PS Audio DirectStream DAC

The Directstream seems to be getting better each day. I thought the DS sounded very good out of the box but now am noticing more and more detail. This DAC is smooth, for me it checks all of the boxes. I am not even worried about it being outdated in a few years, this DAC does so much, so well that it will always have a place in my home. After 35 years in this hobby I am now settling in on my gear. When I was younger I would change cars every two or three years, not to mention audio gear. About 20 years ago I started to keep my cars about 10 + years but still switched out my audio gear a lot. The Job 225, Black Diamond music vault and my Directstream are three pieces that will stay.

Bottom line is, this DAC is worth an in home audition. You really need to hear it with your gear in your home and see if it checks off all of your boxes. It sure has made my system a lot more simple. Less interconnects, less things to plug in and did I mention that it even looks great :heart:. This is my first experience with PS Audio but I love the fact that you can upgrade your PW DAC to the Directsteam. That tells me a lot about the company and the future of upgrades for the DS.

Yes I am sure something better and maybe even cheaper will come along, probably sooner than later. Not sure it will check all of the boxes but even if it did I can't imagine the need to replace the DS. I plan to live with it for a long time and see where all of this Digital ends up.

As far as the specifics as to what I hear and how the notes sound etc. etc. etc. I am going to leave that up to you guys and just say, you should, without a doubt audition a DS. If there is a connection with you and your system it is a grand slam, if not you will know for sure because you heard it in your system in your home.

In my system in my home, the DS is crazy good :congrats:
 
Guy,

I am so happy for you. Even though I love my my Lumin, I'd love to hear the PS Audio.
 
That's a great review. I can't wait to get my DS in but there's an backlog and looks like it will be a few weeks. The excitement is building.
 
I spent another 4 hours with my system last night and I am having a hard time pulling myself away! I will say......My current system is the best I have owned to date, period. I just want to do all the little tweaks now and be done :D I just purchase a set of MG Audio Design Planus AG2 interconnects from Richard at Aum with a pair of the
Planus III AG Speaker Cable to follow. And WOW the interconnect makes a huge difference. Other than a toslink and XLR digital inputs there are no other cables, life is good. If I had the funds to upgrade my Job to a career 550 I might be done. Can't wait to see what the mono's will be all about. Anyway the Directstream is a game changer. :cool:
​
 
Guy - this is great to hear and this is what it's all about. Congrats!


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Guy, or any other DS owners, how much extra gain if any are you getting with the DS? I am still waiting for mine to arrive. Currently I have a NAD M51 DAC going directly into my 40 watt ZMA tube amp to JansZen zA2.1 speakers. I have just enough volume with the extra gain from M51 and I don't really want to add a preamp.
 
lancelock, I am not sure on the amount of gain. My guess would be no gain, I will look to see how many mv it puts out. Keep in mind the Job has an input sensitivity of like .75mv. I am trying to track down a ground loop or at least I hope that is what it its. I have a fairly loud SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh sound coming from my 104db eff. speakers now that I did not have before. If I push the filter button on the Directstream remote it cuts the output of the DAC by 20db and the sound is gone. Still I would like to find the culprit and fix it.

Lancelock what is the input sensitivity of your ZMA tube amp>
 
playntheblues said:
lancelock, I am not sure on the amount of gain. My guess would be no gain, I will look to see how many mv it puts out. Keep in mind the Job has an input sensitivity of like .75mv. I am trying to track down a ground loop or at least I hope that is what it its. I have a fairly loud SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh sound coming from my 104db eff. speakers now that I did not have before. If I push the filter button on the Directstream remote it cuts the output of the DAC by 20db and the sound is gone. Still I would like to find the culprit and fix it.

Lancelock what is the input sensitivity of your ZMA tube amp>
Click to expand...

My ZMA amp: "INPUT IMPEDANCE: 100 K OHMS INPUT SENSITIVITY: FULL POWER @ 2.0 VOLTS ON RCA INPUT
POWER INTO 4 , 8 or 16 OHMS: 38 WATTS PER CHANNEL"
I also have the optional balanced inputs, not sure if the sensitivity is different.
my speakers are JansZen zA2.1 with a Sensitivity -- 87 dB/1W/1m
I hear that Job is an outstanding amp but the noise is a mystery.
Lance
 
playntheblues said:
lancelock, I am not sure on the amount of gain. My guess would be no gain, I will look to see how many mv it puts out. Keep in mind the Job has an input sensitivity of like .75mv. I am trying to track down a ground loop or at least I hope that is what it its. I have a fairly loud SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh sound coming from my 104db eff. speakers now that I did not have before. If I push the filter button on the Directstream remote it cuts the output of the DAC by 20db and the sound is gone. Still I would like to find the culprit and fix it.
Click to expand...
Ground loop or other ground potential issues result in an audible hum or buzz in my experience, not a hissing sound which it seems like you're experiencing. That is more commonly heard with such high sensitivity speakers as yours when the noise level of a component in the chain is too high. Based upon the information you've provided it would appear as if the noise level of the DS DAC may be too high for your system with those speakers if you can't live with the level of hiss. I have read elsewhere that in the HFNRR review of the DS they noted high levels of noise in their measurements. In many systems it may not be a significant issue, but your speakers will ruthlessly reveal such noise.
 
Well that is certainly not good news, but it sounds right on Bill. I will have to talk with the dealer in the morning and see what the deal is. If there is not a software fix in the working that means my audio bliss may be short lived.
 
To me it seems like the problem is with your new cables that you picked up. If you go back and reread your posts, everything seemed to work finr until you swapped the cables with the ones from aum acoustics. Try going back to the old cabled and see if the hiss is still there. It can very well be that the new ICs from Aum is making your whole system very revealing and transparent that now you are hearing noise that you couldnt hear before. Perhaps a good Powercord plugged directly into the DS might do the trick.
 
playntheblues said:
lancelock, I am not sure on the amount of gain. My guess would be no gain, I will look to see how many mv it puts out. Keep in mind the Job has an input sensitivity of like .75mv. I am trying to track down a ground loop or at least I hope that is what it its. I have a fairly loud SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh sound coming from my 104db eff. speakers now that I did not have before. If I push the filter button on the Directstream remote it cuts the output of the DAC by 20db and the sound is gone. Still I would like to find the culprit and fix it.

Lancelock what is the input sensitivity of your ZMA tube amp>
Click to expand...

Here is a reference to hiss as stated by Ted Smith on the PS Audio forum:

Howdy
If you look at the Stereophile review of the Playback Designs MPS-5, a DAC that's well respected and one that I like the sound of and I personally wouldn't mind owning, you'll see similar noise measurements.
It's both Playback Designs' and our contention that some of the measurement parameters that are traditionally used for PCM based DACs have less correlation to what we hear with one bit DSD based DACs than they do with PCM based DACs. We'd hope that more appropriate measurements are discovered as more one bit DSD DACs arrive on the scene.
Having a black background is very important to a good resulting sound and if the measured noise were a serious detriment then I'd expect that the first place it would show up would be as hiss and a not black background.
In more detail: The noise isn't unexpected, but what matters is that it's uncolored and the resolution of the DAC is much better than the noise floor. Unlike PCM dacs with active output stages or multibit sigma delta dacs with active output stages the passive one bit architecture we use is an inherently noisy process. Further reducing the noise generated by the high speed switching from one rail to the other would be cost prohibitive and as long as people hear a black background even when listening at high volumes the noise is low enough. In particular that noise won't affect apparent frequency responses or more specifically bass perception.
I can't say if the distortion measurements correlate with a few people's complains about the bass. The rising distortion with rising levels in the low bass usually lead to a fuller bass sound which is the opposite of what some are reporting.
-Ted

I am unable to post links at this time so the thread may be found at: PS Audio > Home > Forums > DirectStream DAC > Hi fi news measurements
Hope this helps.
 
Thanks guys, and yes it does help. I will put my old cables back in tonight and see if that is it. Ozark Tom also suggested that I change the power cord and see what happens. I will report back and thanks again.
 
Here's what Paul McGowan of PS Audio has to say:

..........

Dear Sir/Madam,
Why would a DirectStream DAC make a noise as described in Post 168 of this AudioShark thread: AudioShark > Forum > Audio & Video > Computer/Digital Audio > PS Audio DirectStream DAC
Best regards,
John.

..........

It’s the fact his speakers are 104dB and DirectStream is apparently going into the amp directly, thus having too much gain. The filter button adds a 20dB pad to attenuate the output for exactly this purpose, when using a loudspeaker this sensitive.

DirectStream is doing just what it was designed for.

Paul McGowan | CEO | PS Audio
4826 Sterling Drive, Boulder, CO 80301 |
Ph 720.402.3910 | Fax 720-406-8967 |

..........

Dear Paul,
Thanks for the super fast and informative reply; just what I needed to know.
Best regards,
John.

..........

Glad I could help.

Paul McGowan | CEO | PS Audio
4826 Sterling Drive, Boulder, CO 80301 |
Ph 720.402.3910 | Fax 720-406-8967 |
 
playntheblues said:
That's all well and good but the 20db attenuation takes the volume to low at full volume!
Click to expand...

Even with the high gain Job amp?
Also are you using the sweetcord with the Job?

Does going back to your Anti-cables solve the problem? The job amp is DC coupled, could the DS be passing tiny amounts of DC that the 104db speakers pick up from the DC coupled Job?
 
wisnon said:
Even with the high gain Job amp?
Also are you using the sweetcord with the Job?

Does going back to your Anti-cables solve the problem? The job amp is DC coupled, could the DS be passing tiny amounts of DC that the 104db speakers pick up from the DC coupled Job?
Click to expand...
An interesting thought but passing DC in the signal would not result in excessive hiss, but rather a popping sound could be heard when the signal starts due to DC offset.
 
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