freek

Thank you. That was a great source for technical background.

no, not yet. I will try it tonight. thanks. It's weird that using the volume just a little bit, it changes the amount of 'air' so noticeable. Is it safe to use iTunes integrated mode and the ipad Remote app to change volume? (or will iTunes mess with the volume too, using it that way?)

no, I don't use upsampling. the PWD sounds best with no upsampling in native-x mode (digital lens, or buffer).

Thank you for the response. I know that 2 digital volume controls is series is not the way to go. That is not what I am after. but I trie to understand why: with the volume from the PWD the sound looses body (audirvana set to 0 dB), but with the volume control from Audirvana plus the sound looses the openness (PWD set to 100). Is there a way to to keep the openness in the sound with Audirvana as the volume control? (or is the iTunes integrated mode also messing with the volume and am i not using the best of Audirvana's izotope?) Freek

I am experimenting with digital volume control. A few years ago I connected my psaudio Perfect Wave Dac directly with balanced interconnects to my power amp. The sound really opened up. Never looked back. Sold my Classe-Audio pre (SSP300). Using the bridge in the PWD (dlna) I am very pleased with the sound. The downside is that I can only use the volume setting between 15% - 50%. Higher then 50% is way too loud. Normally I listen at 30%. The downside is that the sound is missing some 'body'. I understand that using the volume this way I loose some bits. But what bits am I missing? The sound is very open (airy). I love that. Last weekend I experimented with a USB connection between my macbook air (ssd) and the PWD. Audirvana plus is a great solution I use with my audioquest dragonfly, so it was easy to test it with the PWD. I have configured Audirvana with iTunes integrated mode and control it through the ipad Remote app. For the test I have set the volume of the PWD to 100%. Set dithered volume in Audirvana to MBIT+, shape High en level Normal. My findings: Using the PDW at 100% volume I can only use the volume with Audirvana 30%-60%. The bass and mid range is great. Love it. Much better then using the PWD volume!! But I loose the 'air' in the soundstage, the openness. I am not 'there' anymore. Shit. Using the PWD at 50% (with 16/44.1 bit content) and the Audirvana volume at 80%-90%. Still missing the openness. Better bass and mid range, but not so great anymore. Using the PWD at 30% and Audirvana at 100%. The openness is back directly, but I miss the great mid range and bass. Why does Audirvana volume contol directly cuts off the openness??? Does anybody know the difference in digital volume handling between the PWD and Audirvana plus? Why is the pwd's volume control effecting the mid range and the bass? Why is audirvana's volume control effecting the highs? Is it timing? Is there a solution to have the best of both, without using an analog pre-amp? (because the pre-amp will have to be a very good one, very much outperforming my classe audio ssp300) Freek

Indeed. Another dragonfly user with a blue volume cursor. I wish it was red... Only if I select "software only" in the volume preferences it turns green. Not able to use a red volume control.

This is a comment. i hope i am not to late... Love to have a copy

B because of the convenience. i have got the ps audio pwd with the new bridge. synology nas with upnp server en all music in flac. everything running in 15 minutes. controlling (even the volume) through an iphone / ipad. resolution up to 24 bits 192 khz. the sound is stunning. even my girlfriend can choose and play the music she wants. internet radio and all. that is the way the most people will go i guess.

classe audio announced a new 2-ch pre-amp/processor. it seems (with 2 channel lovers in mind) it does it all. if you want analog, it can do all the signal path analog. balanced or rca. but if you want digital, it has all the things you want: ethernet with upnp/dlna (it will be a music streamer) usb at the back with asynchronous clocking like the ayre qb-9 usb at the front with apple support (digital signal and charging) spdif, toslink, aes xlr. you can directly connect a sub for 2-ch use (cross over settings). it even has a headphone out at the front for the late hours. i think this is the way the high end market is going. would love to hear it. here is a link at the classe forum with more links to youtube: http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=37348

i bought the endler stepped attenuators. he advised me to use the 12 step 4k versions with my amp. it is much better now then without the attenuators. much more detail and better bass performance. and no more worry about the volume accidentally reaching 100%. regards, Freek

you are right. the volume is 24 bit. sorry for the mistake. that makes attenuation even more needed to keep the high resolution. with the endler stepped attenuators i could use the volume 70% - 100%. i hope somebody can advise me if they are any good.

thanks for the tip. looks interesting. does anybody know or use the endler stepped attenuators? http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4c5pt/id2.html another pwd user gave me this tip. but he is using the rca version. i need the xlr versions. Freek

after a great demo with 2 dealers (one in belgium and one in holland) i decided to buy a ps audio perfect wave dac (pwd). it is a great dac with very open sound. the demos included the naim dac, the linn akkurate ds, the ps adio pwd and the ayre qb-9. listened both times for about 4 hours comparing. the difficult choice was between the ayre and the ps audio. i used the dacs in the demo with a preamp. the ayre and pwd were very very close. at the end i think the ayre was a little bit better. specially with men's voices. But when i connected the ps audio directly balanced into the power amp (it has 32 bit digital volume control) the difference was huge. so the bottleneck was my preamp (a classe audio ssp-300 used on the analog inputs with no digital processing of any kind). this is a good preamp but as the ps audio manual quotes 'there is no better preamp then no preamp'. now i am waiting for the bridge. that will make the ps audio dac a music server. it is upnp / dlna compatible, so i will only need a usb disk connected to my router (or a nas or pc or whatever) to play music over ethernet with the bridge. the bridge has the same digital lens as the pwt (perfect wave transport). i listened to the bridge when paul mcgowan (ceo ps audio) was here in belgium 2 weeks ago and also used the ipad application to control it. i have only one problem. when i connect my ps audio directly into my power amp (classe audio ca-5100) i can use the volume setting between 10% - 35%. above 35% it is to loud. but with a 32 bit digital volume i think i am going to loose quality when the volume is lower then 50%, right? is there a good solution, without loosing audio quality to bring down the volume. read about the rothwell attenuators, but with different results. most people say the soundstage is still open, but the detail is gone. please some advise. freek

thanks for the replies. i did some research and read some of the older posts about the jitter subject. found out that the spdif connection/protocol is old and not at all error free. so that could be an explanation . i would like to demo a naim dac vs a weiss dac2. don't need the ipod connection. maybe best to follow the usb or firewire path. although the easy of use with the squeezebox family is something to consider. wondering what the audio industry will do towards the near future. a new standard replacing spdif or better audio transport through hdmi ? we will see...

i am considering to buy a new dac and source. for the moment with computer audio i am using a classe audio ssp-300 as a dac for my squeezebox 3. the budget for the dac is about 2.000 - 2.500 euro so a weiss is not going to happen.... what i would like to demo are the bryston and the naim dac. now i have the following question and i have got a computer background: the naim concept is a zero jitter dac. it reclocks every data stream on it's input. (checks the input, finds the clock rate and then uses a buffer and new added master clock to output the stream, right?) but on reviews i read (and on the naim press releases) that the cable on the input is making a difference in performance. i believe they call the cable the DC1. but how can a cable on a zero jitter dac concept have influence on the output signal? (as long is the 0 and 1 bits are arriving). in a computer we all use very small cheap cable to transfer the data and never a problem. is it because streaming audio does not allow to resend a 'fallen' bit or is the audiophile reviewer hearing things that just aren't there.... freek my system: synology 207+ nas, sb3 streamer, classe ssp-300 proc, classe ca-5100 amp, b&w 805s