psaudio

And I am not Ted, but he knows a lot more than I do. Thanks Ted! And hey to Barrows. You should come by and hear DirectStream.

Well, not to be disappointed. Indeed we said DirectStream is far more insensitive to cables and sources than anything we've yet found with respect to DACs. That was and is true. DirectStream is particularly insensitive to jitter, typically the main culprit in SQ degradation. The DAC may not be any better at other parameters that cables may introduce such as ground loops, which also affect the SQ. It was as much a surprise to me as I suspect anyone else who tries it. We do intend to try and figure out what parameter is being affected, given we know it cannot be jitter, This is all fascinating stuff. We're a little different at PS. When I find something that works or sounds better, even if it is a mystery, even if it goes against what we build, even if it is from another manufacturer, I do my best to report it in an honest open manner. I figure our community, in fact the high-end community in general, should know and wants to know. Moreover, by being open and upfront about reporting things that don't necessarily make sense, two things happen: we step right off a false perch of knowledge and many times, that leads to answers or suggestions from the community that perhaps have an insight we did not ourselves have. That it may make no sense from a technical standpoint is an entirely different issue than the results we hear or are made aware of. Hearing something that challenges one's senses and understanding is the first step in discovery. You gotta know there's an issue before you can go about figuring out what that issue is and how to improve upon your product's vulnerability to that issue. The other course of action would be to keep my mouth shut, work in secret and keep people in the dark. Not my style and for the very reasons I mentioned above. I try not to suggest I have all the answers. I don't. We don't. It is not weakness that drives our admission that we don't know everything, it provides a type of strength that engages the community and helps us, as a company, progress. I do realize this sets me/us up for criticism and ridicule. That's just the way it is. But I would rather have an open honest discussion with people like yourself that care enough to post their thoughts and critiques than go through life in an envelope of secrecy and ignorance. In the end, we benefit more than we lose. So thank you for posting this and letting me have a chance to let you know where I am coming from. I truly appreciate it!

Ok, I would view that more as semantics, but if that's the case you're right. Our Bridge uses a dedicated processor as well, I suppose the difference is it's running Linux. Honestly I don't know much about what Sonore does. I do know they make good products.

We will be shipping to Europe in mid April. Indeed, nothing is truly new in this business as far as I can tell, other than how you do something and to what affect. Like tasting a great new plate of pasta from a master chef. One could say pasta's been done before; with tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, capers and a touch of crushed red pepper (perhaps a few Castellano olives), but perhaps it's better than any pasta you might have had. That makes it new - yet old. Come over for dinner some evening.

Thanks Mike. We are looking at a number of options and have several actually quite far along in the proverbial pipeline. One so far along that we are listening to it and enjoying it. While there are a number of people just connecting Mac Minis up to their DACS it is true you need to be careful and make sure it's being done correctly and with the right DAC. It does make a difference. having said that, it's also true that what Sonore does, and what PS and others would do for a dedicated solution for streaming, is really just a computer as well. No, it isn't as complicated as a Mac but it is, in most cases, able to run Linux or even Windows and qualifies as a computer. So I am not uncomfortable with computers in general (nor would most here on CA) just have to be mindful of what you're doing and how you connect. Have fun!

Thanks Mike but let me set the record straight. The Bridge was never designed to do gapless. It wasn't a matter of skill or or know how. Because we never set our goals on gapless in the first place, the RAM needed to handle that wasn't available on the Bridge. In hindsight I think that was a mistake to not include gapless but if I could fix everything with hindsight ....... As Ted suggested, every input can handle gapless but the question posed in the first place was one of UPnP. A number of our customers just buy a Mac Mini and connect it up to the USB input and use an iPad to control it. If you use any number of programs like Bit Perfect or Pure Music, you get a pretty great streaming/gapless solution. Just an alternative. Me? I use the Bridge.

Thanks Jesus and thank you for all your posts on our forums and contributions.

I assume you mean the DirectStream DAC? The DAC itself of course plays everything but to get UPnP based network traffic into the DAC you need the Network Bridge, an optional card we sell that slips in the back of the DirectStream or its predecessor, the PerfectWave DAC. That card does not support gapless, but supports UPnP and high resolution PCM and DSD. The next generation of Bridge, which will go into the same slot on the back of the DAC, will support gapless.

Hi, and sorry for any confusion. The NuWave will certainly do double DSD into a Windows computer. Apparently we erroneously replied to someone (perhaps it was you?) that it wouldn't and when I read this I wanted to set the record straight. If you need some help making it work, Dave is writing a tutorial to help this situation and we can share it with you or anyone else that wants to know. Sorry for any confusion.

Hi Guys, it's Paul. Thanks for this great dialog and thanks to Ted for jumping in and helping. Probably because I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast, let alone what I must have said over the years, but I do not remember not liking DSD as it is claimed in this thread. Can someone help me remember where and when I said that? Must have been some time ago. Thanks!

Indeed you're correct Scott, the PerfectWave Bridge/DAC combo does not currently support gapless play. That isn't making people too happy but I can assure you and everyone else it will and we will. One of the things that really makes me smile about the system is its ability to be upgraded over the net. This is the first audio product line we've ever built that can be updated with the touch of the front panel - so we can grow the feature set without return to the factory. That's probably not a big deal to you guys because you're so in tune with computers, but to a dedicated high-end hardware manufacturer, this is a really big deal. As soon as we figure out gapless play all the PW's in the world will be able to handle it. We are currently trying to figure out how to implement it. We're not sure how the other guys handle it - it seems like there's a variety of ways and if any of you have a clue how Sonos, Linn, etc. handle gapless, I would be grateful for insights. One thing we understand is that a lot of it depends on how the media was ripped and whether the ripping program supports gapless or not - and if it does, how does it handle the tagging info. If, for example, you ripped in a WAV file (which does not have a meta data wrapper) how would any rendering device understand it was supposed to play without gaps? So, TMM will have a check box in its tag editor that will allow you to tag anything in your library as gapless and then the rendering device can handle it properly. One of the cool things about TMM is we have obviated the need for tag wrappers on the data - which means formats all work now for tagging and cover art (including WAV) and gapless or whatever we want to include with each track. But to handle gapless properly, it will be a combo of TMM to make sure pieces already ripped without tagging work properly and then figuring out how to tell if anything in your library was done correctly and what to do about it in the PerfectWave so you're not required to do anything if gapless already works for you.

Hey guys, thanks for posting the info on the new tagNplay Music Manager. We're actually trying to find a new name for it as we also have tagNplay Controller and people are getting confused. In any case, to answer one of the questions asked, if you want to use the iTunes database it's really easy. I have attached a screenshot of how it looks. It's a simple directory that you point towards one or many media library locations and these are all integrated into a master library list. It is a music management database, takes the place of iTunes, handles huge libraries (iTunes craps out at about 20,000 tracks), has a UPnP server built in that is completely configurable through drag and drop categories and sub categories. One of the posters here mentioned it doesn't have a player. true. But it will. We are launching without many of the features it will eventually have, like transcoding, ripping, playing, backup, sharing (can I say that?), etc. What the first release does come with is a complete management system for all your music, editing tags and metadata, adding cover art and metadata directly to WAV or any other file types (a real first I think), the server and access to our growing cover art database which has now grown to close to 30 million covers, titles and artist's bio. One advantage our program has is it was created by and for Audiophiles and music lovers so our classical tagging system and our cover art libraries are tuned to the needs of people interested in the same types of media as we are. Much of iTunes is targeted to mass market MP3 and ours is a true high end solution. With help and support from your group and others, we can turn this into a monster program that really benefits the entire community. As the program installs and grows in numbers and usage, the database it relies on for tagging and art grows with it. We will be asking for a group of about 20 people who will volunteer to be on our council of experts for this program. What that means is we want to engage a number of people who can help guide the program's development in both music and features and functions. We are prepared to continue paying the development costs for at least another year (it ain't cheap) on an aggressive basis, and then in a less aggressive basis after 2011. Thanks for the support and let me know if I or anyone else on my staff can help you.