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In Reply to: RE: Art Dudley PSA Direct Stream Review posted by Nglazer on August 18, 2014 at 12:53:51
>Why spend 2/3 or 3/4 of a review on a DAC when, before the review period
>was completed, the reviewer KNOWS there is updated software that
>dramatically improves the sound.
The updated firmware was released literally days before Art had to turn in
his review copy and the review was 90% complete at that time. There was no
question of us postponing the review as the cover photography had already
been done and we had no replacement available in time.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Edits: 08/19/14Follow Ups:
""There was no question of us postponing the review as the cover photography had already been done and we had no replacement available in time.""
I'm going to side with "them" on this. It proves a contingency must be put in place to avoid such embarrassment to your mag in the future. I don't know when PS Audio decided to give to you ,when you decided to review it and then make it a cover story. If that was a few months or less surely PS Audio knew the firmware would change and hustled you guys a bit.
Only Stereophile looks bad from this. PS Audio looks like they got over on you. I like Paul and that company too by the way.
ET
The medium is the message. Reviews mailed on paper can not keep up with products that can be updated over the Internet.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
nt
Mr. Atkinson,
I have been a pleased subscriber to Stereophile for eons and recognize the commercial reality the publication faced, but the end result was unfair to the manufacturer and to the readers interested in this product. Mr. Dudley could indicated how late he received the latest firmware, described it as hurriedly and shallowly as he did, but noted there would be a fuller followup in the future to give the new firmware its due.
I also am not clear if the measurements, which are not admirable to say the least, were of the unit with the original firmware or the more recent.
Thank you.
Neal
> the end result was unfair to the manufacturer and to the readers
> interested in this product.
Unfair to the manufacturer? It was the manufacturer who without warning
updated the firmware almost at the end of the review schedule. As I wrote,
postponing the review was not an option. What would you have done in our
position, given that fact?
> Mr. Dudley...noted there would be a fuller followup in the future to give
> the new firmware its due.
I plan on doing that follow-up, comparing the PS Audio DAC with the
Luxman DA-06, Auralic Vega, and dCS Vivaldi.
> I also am not clear if the measurements, which are not admirable to say
> the least, were of the unit with the original firmware or the more
> recent.
All the measurements were performed with the new firmware installed.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Could you throw in the MSB Analog DAC Marantz NA 11S1 and maybe the Sony HAPZE1?
I know thats a lot to ask but having a big shootout like that would be pretty much awesome (especially for me as i have both the Maranz and the MSB)
navman
Fair points, Mr. Atkinson. PS Audio must bear principal responsibility for the truncated review with the new firmware. I recognize the reality of the temporal limitations facing print media companies who publish monthly, especially when long "listening time" is required.
We will look forward to your update. And I will continue to be a pleased subscriber.
Neal
> We will look forward to your update. And I will continue to be a pleased
> subscriber.
Thank you. But never hold back from letting me know when you think we
dropped he ball.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
HowdyAll of the early reviewers got the original software.
You never know when inspiration will strike and after a random thought in the shower we found ourselves with a significant increase in sound quality. We decided that the difference was too great to NOT do a general release, even tho that would put a few reviewers in an awkward spot.
It's our fault that Art didn't have a lot of time to relisten to everything and rewrite his review. (Not that he owes us that.) Fortunately John had the time to redo the measurements.
Paper reviews have much longer lead times and, for example, TAS didn't have the new software before their deadline.
-Ted
Edits: 08/19/14 08/19/14
So that we won't get a shock when you make surprise introductions.
.
"You never know when inspiration will strike" I thought the revised firmware was the result of a reviewer having some problems of the sound of the unit, not inspiration. Our audio club listened to your new dac for several hours last week. The dac we heard had almost 400 hours on it and the latest firmware. Most everybody in the club liked the dac very much. I basically liked it but though it could be a little dry sounding, lacking the bloom of my Audio Note dac. To be fair I could only really comment on it if I had it for a few weeks in my own system. I really like the fact that because you are using programmable gate array devices you can update the sound with firmware changes. Keep innovating.
Alan
HowdyAfter the pressure of getting the boards done, listening for days on end and then getting manufacturing going, I could sit back and listen and think. The results or that went into the new FPGA code.
There were independent bugs in the control processor that were found by early reviewers, they were usability problems not sound quality issues.
The release included the sound quality improvements in the FPGA and the bug fixes in the control processor.
-Ted
Edits: 08/19/14
.. the noise shaping is different between the channels?
TiA
13DoW
HowdyAt first I thought it was a noise shaping anomaly, but I use the same FPGA code for both channels.
An earlier test board layout also showed a noise floor difference between channels, in that case the difference was that the reference voltage for the audio regulators was routed within a inch or so of the microprocessor.
With the DS the difference apparently is the asymmetry of the inputs on the digital board. The USB receiver hardware is nearer to the channel with the noise floor that rises sooner.
-Ted
Edits: 08/20/14
> It's our fault that Art didn't have a lot of time to relisten to
> everything and rewrite his review.
Thanks for the clarification, Ted. Listening to the PerfectWave DirectStream
DAC on some Patricia Barber in DSD as I write these words.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
jm
"The updated firmware was released literally days before Art had to turn in his review copy and the review was 90& complete at that time. There was no question of us postponing the review as the cover photography had already been done and we had no replacement available in time."
This is an explanation, not an excuse. The mismatch comes from the difference from the old world of plastic disks, pulped tree magazines and fixed hardware vs. the new world of downloads, screens and software. In fairness, there are tradeoffs: “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” You see a similar thing with music downloads, where the QC is much less than that on LPs or traditional stamped CDs. With downloads it is possible to let the early customers do the Q/C for you and some of the popular sites sometimes work this way. (Probably still a bad idea for high volume products, but it makes sense for low volume titles or boutique hardware.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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