PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport/DAC experiences

not sure some folks understand how inexpensive an lcd display is now-a-days. nothing "fancy" or "expensive" about them anymore when considering equipment at this price point. doubt psa spent much more if anything at all going this route. one must consider saving in other area's of production when making a piece with an lcd.

seemed to me the review was about the "new technology" more then either piece of equipment?. can see why many who are considering a purchase where disappointed. being an owner since release, i actually enjoyed the write up and learned a few things (sadly, nothing about the pwt/pwd though).

i've been strongly recommending anyone in the market to give the pair a listen. words like "enjoying", "involving" and "no fatigue" have been used often and by many owners, myself included. not very objective and detailed descriptions, i agree. i too was(still am) looking forward to a detailed, comparative and professional review. this review was definitely not it. but in the end, it really doesn't matter what any professional reviewer or equipment readout says about the pair. i'm gonna keep enjoying them and the wonderful sound they produce. digi heaven imho.

blw...lots of the gripes and/or shortcoming of the intro models have been discussed on psa's discussion forums. remote control, delayed release of bridge, network issue's, ect... . suggest looking there for many of the answers and information. call the current models beta units if you wish, but there are still lots of things in the pipeline for the pair. i'm looking very forward to it all.

cheers
Lev

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