtennis said in an earlier post. i too have found certain sub-par recordings to sound bad using the pwt/pwd. after playing around with the filters and up-sampling rate, i discovered that much improvement could be had using these adjustments *with some* of these disc's. although 90% of my music sounds best in native mode and auto filtering, about half of the remaining 10% sound better in other modes/filter combination's.

the most obvious example for me was the psychedelic furs 1st release..."the psychedelic furs". sounded very dull with little detail up high along with muddiness down low. sounded horrible to my ears. after some experimentation, i found that using the filter 2 (MP-APOD) and upsampleing to 192 really improved things.

i could give more examples (lou reed "rock-n-roll animal" and new order "the peel sessions") but unfortunately there is no pattern and it's hit or miss via trying the various combo's. i do think it's worth a try if you have a favorite disc that is poorly recorded and sounds bad. you might be surprised with the outcome.

as an owner of cdplayers from around1986, itis myhumble opinion thattherearemany 16 and 18 bitplayerswhich aremore plesantsounding with a varietyof recordings than the ps audio combo or other attempts to by pass the traditionaltransport. as an example, the original cal tempest, while lacking inresolution is a loteasieron theearwith a variety of recordings.

progress is notalways subjectively better.

bythe way levy, what would yousuggestto do for cds whichare overemphasizng the upper midrange and lower treble ?

Mrtennis: two solutions for that situation imho. turn the volume way down or grab another disc =).

i had what was considered a top tier cdp back in the mid 80's as well. a carver unit that i enjoyed very much at the time. can't remember what it sounded like today but i thought it was awesome back then.

cheers
Lev

Ok, I just got a broken in Weiss Minerva (several hundred hours at least). It has been in my system burning in for about 18 hours (18 hours since arriving in my home, time to come to thermal equilibrium). I have done some comparative listening to the Museatex Dcc-1 (a rarely known digital preamp 19 bit dual differential type) using glass Tos on both and then glass on the DCC1 vs a very expensive (can't name it yet as the manufacturer has not released it...sorry :( ) Firewire on the Weiss. I have a Mac Mini (2007 model) 2.0 ghz Core2Duo with 4Gig of ram running Leopard (although this model can only see 3.01 gig of that (I used 4gig as the memory transfer is optimized when the mem modules are the same). I also have a 1TB NAS (all over wifi). I am of course going to reserve final judement until a bit later.

I will be comparing the Museatex Bidat with the Plus Mod later this weekend. As a teaser, I will go on record and say that honestly at this point I don't agree with the stellar reviews concerning the Weiss Minerva.

It is resolute, almost technicolor but just to give you a short glimpse of what I am hearing, I could imagine a well healed vinyl person listening to Holly Cole on vinyl and then listening to the Weiss (playing the same in CD format) and saying "this is why I will never leave vinyl". Now that may sound harsh, but this is a hobby and I don't have a dog in the race, I am just reporting my ears findings.

I listened to a few high resolution files 176.4/24 and 96/24 but what I heard was a really clear highly resolved soul-less rendition of the music. It never ever made me smile or relax into the music the way the DCC-1/Bidat or even my former (when I actually spun cd's...wow time flies) stellar Dynavox Dynastation 2 (the finest CD player I have ever heard).

In a nutshell (at this point) it just sounds like digital and that aint good in my camp because I am not forgetting about the gear and just listening to the music. I don't like syrupy or dark, I have heard plenty of players try to use that trick to sound musical. No, I look for something that is more elusive and few their be that find that magical combination when forging through the nether regions of the digital domain. I will continue listening to see if the Weiss surprises me :)

More to come...