PS Audio Direct Stream

A friend who is also a reviewer has a DS in for review. He is doing some burn in at the moment.

I will be able to hear the DS sometime over the next few weeks. I will be able to compare the DS with some other DACs in his system that I am familiar with.

I was one of the first to own the PSA PerfectWave and then did the upgrade to the MKII. I sold the PW MKII about a year ago because at the time I felt that there were other DACs that were passing the PW by in sound quality and the lack of DSD playback.

At the time I bought the exaSound e20 MKIII with the .082 Clock upgrade (definitely makes a difference). With an upgraded outboard power supply (I did a Paul Hynes) it competes with DACs costing twice as much in IMO.

I find the DS very intriguing. In some ways it takes a similar approach to the handling of the music files as Playback Designs, Meitner and EMM Labs. But adds its own twist.

I hope it sounds as great as it is made out to be.

I also hope to hear a DS at one, possible two, more fellow audiophiles systems over the next few weeks.

There will be opportunities to hear other well regarded DACs in those systems also. MSB and Lampizator as examples.

So the next few weeks should be very interesting when it comes to DACs.

Hifial, Thank you for your information.
You said you sold your PWMKII because there was better sounding Dac's but I have seen others posting that the PW MK11 sounds better than the new Direct stream.

I look forward to your continuing comments.

Hifial,thanks for the comments. I for one would love to hear of a comparative review of the Lampizator and the PS Audio Direct Stream dac's... seeing these two are at the top of my digital upgrade list.

Ozzy, do not read too much into those postings that the PW sounds better then the DS. I believe all of those postings are based on DS that have very little burn in hours on them. Even the PW needed to have 400+ hours on it to reach its full potential.

Even now there are postings about how the sound is evolving as more hours are on their DS.

Until there are 400+ hours on these DS on think the jury is still out.

Just like a Lampizator that has new Duelund Caps it will take 400-500 hours of play before it will sound its best.

Remember, the DS design uses transformers in the low signal output pathway and they will take many hours to burn in somewhat like the Duelund caps.